Shooting Wide – Uncut

In the film industry if you are working on a low budget film (which we often were) you would often shoot really tight.  Using only a small space.  Then you did not need to dress too big an area. Thereby cutting down on your expenses. For a while now I have been shooting really tight on the farmy for a completely different reason. I only had the use of one lens to go on my old and creaky camera. The 50 mm. My zoom lens had an extension tube stuck on it, the release mechanism broken, rendering it useless.  I had been looking for a camera repair man without success for months now.

A while ago Roger from Camerahols said to me why don’t you just dismantle the collar, undo the screws, get to the mechanism and get the extension tube off your good lens. My eyes opened and I wondered why I had not thought of getting a screw driver and taking the thing apart myself. There I am still mired in the stereotype of  frail female  who cannot do stuff with tools. Ridiculous really as my father taught me to weld when I was 13.

However I did not have the tools and it was not shopping day.  I have not had a car for two weeks.  Sigh. Then another revelation hit me, the Old Codger had tools! He had all kinds of tools.  I visit with his three times a week. I had been walking around with my eyes closed!

So I had twice made stupid unconscious assumptions.  A. I was a girl, wait for help. B. The Old Codger was too Old.  I had forgotton that his head and hands were stuffed full with knowledge about cameras and tools.  What a dope I had been.

So Dale and I put our heads together, literally and got to work.

We worked at the screws and he got one undone, so he cut the heads off the others and got the top off the ring.  He worried and worried at undoing the plate but nothing was working. So yesterday the Old Codger and I went to plan C.  Dale got his workshop key, went out to his shed and returned with a box of mean looking tools.

One of which was a minute circular saw. With a steady hand and much muttering he set to work, it took a while but  bit by bit he cut the damn thing up, releasing my beautiful lens from its bondage and freeing us from the tight shots.  

It had been terrifying to watch this saw so close to my lens but it emerged unscathed from its experience.  In fact when the bad collar suddenly popped right off, and we had examined the lens for damage,  Dale gave me a high five that about knocked me off my chair and we both grinned at each other in delight. Success. So now dear reader we can really see the sky that is the glory above my farmy. 

I have not cropped these shots very much at all for today. All mostly uncut. 

There is an element of shabby chic. Well more than a wee bit actually. 

John’s brother once said to me how can you live out there. There is no view.  I told him that this was similar to  living by the sea but without the beach. The view is endless, and endlessly changing.  And the view is everywhere you look. The sky is Rangi, my sky father and the earth is Papa, my earth mother.  And here they lie together in perfect balance reflecting each others moods and helping each other up into every new day surrounded in the golden light of the dawn.  Truly I must be lucky to see the dawn on the horizon at my own back door. And there it is now.

I wonder what today will bring.  And I wonder what shots will be on the pages tomorrow.

Good morning. Have a lovely day. We are going to the big city this morning to finally pick up my cooking oil car. I will be back soon.

celi

On this day a year ago.  A little walkabout on the farmy.  With a compost recipe!