Photographs and Shortstory page five


				Chapter Two page 5




	Chapter Two f you flew low over Edna's house in an airplane, you would see her home and kennel with one open field below it. An unbroken ocean of forest surrounded this one small island. There would be no other houses, no other clear areas visible. If you flew by again at a much higher elevation, you would still see no other homes, though you might see the ribbon of paved road in the distance. Only the mouth of Edna's driveway was visible where it emerged from its tunnel of trees, a bluish-white smudge jointed to the black asphalt. In her isolation, she sat out on her deck in the early morning coolness, staring out at the edge of the wilderness. Where the trees met the meadow, the undergrowth was dense and tangled. She knew that in the sunless woods behind it was quite open, but from the outside it looked dark and hostile. At the far end of the field, deer were moving in and out of the shadows, browsing on young grasses at the edge of the light. There was a doe and two fawns. A flock of crows was making a ruckus around a tall Poplar on the far side of the valley. They had spotted one of her hawks. She saw him swoop to another tree, a large pale shape in a swarm of black dive-bombers.

	Beside her, both cats were snoozing in the sun. A little blue lizard skittered across the deck. The younger cat saw the movement and a noisy zigzag pursuit ended with the lizard escaping and the kitty falling of the edge of the deck into the garden below. There was a noisy thump followed by silence. Edna and the other cat looked at each other in amusement. Maybe the ‘observer’ was gone. As the day passed without any sign of him, she stopped worrying about what she should do. The past three days would be an unpleasant and bizarre memory. She began trying to shape a believable story out of the facts so she could tell her friends what had happened. The only thing that was credible was that a strange person had been there and even that was unlikely, given her location. She cleaned the house, groomed the dogs, watered the garden and then headed for lunch. Her mom called and they chatted about the family. After lunch, she had a nap. When she gathered her gear to go take pictures that afternoon, she brought along extra film-holders. She hoped to catch up on time she had lost. oday she worked at the stream, using it in the near foreground of her compositions. Because of the size of the camera, the tripod used for eight by ten is very big and heavy. After it had been wrestled into position, leveled and locked in place, the camera was put in place. First the railing was attached to a clamp on the tripod. Then the rear of the camera was slipped onto the railing and locked. This ‘standard’, as it is called, includes a square frame holding the ground glass on which one views and focuses the image. The front matching frame, or standard, is then attached to the railing. This holds the lens, which is mounted on a square board that fits in the metal frame. When the black accordion-like bellows had been attached between the rear standard and the front standard, the camera was ready to use. Moving the camera an inch this way or that or changing the lenses, she chose the image she wanted. What she saw on the ground glass was upside-down. View camera users get used to this a lot quicker than you would think. It is necessary to have a cover cloth over ones head to create darkness in which the picture can be seen. Edna found the darkness, with the potential picture glowing in front of her, to be magical. When she had what she wanted, she metered the light taking high and low readings from the scene. Exposure was chosen according to how much depth of field she needed or how much movement there was in the scene. Wind was her frequent enemy. After inserting a film-holder in the camera back, the exposure was made. Last, she made detailed notes of her exposure so she would know what development that sheet of film needed. Development would be varied according to the increase or decrease in contrast desired. This long process for taking a picture limited the type of image she could get with the big camera. That most exposures were between 1/15 and 10 seconds excluded all but the most rooted subjects. But the resulting quality was incomparable. A sheet of eight by ten film is eighty square inches. One frame of thirty-five millimeter film is one square inch. The size of the grain or particles that make up the picture is the same for both. On this day, Edna made five exposures. It took her two and a half hours. This was very good; five exposures was two more than usual for one afternoon. Sweaty, bug-bitten and happy, she started breaking down her equipment at about four thirty. When all was stowed in the truck, she went and picked some blackberries that were spilling out of a great bramble jungle fifty feet from the stream. Away from the rush of the water, she could hear the dogs moving in and out of their kennel doors, restless in anticipation of the afternoon walk. A jet crossed the sky making a faint, slow, undulating drone. When it had passed, the breeze died and there was a moment of total stillness. In the silence she distinctly heard the clicking of computer keys. cont.on page six

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