Phan, Chi and Dennis
I once learned a field shorthand for birding, useful when the multitudes of species are flying about faster than one hand can write while the other is steadying a pair of binoculars. A simple name like Osprey gets shortened to the first four letters: OSPR; Bald Eagle takes the first two letters from each word: BAEA. Four words are shortened to first letter each, rendering Gray-crowned Rosy Finch as GCRF. The three word names start with one letter from the first two words, then two from the final part, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker becomes YBSA, and yes I have seen one-it is not a made-up-for-cartoons bird. The abbreviation scheme results in very few duplicates, none of which I can remember, all solved by an extra letter or notation in field.
Some of the abbreviations are amusingly apt: a TUVU is a great nickname for a turkey vulture, and the noise from a flock of Canada Geese sounds quite a bit like CAGO CAGO CAGO. I was thinking about this on the road, because I noticed some time ago that the National Park Service is using a similar shorthand on their website directories. It's a quick path to any specific park unit: www.nps.gov/code (lower case). On our journey southward, we drove through ZION, past the entrance to GRCA and on into WUPA. I love how WUPA sounds - perfect for Wupatki National Monument.
Like a mother, a book author should have no favorites among the parks along her highway, but I will confess a special fondness for Wupatki, and I plan my trips to Arizona with time to stop if I can. On Sunday, a full moon rose out of the painted desert into a perfect pink sunset sky. Here we met Phan, Dennis and Chi, students from the filmmaking program at USC (that's the Harvard Law School of filmmaking). Their project: a documentary on the southwestern U.S., in Vietnamese, for Vietnamese television. We exchanged stories. I made their photos. They interviewed me on camera for their program, then we exchanged model releases. How Hollywood, especially that last part.
Picture-making: Pocket wizards and my SB800, set on a wall of the ruin in the absence of a lightstand. Note to self: find a better light modifier for occasions like this, meaning it must be light-weight, packable, and yet not disperse as much light as the Lightsphere that I usually carry. No way my traveling umbrella set-up was going to assemble fast enough for the fading light, even if I had toted it from the car.
The students were running short on gas, so we followed them out of the monument to the first gas station over the pass toward Flagstaff They were heading to Santa Fe, while we stopped for the night in town, and another tasty meal at the Beaver Street Brewery (their bumperstickers sport a two letter code, BS).
Only now am I thinking how strange it would be to see myself in the students' film: I was wearing my red Santa cap, which looked about as silly as it sounds (worse in my eyes because it totally does not match my burgundy coat, but is effectively disarming when I am behind my own camera). I practiced hard at avoiding distracting hand movements and tried to make eye contact with the camera. But to hear myself dubbed into Vietnamese? Some things might best be left unheard and unseen--and R is glad I've put the Santa cap away until next year.
Comments (2)
Dear Ann,
Thank you for your blog and your mail. We were thrilled to see our picture in your blog. It was such a pleasure to meet you and your husband.
Imagine this: 2am in El Paso, after a long trip to Santa Fe, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio thinking nonstop about your promise, in our friend's house, in front of his proud laptop, we checked your blog, holding our breath. And we almost jumped up to the rooftop. No word can describe our excitement there and then when we saw our picture! First time ever I went on a road trip, and here it is, my picture on a blog of such a wonderful photographer like you. Thank you very much.
We had a succesful road trip and had returned home safely with no accident. Linh Phan and Dennnis are going back school. I'll leave to Vietnam in 2 weeks. If you have a chance to go to Vietnam, please contact me. I'll be your tour guide and if you ever run short on gas there, I'll follow your car. Hehe.
Best wishes to you and your family. Keep up the good work.
Sincerely,
Chi Nguyen
Posted by Chi Nguyen | January 16, 2008 12:33 AM
Posted on January 16, 2008 00:33
Hey, Ann!
I want to add my thanks to Chi's -- we really appreciated all your help in Wupatki and got a big kick out of seeing our photo posted in your blog. We had a great time on our trip but the moment I got home I came down with a cold, wouldn't you know it?! I'm lucky that it held off until I got home!
This was my first trip of this kind as principal camera operator and I experienced something that surprised me. Despite the fact that I always had my eye glued to the camera and was constantly thinking in terms of shot composition, visual interest, lighting, focus, etc., I wasn't really seeing what was around me. I had to continually remind myself to stop and just look around at the wonders we were visiting. Being in the business of mediating experiences, it's humbling to be reminded that there's no substitute for taking a quiet moment and experiencing the sight first hand.
Posted by Dennis Castello | January 20, 2008 9:31 PM
Posted on January 20, 2008 21:31