Fractured light is the photographer’s list. The morning, late afternoon, the mists and clouds and shadows. The bright light of the direct sun is a beauty-killer to me, washing out color and feeling. This is what touches me, pulls me out of myself, opens me up, transports me, seeing the way the setting sun sets fire to this flower in a friend’s backyard.
I’ve taken a lot of photos in the last few years – more than 35,000 were on my photo computer program – and I’ve had very few taken of me. Believe it or not (most people don’t) I am shy. Random House wants some publicity shots of me and Rose for “Rose In A Storm,” and they weren’t asking nicely, so Maria took the camera and got me and Rose up there, while I was kissing Fanny on the nose and Rose was standing guard.
I figure it’s about time. If you make so many other people uncomfortable, you ought to take a crack at it yourself. I didn’t like it. But I ought to put it up.
I saw the fog and grabbed the camera. Put on a 16-35 medium zoom good for landscape shots and sent Rose up to get the sheep, who we couldn’t see. About five minutes later, I heard a rumble and they came shootingout of the mist, Rose somewhere behind them. Mystical moment, one only a farm can provide.
Rose had a tough morning at the office. We went out to herd she sheep in the fog, mist, and pollen. She got everybody rounded up and in the training pen, and gave me her let’s-go-back-to-work look.
