Winter Fields

Posted by Russ Devan (New Hanover, United States) on 2 December 2008 in Landscape & Rural and Portfolio.

This was taken a few days after our first snowfall of the season, after much of it had melted away. This was shot in western Chester County, near the Lancaster County line, where there was still some snow left on the ground.

As I set up my equipment to photograph this scene, a lady drove up and stopped in the middle of the road just opposite my car which was parked half on and half off the road (there are no shoulders on the sides of most of the roads in Pennsylvania, so I'm usually forced to park this way so I don't get stuck and so traffic has some chance to get around me. The poor design of many of our roads has led me to the belief that PennDOT uses engineering school dropouts to design our roads. But I digress.). Seeing the sunset behind me and my camera equipment, she called to me from out her car window. "I've got to have a copy of whatever you're taking a picture of", she called out.

I chuckled loudly and said, "I haven't even started yet and you don't know what I'm photographing. Hell, I don't even know quite what I'm going to photograph yet!"

"I drive this road all the time and I always see that sunset and it's always gorgeous", she said. "I've got to have a copy!".

"Well, ok. But you're going to have to give me a way to contact you", I said. And with that, she searched around for a slip of paper in her car to write out her name and address to give to me.

As I started walking back to where I had my tripod set up, a police officer pulled up to see exactly why it was that my car was pulled over with its hazard lights on, and another car was stopped in the middle of the road in the opposite direction. It's usually at times like these that I start reaching for my wallet to produce my driver's license because the cops usually want to write me a ticket for either illegal parking or speeding for the times when I'm rushing to shoot a sunset before the afterglow is gone. To save time and not lose the good light, I usually just ask the cops to stuff the ticket above the sun visor (with the rest of my tickets) when they're done or to just leave it on the front seat for me. The cops I run into frequently don't even bother to ask for ID anymore. As they pull up, I usually hear them mutter a "oh geez, not YOU again". One even gave me back my lens cap that I had accidentally left in his car a couple of times. It must have fallen out of my pocket. To speed up the ticketing process, I'm hoping the police will start carrying card readers, so I can just give them my credit card and pay the fine more quickly. Perhaps, I'll get a volume discount that way, but I'm not counting on that.

Not having seen this particular state cop before, I told him "I'm just taking a photograph of the sunset, officer", hoping that this time I wouldn't get a ticket.

"And I'm just trying to give him my name and address so I can get a copy of his photograph", said the lady. At this point, the cop looked at us like we had six extra heads. He then shrugged his shoulders, rolled his eyes, and drove off, figuring correctly that we were harmless and not causing any trouble. This time, I got out of having to pay a photo tax to make this image. Sweet!

So, Sarah, here's the image that I shot that evening. I hope it is what you were hoping for.

"The Master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he is always doing both."
- Zen Buddhist Text

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