I thought that I would post one of the very first digital landscape photos that I made. Anything that I did prior to this was terrible due to the primitive cameras that I had. And the photo can’t be truly appreciated without a side story about Fishing with Meadow Muffin.
This photo struck me when I looked at it on the computer. This is before I was using any post processing software on my photos, and I certainly had not discovered raw files. I took this on Auto as a jpeg. But it stirred something inside that I have yet to recover from. I’ve been chasing digital landscape photography with vigor ever since. This is why I tell people that settings matter little. Go out and take pictures.!!
This photo was taken in September of 2003. I was fishing on the Columbia River near Sundial Beach with my good friend Ron “Meadow Muffin” McComber. We were sturgeon fishing. As we were coming back to the boat launch the sunset exploded in this amazing red. I had to get some photos of it. My life has never been the same since that day.
Some may question Ron’s nickname. Ron and I go way back. His family and my family were neighbors back when we lived in the little Columbia River Gorge town of Bridal Veil. Back then sturgeon fishing and drinking cans of Hamm’s was our favorite past time, both of which we’ve grown out of, well Ron still fishes but his Hamm’s days have passed. But either way, we all had nicknames for each other. We never called each other by our real names while we were fishing, and everyone that we went with had one. I can’t attest to how he got the name because I didn’t give it to him, but I can tell you how I got mine.
My nickname back then was Hairball. Yep… and back then I had short hair. The name didn’t come from my hair, or any hair for that matter, but it came from the first time that I tried casting a 12 foot bank rod with 100# test nylon monofilament and a glob of rag mop (pickled herring) and some earthworms on it. For those unfamiliar with casting with a levelwind the size of a truck winch, let me try to explain.
The first thing that you have to realize is that you have to cast wayyy out there. I’m talking a cast that’s about 20 or 30 yards or more, depending one one’s ability usually. For that you have to really have your technique down to a science to get the fishing rod to throw the bait that far. While you’re casting the line out of the reel you have to make sure that the spool doesn’t get ahead of the line that’s paying out because if you do you are liable to get the nickname “Hairball”. The line going out meets the line wrapping the other way and you end up with this huge ball of twine and a sore thumb.
That’s exactly what happened to me. Nobody warned me that the 100 pound monofilament line creates a lot of friction between it and your thumb while you’re trying to keep some drag on it. It heats up to somewhere a few degrees less than the sun, and when it did I picked up my thumb from the reel and all kinds of fishing hell broke lose. I had loops of fishing line flying in all directions until it all wound up in a knot the size of my fist.
Needless to say I had a mess to sort out. Luckily a sturgeon didn’t grab the bait or it would have brought me in… or most likely my friend’s fishing rod. I learned quickly why Ron had a crochet hook in his fishing tackle box. They come in handy when trying to disassemble a hairball in a fish reel.
I need to call up my buddy Meadow Muffin and see how he’s doing. We always have fun dredging up the past.
To learn more about Gary CLICK HERE.