they call me Shaker
Sep 4, 2016 21:11:52 #
Shaker
Loc: New England
Hi. I've been here and enjoying this site for a few months now. Have read many conversations daily and have participated in a few conversations, gotten to know a few folks a bit, and have looked at many many many pictures posted here. I have already learned so very much and have enjoyed so very much here.
I felt it was long overdue for me to sign in and tell folks a little about me. I rarely stay on sites this long even ... but I think I'll be hanging around on this site for quite some time. Maybe it's that we're all into Cameras. But there are a lot of sites like that. I think it has to do with the witty, friendly, sharing and giving, open-for-criticism-and-guidance, twinkle-eyed, kindly cantankerous folks here.
People call me Shaker. It is a long story.
The last item on my bucket list was a really good camera and then to use it to create something that felt like a whisper from God.
I've seen some pictures like that here.
So ... as I sold my farm this Summer (closed a few weeks ago) I began to fulfill that last item. You might say I have lived my life 'breaking bread' while fulfilling my bucket list items. But even though this item was added to my list when I was sixteen ... 53 years ago ... I am only just now finally getting to it.
One early autumn morning when I was sixteen, I was out on the Plum Island Sound Marshes huddled in the tall grass between my canoe and my goose decoys. I loved the geese, so I knew how to talk with them, and I had called in a large chevron of Canadian geese ... called them in from the dunes a half mile away ... and they circled down the sound about a mile, across to the woods inland, then circled back and straight to me ... their bellies tickling the top of the marsh grass. And when they got about one hundred yards in front of me, about twenty hunters popped up out of the grass and blasted them. They missed totally. Wounded one that flew about a mile down the sound and collapsed. And not one of them went to look for it. Those men had crept in in front of the 'kid who could call', instead of hunting on their own.
I laid my hunting gun down forever that morning. Went down marsh to look for the wounded goose. But I had a love-affair with the geese and the marsh grass and all the other beings (which i why I could call them or stalk them better than many). So I promised myself that day that some day I would get a good camera and return.
Well ... so it too me fifty-three years (I'm sixty nine now). But here I am. Out almost every morning early and in love. This morning I had an early breakfast with some spiders in a sun-dewed web, a few warblers, a thrush, some fog on the field, a whole splash of doves and a young eagle who came right down in front of me and shared her mealtime while she kept looking at me as if to say "well, it took you long enough to get here! Now are you gonna take some pictures...? or are you gonna just stand there gawking...?"
I haven't yet, but I think it is time that I post some pictures I've taken this past month, so people can get a chuckle over how a newbie can ruin a perfectly good shot on a perfectly good camera.
And I thank everyone here for being here and for making this site the nicest ugliest hedgehog I've ever seen!!!
I felt it was long overdue for me to sign in and tell folks a little about me. I rarely stay on sites this long even ... but I think I'll be hanging around on this site for quite some time. Maybe it's that we're all into Cameras. But there are a lot of sites like that. I think it has to do with the witty, friendly, sharing and giving, open-for-criticism-and-guidance, twinkle-eyed, kindly cantankerous folks here.
People call me Shaker. It is a long story.
The last item on my bucket list was a really good camera and then to use it to create something that felt like a whisper from God.
I've seen some pictures like that here.
So ... as I sold my farm this Summer (closed a few weeks ago) I began to fulfill that last item. You might say I have lived my life 'breaking bread' while fulfilling my bucket list items. But even though this item was added to my list when I was sixteen ... 53 years ago ... I am only just now finally getting to it.
One early autumn morning when I was sixteen, I was out on the Plum Island Sound Marshes huddled in the tall grass between my canoe and my goose decoys. I loved the geese, so I knew how to talk with them, and I had called in a large chevron of Canadian geese ... called them in from the dunes a half mile away ... and they circled down the sound about a mile, across to the woods inland, then circled back and straight to me ... their bellies tickling the top of the marsh grass. And when they got about one hundred yards in front of me, about twenty hunters popped up out of the grass and blasted them. They missed totally. Wounded one that flew about a mile down the sound and collapsed. And not one of them went to look for it. Those men had crept in in front of the 'kid who could call', instead of hunting on their own.
I laid my hunting gun down forever that morning. Went down marsh to look for the wounded goose. But I had a love-affair with the geese and the marsh grass and all the other beings (which i why I could call them or stalk them better than many). So I promised myself that day that some day I would get a good camera and return.
Well ... so it too me fifty-three years (I'm sixty nine now). But here I am. Out almost every morning early and in love. This morning I had an early breakfast with some spiders in a sun-dewed web, a few warblers, a thrush, some fog on the field, a whole splash of doves and a young eagle who came right down in front of me and shared her mealtime while she kept looking at me as if to say "well, it took you long enough to get here! Now are you gonna take some pictures...? or are you gonna just stand there gawking...?"
I haven't yet, but I think it is time that I post some pictures I've taken this past month, so people can get a chuckle over how a newbie can ruin a perfectly good shot on a perfectly good camera.
And I thank everyone here for being here and for making this site the nicest ugliest hedgehog I've ever seen!!!
Sep 4, 2016 21:15:13 #
Sep 4, 2016 21:20:12 #
Welcome Shaker. If your photos are 1/2 as good as your story, you're gonna make a lot of folks here jealous.
Walt
Walt
Sep 4, 2016 21:21:43 #
Welcome to the Hog Shaker.
It seems like your attitude and outlook will allow you to create images with intent and feeling. Can't wait to see some of your work.
It seems like your attitude and outlook will allow you to create images with intent and feeling. Can't wait to see some of your work.
Sep 4, 2016 21:36:37 #
Welcome to the Hog, Shaker. You'll find lots of friends & plenty of good advice here. Your adventures on Plum Island must have taken place before the island was turned into an infectious disease lab by the US Dept. of Agriculture. I never got to visit it but several of the veterinarians I used to work with spent some time there.
Sep 4, 2016 21:46:44 #
Sep 4, 2016 23:57:40 #
Welcome to the UHH. Learn the basics, learn the camera and lenses you have and look at as many photos of the things you want to take pictures of as you can. Find out how they were taken, and in the mean time take pictures, evaluate them: what went right, what went wrong. Then do it all over again. New England, farms and the wetlands are the things you know, so start there and expand your subject list from there.
Most of all enjoy!
Your story got me thinking. Your love affair with the wetlands and the geese sounds a bit like my Dad was. Kentucky farm boy raised during the depression so he hunted for food and knew the land and the game animals.
He had a couple of drawers of duck and goose calls and used to take them out to just talk to the birds during the off season. His camper was covered with life size decals of Canada Geese, his radio call sign on CB was Honker. His outdoor loves were geese, ducks, turkeys and deer - and always fishing.
As a retired ground crew foreman for an airline in St Louis he couldn't afford to go on hunting trips to far places and most of the places he hunted in Kentucky and Illinois were taken over by pay to hunt clubs. But he lucked out, one of the other members of the Shriners was rich and owned one of those big hunting reservations. Dad would guide and call for the rich types who didn't really know what they were doing, sometimes having to shoot their birds for them. He got paid, got to keep his tips and for everyday he guided they gave him a free day to hunt on his own. So until his heart went bad he got to keep hunting and fishing. For the nearly 20 years from retirement to death he never had to buy a duck, goose or turkey for holiday dinners.
I wish I had gotten him a good camera I am sure he would have learned it as well as he did his calls and the game animals.
Most of all enjoy!
Your story got me thinking. Your love affair with the wetlands and the geese sounds a bit like my Dad was. Kentucky farm boy raised during the depression so he hunted for food and knew the land and the game animals.
He had a couple of drawers of duck and goose calls and used to take them out to just talk to the birds during the off season. His camper was covered with life size decals of Canada Geese, his radio call sign on CB was Honker. His outdoor loves were geese, ducks, turkeys and deer - and always fishing.
As a retired ground crew foreman for an airline in St Louis he couldn't afford to go on hunting trips to far places and most of the places he hunted in Kentucky and Illinois were taken over by pay to hunt clubs. But he lucked out, one of the other members of the Shriners was rich and owned one of those big hunting reservations. Dad would guide and call for the rich types who didn't really know what they were doing, sometimes having to shoot their birds for them. He got paid, got to keep his tips and for everyday he guided they gave him a free day to hunt on his own. So until his heart went bad he got to keep hunting and fishing. For the nearly 20 years from retirement to death he never had to buy a duck, goose or turkey for holiday dinners.
I wish I had gotten him a good camera I am sure he would have learned it as well as he did his calls and the game animals.
Sep 5, 2016 00:42:37 #
robertjerl wrote:
Welcome to the UHH. Learn the basics, learn the c... (show quote)
That is also a great story Robert! I sure wished I would have been a lot more curious with my parents and grandparents growing up...
Sep 5, 2016 04:27:42 #
Sep 5, 2016 07:02:00 #
Welcome Shaker, hope you stick around... if you tell stories like that in the images you make... well I'm sure we'll all be in aw...
Sep 5, 2016 07:08:37 #
Sep 5, 2016 07:20:21 #
Sep 5, 2016 08:37:13 #
Sep 5, 2016 08:37:23 #
Sep 5, 2016 09:12:57 #
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