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July 27, 2005

On Photographing Birds of Different Feathers

Yesterday morning, the American space shuttle Discovery blasted its way into space. Many saw this on television, and perhaps a couple of hundred thousand people were at Cape Canaveral "bird-watching" (NASA engineers often refer to rockets as 'birds'.) Unfortunately, I was not among the latter group. It was not for trying, however.

For those of you who have never seen a manned space launch in person and up-close, it is an unforgettable experience. The rockets used are among the most powerful machines on the earth, and it is only in person that you can get a real feel for just how much energy is released as quickly as it is. The Shuttle, for example, uses several pumps that pour a swimming pools worth of rocket fuel into the motors every two seconds. And when one clears its launching pad, at a height of about four hundred feet, it is already going 100 MPH. Impressive, to say the least.

And also a wonderful photographic opportunity. On the 13th of July, NASA's original launch date, my wife and I had trekked overnight the five hundred-odd miles from our home to the Kennedy Space Center. We arrived early to set up all of my cameras - a Nikon D2X, a Nikon N90, a Nikkormat, the Yashica 120mm TLR and even the venerable old E-995 that's crashed onto a mountain in Yosemite, broke into seven pieces and still works -- after 16,000+ pictures. One way or another, from a distance of about five miles, I was going to get a "keeper" -- something for the wall or for my portfolio.

Except it did not happen. NASA detected a malfunction in a sensor and "scrubbed" the mission due to their concerns for the safety of the vehicle. You can hardly blame them, as space flight is exceptionally risky, and NASA certainly was not going to gamble seven lives and a billion dollar-plus spacecraft unless they were sure that everything was working as well as they could make it. Unfortunately, their prudence ruined my photo opportunity. So what to do?

I had spent days pre-visualizing my shots, the order I would press the cable releases, the compositions, the shutter speeds and the aperture values, which films for the film cameras, which ISO for the D2X. You could say that my photos had been planned out with almost as much detail as NASA's own plans for the mission itself. And there I was, cameras on tripods, waiting for Godot. Fortunately, that too had occurred to me. With any photo trip of any length, it is always good to make a backup plan.

Instead, I focused on birds of another type at Kennedy Space Center - not the mechanical rocket type, but the traditional feathered variety, of which there are a great number of in central Florida, especially in the wildlife refuges that surround the space center. My wife and I dutifully packed out gear, and toured KSC to prepare for another photo mission, and then headed out to the Cape Canaveral National Seashore. There, I scouted out a bald eagle and serendipity struck: I got lucky enough to catch one as it flew with a fish his talons as he flew off for an early dinner. He was quite close, my D2X was ready and so was I. Seven quick snaps later, I got a good picture, one for the books and the wall as well.

Thank goodness I had thought to make a backup plan. You should too when you travel as far as we did to take a few photos - weather is unpredictable, and possibly, so are the events you plan to capture. You may well come home with prized photographs of something other than your original intent, but at the same time, something you can still be very proud of.

As for the space shuttle, Godspeed Discovery, and yesterday they moved the Atlantis to prepare her for a launch later this year. I have a feeling I will be back, bird-watching once again.

Posted by ausoleil at July 27, 2005 02:54 PM

Comments

Very good column - thanks for sharing. Yes, it is so important that we remember to have backup plans. Let's hope that there will be more big bird watching soon. P.S. Some pictures to go with the column would be very nice :-)

Posted by: bgs [TypeKey Profile Page] at July 28, 2005 08:53 AM

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