lately i've been reading a great book by ansel adams called "examples: 40 photographs". the whole premise of the book is that along side the 40 presented photographs is a short piece of narrative by ansel describing the events prior to, during, and after making the exposures. it's a really neat idea, and i thought i'd do something similar in blog format for anyone who is interested.
the first photograph i've selected is called "lucky under the fence", and i took it in the summer of 2004. i took up photography in earnest in july of 2004 when my dad gave me his old pentax spotmatic slr. not knowing anything about the medium, i began experimenting. at one point i was in the backyard with our jack russel Lucky, and decided to leave the yard and cross the road to the forest behind my house. needing two hands to use an slr, i decided to leave lucky in the yard instead of wrestling with her leash while attempting to keep the camera steady. as i closed the gate behind me, i saw lucky run to a little hole at the bottom of the fence to watch me. i immediately saw a great composition, and started trying to set the shutter speed and aperature as fast as i could (really not knowing exactly what the outcome of this fiddling would be). the sun was going down fast, and knowing lucky, if she had a camera staring at her for too long she'd just leave (with my brother and i being shutter bugs, she's sick of having her photo taken). i made one exposure, but was worried that the image may have been blurred because of the slow shutter speed and the fact that i was hand holding the camera. i advanced the film and made a second exposure, that being the one you see. even back then i was not one to make multiple images to get the 'right one'. i know what i want, set up the camera accordingly, and make the exposure. in this case, with my limited knowledge of photography at the time, thank god i got all the settings right!
