Part II
A funny thing happened as we continued on our way south to San Luis Obispo… Jean uses The Jepson Manual, Higher Plants of California produced at the Jepson Herbarium of the University of California, Berkeley as her main reference for plant identification. (1) Well, as it happens, the Manual is exactly the same color and roughly the same size as a dictionary that she uses regularly at her desk. (2) I must have a certain charger needed to charge the batteries in one of my cameras. And so, since we are in those irresponsible 80s, we tend to gloss over our carefully crafted check lists and perhaps, forget things such as the raisins for the oatmeal cereal or a photographic filter that I planned to use.But this was a much more serious situation—Jean brought her dictionary instead of the Jepson Manual and I didn’t bring that particular charger at all! What to do?—we went back home, 70 miles, and then went instead to Pinnacles National Monument, only 93 miles from home—and so never did get to our original destination in the South.
We found the Pinnacles campground very busy and run by the Park service now instead of a private company—a good deal for us, since the National Parks gives a 50% discount to seniors with Golden Age Passes. As a carryover from the commercial campground, they even had electricity for the recreational vehicles (not too common in National Parks).
Pinnacles NM has many excellent hiking trails, some practically level, some more strenuous, some vertical (there are many rock climbing folk). But it also has a multitude of flowers from March through June and July due to the 3,000’ elevation range. Jean had access from dense woods to dry, hot hillsides and I was surrounded by photogenic vistas.
The other day I was reading the Pop Photo magazine and I ran across an article by one of my favorite columnists, Debbie Grossman, who specializes in articles to help one utilize Photoshop, and I saw a before and after image of some little sandpiper birds running along the wave front on an ocean beach. The before image had a medium blue sky, beautiful blue water, and a nice brown sand with the silhouettes of the birds chasing the waves—a common sight for anyone who has been to an ocean beach. The after image consisted of a very pale blue sky, dull, slate blue water, and gray beige sand with the bird’s silhouettes—truly, a remarkably drab picture—I was sure she got the captions backwards until I read the note on the rich blue water, “Totally unrealistic color” (!). Apparently she had no idea what the blue Pacific or beaches in Hawaii or the Indian Ocean or dozens of other place are like. But even if there were no actual scenes like the before image, the after image was so uninteresting (the birds were relatively small and so didn’t carry the picture), I wouldn’t spend 5 seconds on it. She does explain her reasoning in the text, that she wants the birds to show off better, but the black silhouettes are just as interesting against a colored beach and water as against an unappealing overcast grayness. Debbie’s article was the trigger that set me off on the following rant.
So as you will see when you finally get to the pictures below, we had a very enjoyable time botanizing and photographing for 5 days. I didn’t say successful photo session since some won’t like my pictures because they feel they don’t look real to life, but then, I am not trying to be a photo-journalist. Photographically I came up through the black & white darkroom route, where we manipulated till the original contact print was but a distant memory—we varied the exposure and developer (Zone System), the film, the enlarger lamp, the enlarging paper and its developer, along with cropping, dodging and masking, burning-in, chemical bleaching, etc., not to count cut-outs and re-photographing. It is so satisfying to do it all in the the computer with iPhoto (an Apple product) and Adobe Photoshop so easily and quickly. Now I spend an hour or two on a picture to get better results than I could get with hours in the field and days in the darkroom. I feel I bring out the color, texture, shape, and composition that is more real to the essence of the subject than its superficial appearance. For example, there is no such thing in nature as just “gray granite”—it reflects all the colors around it, it can be coated with brown dirt or yellow pollen or green lichen, or it may include streaks of red iron oxide or green copper compounds, and it can be glacier-polish smooth or rotten crumbly. Sometimes I succeed (in my mind) and often I don’t, but who’s counting. If you like my pictures and Jean’s adjusted ones, because they are pretty, that’s fine; if you enjoy them because you see some sort of reality in them that’s great.
Leaving Hollister, California, we had a beautiful drive along highway 25
through the Coast Range
We pass by fields of Fiddleneck, Amsinckia sp.
Few parks have a nicerentrance monument than Pinnacles’.
Note pinnacles in background.
Everywhere there are outcroppings of highly colored rocks.
The California Poppy has found a home in the gravelly river bed.
California Poppy, Eschscholtzia californica.
The river trail to the Balconies and Caves passes through some lush forest.
Jean assumes her normal position for capturing another beauty
in 1’s and 0’s on her camera’s memory card.
The object of her attention is the Checker Lily, Fritillaria affinis.
Did the miners really eat Miners Lettuce, Claytonia perfoliata?
What could this rich red-leafed bush with its pink and white berries be?
Why, it’s your old friend (?)
Poison Oak, Toxicodendron diversilobium!
Jean briskly heads up the trail toward the pinnacles.
Looking back down at the switch-backed trail
Very few flowers, large or tiny, escape Jean’s eyes (especially, since she has had lens implants in each of her eyes).
Chinese Houses, Collinsia bartsiifolia.
Hen-bit, Lamium amplexicule.Where this striking, tubular flower
got that common name is anyones guess.
Now, I call this flower “the Blue Bug”, but its real name is
Bajada Lupine, Lupinus concinnus.
When Jean takes a photograph of a flower, she want an image that will inform as much as possible in two dimensions what the characteristics of the flower are. What colors and structures put it into a certain group—make it part of a certain genus and species. On the other hand, I want to create a picture of a flower that is unique, not like any other flower you can see in the field. Therefore, if you see her file of a certain area and compare it to my file of the same photographs, you often are hard-put to match mine with hers.
Bill wanders up the trail casting an eye about(He has had lens implants in both eyes also.)
for the next inspiring vista,
so he can get out all his equipment
(much less since digital) and try to take a photograph
that can eventually become a picture,
Ah, there’s one now! The spine of Pinnacles Nat'l Mon.
The grand pinnacles rise to an elevationof nearly 3,000 feet.
Throughout fields and meadows the delicious Cream Cup, Platystemon californicus,
spreads its golden hue.
Every collection of mountain flowers
should have a representative of the
Indian Paint brush tribe.
This one is Wooly Indian Paintbrush, Castilleja foliosa.
should have a representative of the
Indian Paint brush tribe.
This one is Wooly Indian Paintbrush, Castilleja foliosa.
We end with this dramatic picture is of a Coulter’s Luine,Lupinus sparsiflorus.
It is one of two pictures of plants in this collection which I photographed; the other was the Poison Oak, which Jean is highly sensitive to and I am only moderately so.
Jean and I will be celebrating our 60th Wedding Anniversary on September 5, 2008, followed by a pilgrimage to Medjugorje, Bosnia and a visit to Paris, London, and Germany. We appreciate your prayers and good wishes.
Jean and Bill September 5, 1948.
