Taking my game to the next level

I have been a fancier of photography my whole life. I loved looking at photo albums and picture books as far back as I can remember. I can remember vividly taking pictures with my little Kodak instamatic with a 126 catridge film. While growing up with that old Kodak, though I did not suspect that I was born with an eye for photography. I didn’t realize the gift. I never worked with it and never tried to educate myself in the ways and techniques for taking better pictures.

My first experience of buying a more expensive camera and taking my game to the next level was when I first joined the army. I remember the little spring loaded Konica 35mm camera that I traveled all over Colorado with taking beautiful pictures. I was always seemed to be in the right spot at the right time on many occasions.

One of the greatest photographs I ever took was with that $35 plastic camera. (Pictures with handgliders, Rocky Mountains, and tree on an island were taken with the Konica) I drove to the top of Pikes Peak outside of Colorado Springs and got out and to find beautiful colorful hand-gliders all lined up and ready for flight. I walked up and the first two took off running down the shallow slope there on the summit before being lifted aloft by the alpine updrafts. I quickly rattled off a bunch of photographs that turned out spectacular with all the wonderful colors with the brick red Colorado Rockies in the background.

Tragically what made the photographs I took so much more serendipitous was the fact that the man gliding with the red hand-glider died on that particular flight. The newspapers reported that he had flown around for a couple of hours and then crashed into one of the canyon walls. I took the last pictures of him alive.

Shortly after that I was stationed in Garlstedt in northern Germany in 1987. That simple fixed wide-angle plastic lens Konica seemed woefully inadequate. There in the military exchange store was a thing of beauty. The Minolta X-700 camera with a fixed 55mm lens. (Pictures of windmills, water fountain in front of tower and half-timbered building next to river were taken with the Minolta X700) I agonized for weeks over the decision on whether or not to buy that camera which cost at the time about three or four months take home pay for me as a private. I finally did buy it along with some cheap telephoto lenses that at the time, made me feel like a professional photographer. I had to use the military credit system the military stores had set up to buy this ‘half mechanical work of art and half technological advance in science. The X700 was one of the first cameras to use computer chips and sensors to determine exposure for the photographer and took a lot of the formerly necessary guess work out of it.

With the help of the German Rail and a Peugeot 10 speed bicycle I took pictures all over Europe. I fell in love with travel, adventure and photography. I rapidly became a full blown photography junky.

I still have that Minolta, although I no longer use it. Fortuitously I temporarily lost that 35mm Single Lens Reflex (SLR) camera in 2002 when it slid under the car seat of my Lincoln Continental. A couple of years later my mechanic Jeff would find that camera.

Believing that the loss of the Minolta was permanent, I agonized over buying one of those new fangled digital cameras (point-and-shoot) for an upcoming trip to Japan. (Pictures of two soldiers next to Monterey Bay, Church through the Cherry Blossoms, Japanese Pagoda were taken with the Olympus 3.2 camedia camera) The trip was going to cost a fortune and spending more money on a camera seemed like it was just too much at the time. After agonizing over the decision, I made the plunge and bought my Olympus Camedia 3.2 megapixle camera. I took beautiful pictures with that camera for about two year.

While serving in Iraq I began traveling with the division civil affairs officer where I had the opportunity to take numerous pictures all over the Baghdad area. The Olympus was woefully inadequate. So after doing much research online I took a huge gamble and purchased a very expensive Sony Cybershot F828 point-and-shoot camera online. I had never bought anything online before and this camera was so new that there weren’t a lot of consumer critiques to be found. Everyone in the market for a camera was talking about the newly released Nikon D40 Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR). Nikon had just brought the price of DSLRs down to whole new level of prosumer affordability. At that time, a consumer could buy that Nikon DSLR body without a lens for the exact same amount of money as Sony’s new F828. (Sunrise of Z lake in Baghdad and most the pictures I have ever sent home from the war were taken with the Sony F828 Point and Shoot camera)

I just had this gut feeling that I can’t explain now or then that this Sony was the right camera for me. I took the gamble after much consternation and it turned out to be the best camera I believe that I have ever had. That camera was perfect for shooting pictures in the Baghdad area, pun not intended. Most of you have seen what the result of that decision was and I have put out a book from those photographs.

Unfortunately for the world of amateur photography, the new era of affordable DSLRs brought forth very few sales of Sony’s camera and the quick termination of production of the Cybershot F828. I have since purchased a second one so that I will always have working F828. That camera has the shortest startup time of any camera made today. From the time you turn it on to it taking the first picture is 0.6 seconds. As they say in Boston; it’s wicken fast.

Pocket cameras seemed to be a great thing to have so I’ve tried to make several work for me but they always lacked the clarity and quality I wanted. I started out with a little Pentax in Iraq and a Nikon in Afghanistan. Eventually I gave the Nikon to my interpreter who promised to take pictures of Afghanistan for me.

After returning from Afghanistan I decided that I needed to upgrade my camera collection. After all I now had a book coming out and I have the better than the average Joe. I had an idea of what it was that I wanted, but I didn’t know how to describe what I was looking for. I didn’t know enough about the camera industry to know exactly what camera was right for me. I knew I wanted to take my game to the next level and join the DSLR crowd, but I didn’t know which one or what features or what I was really wanting to do with photography at this “next level.”

By this time I was thoroughly in love with Sony products and after some research of what Sony had to offer, I purchased the Cybershot T10 pocket camera with a fixed lens. (Pictures of classic cars with the Marcus Whitman hotel in background and the Seattle night scene with ferry in the back ground were taken with the Sony T10 camera) It has the same fast startup time as the F828 and if there is lots of light on a sunny day, it can take as clear and as crisp a picture as any camera made. It does require an enormous amount of light to take those great pictures though.

Now believing firmly that anything made by Sony is really great, I went with Sony’s first DSLR, the Alpha 100. Unfortunately the Alpha 100 never gave me anything that I didn’t already have with the F828. Now DSLR pundits are cringing at this, but I am telling you that the F828 point and shoot is so good that the Alpha 100 DSLR just does not take a better picture under any condition. It is true that you can buy new lenses and record in more professional formats, but when all is said and done you don’t have a noticeably better picture than what you get from the F828.

I sold that camera on E-bay for a loss. Now I still wanted to take my game to the next level. I had been playing with the idea now for about a year and a half about turning pro, or just taking my skills and talents to a higher level. I’m glad that the decision to buy the F828 was such a great decision that it is nearly impossible to do better than it without spending outrageous sums of money.

All the agonizing, all the torment over all the decisions to buy a new cameras over the past 21 years, were now culminating and amplifying off of each other. What do I do? What direction do I go? While walking through Best Buy store I saw the camera out of the corner of my eye and I knew it. I did a double take and just knew that camera there was the one I had wanted all along and had envisioned for myself when I had come back from Afghanistan. I walked over looked at the price. Oh no that is not the camera I wanted all along. Ouch! That hurts.

The weeks went by and by chance about four weeks ago I happen to ask to different professional photographers what they shoot with and they both shot with Canon cameras. Both in conversation told me that I might want to take a look at the Canon 5D camera. That was the camera I saw at Best Buy and knew that I just had to have it. Oh my Gawd what do I do now. I don’t have any source of real income. What should I do?

22 years of the agony of making decisions to go to a newer and shinyer camera were culminating in this one momentous occasion. It was completely wrong to go out and sin against my bank account like that. I did my research and even drove to Spokane to hold the Canon 5D and look through it and sure enough, I knew then and there that any other camera would never be enough. I bought one. Aren’t you shocked? (The fall colors with refelctions in the water were taken with the 5D as well as the jazz band in the night club)

I don’t know where I’m going with this now. I don’t know if I am somehow going to turn pro, and start making money at it, or if I am just going to continue on as I have been doing. I just had to have that Canon 5D and now I got it. Oh boy! A new toy! Now what do I do with it?

Mom and Dad's 50th Wedding Anniversary

Many of us recently celebrated my parents 50th wedding anniversary. It was a great time to see people I haven't seen in many years, decades to be exact. I served as the official court photographer. While working on these pictures last night I realized that there was some very unequal representation amongst the attendees there in my photos. I apologize to anyone whom I didn't capture on the camera. I tried to get everyone, but I missed a few and a few pictures of mom disappeared into cyberspace. Hope you like these. By the way, the fact that I have a very unequal representation of Linda's family in no way insinuates that I got along more with my immediate older sibling as kids than my other siblings. I think it suffices to say that anyone who knew us could and would be willing to verify this fact. I'm still traumatized from being dropped on my head off a small cliff, spat on from two-stories up and badgered to death for 14 years of my early formative life. It's all Linda's fault I tell you.

Hope you enjoy. Just double click on the photo you like to download and then save it to your computer.

MOTHER OF ALL WEEKENDS

MOTHER OF ALL WEEKENDS

This was a special weekend. The first full weekend of September was supposed to be a National Guard weekend spent in Spokane. I didn’t go because I had finally made the agonizing decision to retire from the guard after 21 and a half years of military service. It was the events of this weekend that pushed me over the edge to make the decision to retire and all I can say is WOW! What a weekend!

It was probably back in February that this weekend started to unfold. I purchased tickets to the WSU gridiron classic in Seahawk stadium. Any time I’m in country during the start of college football season, Rob and Shendy Kuchcinski and I like to go to the game in Seattle together. It has become our own tradition. The pastor and his wife invited me along with the rest of the church congregation to help celebrate her 50^th birthday by going to Walla Walla, Washington for a stay at the historic Marcus Whitman Hotel along with traveling together on the wine tasting tour.

Reservations were made, tickets purchased and then I the schedule for drill National Guard weekends for the following fiscal year came out…Guess what, it was on this very weekend that I was supposed to be going to the Yakima firing range for some field training…. Guess what… I retired. I had been tormented with the decision of what to do about the military career for over a year by that time and had been sitting on the fence long enough. I pulled the trigger on the decision and announced my retirement.

This weekend needed to be a great weekend to celebrate the first time in the last 21 plus years that I was unencumbered by military service with nothing on the horizon. I was able to do all of this because of the decision to retire. Since that day that I finally made the decision I have encouraged over and over that it was the right decision. Now, in hind-sight it was really a no-briainer. Why did I struggle so much with it?

Thursday I started out of Walla Walla and had a rather enjoyable clear crisp fall day to drive through the heart of the Palouse down to the historic hotel which is still being restored, floor by floor. A great dinner at a restaurant called the White House at Crawford, locals say it has nothing to do with the president’s home town, then later linking up with Pastor Evan Wilson for some enjoyable cigars and fellowship. That first night there were only the pastor, his wife and I enjoying the ambiance of the beautifully restored Hotel lobby and restaurant.

The next morning I was clued in on the big surprise present for the Amazing Mrs. Wilson as she is called. Davis, her first born child and oldest of three sons had flown in from New York city to Portland, Oregon where his sister Michael drove him to Wall Walla that morning. Davis had told his mother a week before that he was sending his gift to Michael and she would drive it up for him. Michael and Davis stopped a block away from the hotel and he climbed into the trunk of the car. Michael arrived and insisted that Leslie, the Amazing Mrs. Wilson, come help get her gift out of the car. I had prepositioned myself with camera to capture the event. It went off well and I got some pictures of the big surprise, but they did not turn out as well as I wanted. That’s it! Time to get a new camera.

The rest of the group arrived and we were off to taste wines. We spent the entire day going from one quaint and trendy wine tasting gallery to another. We went to seven winery tasting houses out of approximately 120 inside the Walla Walla town limits. That’s right, 120 wine gallery/tasting houses in a town that’s probably 30,000 people. There was a wine house on every corner. This town was unbelievable. I cannot explain how beautiful this old town is with all its restored brick buildings and wine culture. The nice thing about this town was that there is all this culture in a small town with no hint of the edgy counter culture run-away-liberalism.

One of the ladies that came brought us boxed lunches that she had made. We all knew that she was going to out do and show out and oh did she not disappoint us. We went to the city pioneer park with very old and very large sycamore trees that were about eight feet in diameter. It was a great picnic.

One thing we all learned is that after three or four wine houses your taste buds can still tell the difference between white and red wine and that’s about it. I really couldn’t tell what I was tasting and it was impossible to get any kind of a buzz off of the little amounts we all had. So what was I was there for. The fellowship among godly Christians all suffering from sugar crashes and the yawns was the reason I was still there. It was really a lot of fun as everybody that went had a ball.

We headed back to the hotel where a classic car club was rallying for the weekend. I positioned myself with my small pocket camera and to my great luck, the people all loaded up in their cars and began convoying out of the parking lot on their way to dinner. I was able to get a good picture in the evening sun of each car with the old hotel tower in the background. I love the providential timing of events leading up to a really good picture.

There was just enough time to clean up and get dressed up for the birthday banquet held in one of the rooms. I was taking pictures, what a surprise, and was staging some of this and some of that. I came up with the idea of having the head couple seated at the head of the table with everyone else standing dutifully at the position of attention like the humble serfs we really are. The pictures turned out ok, but I still want a new shiny camera.

There were late night cigars and a visit to the lounge and a grand time was had by all.

Next morning I was woken up by an old friend’s call on my cell phone wondering where I was. I was supposed to be meeting with him in the tri cities on my way to the WSU game in Seahawk Quest Stadium. Oh that wonderful rush of adrenalin when you come to the realization that you overslept. I rushed and rushed, hurried and hurried and ran and puffed but I just couldn’t get out that door and out of town fast enough.

Eventually I did make it to tri cities and had a great visit with Bill Watts. There are no pictures from this meeting, but ironically I got to play with his professional level canon camera. He taught me a lot about the matching the tools of the trade with what you want to do, and what you need to be able to do. I still want that shiny new camera I’ve been eyeing. I could have spent all day with Bill, but I only had an hour and it was on to the game.

What was supposed to be pregame party at Rob and Shendy Kuchcinski’s house followed by a trip on the Sounder train from Edmonds to the game was now changed by the cell phone on the fly from the middle of the desert. I was going to be hard pressed to get to the game on time. We arranged to meet at our favorite restaurant, FX McCrory’s near Union Station.

I made great time the whole way and then… the last 15 miles of the trip turned in to pure torment. There were two accidents that slowed traffic up to a stand still as lanes had to merge on the east side of lake Washington on the Mercer Island Bridge. I was gnashing my teeth and shaking my fist at the heavens as I inched closer and closer to the football stadium and FX McCrory’s that were A Bridge too Far.

Another change of plans by cell phone to my now waiting friends and I ordered a bacon cheese burger and a beer without even being in the city limits.

I finally past the wreck and after driving around for a few minutes in downtown Seattle I found a cheap place to park and ran to the restaurant where my friends, burger and beer were waiting, and all was right with the world.

The burger was great, from what I remember. I was trying to enjoy it, but the minutes were ticking by. I was trying to drink my beer and enjoy it, but the game was about to start. We hurried and hurried, rushed and rushed, huffed and puffed and it just took for ever for us to get across that parking lot and up those never ending stairs to the top of the cheap seats, because I bought the tickets this year. And then… the WSU kicker kicked the ball off… The game started late. Providence man. That’s providence.

We had a great time. To the greatest joy, one of the great Christian friends that I have ever had had just flown in from Africa and by cell phone we linked up inside the stadium. I love my cell phone. Isn’t modern technology great? She flew in from Africa the night before where she had been working with the African’s Children’s Choir organization. There we were changing plans on the fly with these little black plastic things that we stick in our ears. It’s just amazing. Tina Sipp, the encourager of thousands of Christians from around the world was tapping me on the shoulder. Oh how good it is to see an old friend.

The cougs did great and a grand time was had by all. Rob Shendy and I went out for a late night snack downtown and then I drove us back up to their place.

The next day I went to church with Rob and Shendy at the Shoreline branch of Mars Hill in downtown Seattle. I enjoyed it and their band was unbelievable. I went up to highway 20 to see the chaplain I spent a year in Afghanistan with and visited him and his son for a good part of the day. The next day I spent scoping out places to take pictures of the Puget Sound area from in the future. I had a great time. Rob had been given free tickets to the Mariners game against the As so four of us met down at the Pyramid Brewery House across the street from Safeco Field. The food was so good and we did the beer tasting sampler tray thing.

Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a small parade of Scottish kilt clad pipers marching towards us. They marched right past us into the brew house and performed there. The Seattle Fire Fighters Pipe and Drum Corps was performing for the 9-11 memorial day. The hair on the back of my neck was standing straight up and I had goose pimples the whole time they performed. They were about as good a pipe and drum corps as you will ever see in the states. I was impressed and even got emotional. They performed a handful of different times before they marched out and were gone.

The tickets to the game were in really good seats and we enjoyed the full service bar and restaurant. It was really fun until the mariners fell behind in the later innings.

The next day I again took the scenic route through the Puget Sound on my way up to Burlington where I was able to interview a doctor in between his patience. He had traveled to Afghanistan in 1969 and shared with me his experiences.

I then drove as fast as I could back to the Palouse. I was feeling home sick for the two tots and the family I live with. It may seem strange, but I know I got something going right when I look forward to an outrageously fun week-long weekend of traveling, friends and events, and then look forward to coming home because it’s great there too.

Thus concluded my Mother of All Weekends. That was one heck-of-a retirement party. I am grateful to God for what turned out completely serendipitously to be such a wonderful party. My gratitude goes out to all the participants who didn’t even know that they were participating in my retirement party.

And a grand time was had by all.

Tim Tate

CPT WAARNG Retired