Buck and I made our way north, passing wide open ranch lands and fleeting townships that littered the backroad highways of western Texas. We passed an incomprehensible number of pick-up trucks (and by that I mean they passed us). They zoomed past; new trucks with engines that let out a primal roar full of horsepower and authority. Meanwhile Bucket’s engine made the van equivalent of congested nasal breathing as we waddled upwards through the Lone Star State.
After four hours of podcasts, music, and worrisome amounts of talking to myself, we arrived at Carlsbad Caverns National Park where I was promptly informed that I could not enter at the moment as a fire alarm was going off in the Visitor’s Center. I was content to have a bite and get my camera gear in order for the subterranean jaunt through the caverns. I turned on my camera, which is decidedly digital, it being 2018 and all, and I flicked through it’s many modes and settings, from portrait mode to landscape to ‘scene intelligent auto’ to manual mode.
Years ago taking a picture was a momentous occasion. Using a camera was something only professionals did as it was too complicated a process for recreational use. Poor families would scrape together money for months just to pay a professional to capture one family portrait. We’ve come a long way from these days where every part of photography from carrying a camera that could weigh upwards of 8 pounds to editing and developing pictures in a dark red room that looks like it would be at home in the seedier alleys of Amsterdam to being able to take a picture of your face with puppy ears on it and send it to your friends with a camera that fits in your pocket. While this ease of access certainly has its negatives, it was the initial spark in my interest in capturing images myself, so I have to tip my cap to technological advances yet again.
I grew up with my nose in zoological magazines ( e.g. Zoobooks), my eyes fixed on national geographic shows (e.g. ‘Really Wild Animals’), and my mind wandering the magical worlds of fantasy novels. I have always had love and appreciation for animals and the natural world that we live in thanks to these landmarks of my childhood, but I never really considered attempting to create anything for myself. That is until I had constant access to my pocket-sized camera. My interest increased gradually, parallel to my growing love for traveling and exploring the world. For years I would take hundreds of pictures on my smart phone, until I was overcome with the desire for the next step a DSLR camera (digital single-lens reflex camera; one of those large black cameras with lenses that people who use them seem to be constantly twisting). I was already in New Zealand traveling around in a station wagon with my friend Craig when I decided it was time to make the leap. I will skip over the many hoops one needs to jump through to get a camera delivered to a remote farm on a peninsula on the North Island of New Zealand, but just know it is a far cry from Amazon who will deliver you packages before you’ve even decided to buy them. I tried to familiarize myself with the camera’s many modes and settings, leaning on the ones that would let the camera do most of the work.
My long term goal was to take a picture of the stars and/or the Milky Way, so I began to research this realm which is known as astrophotography. A large take away was that for astrophotography I would need to set my camera on manual mode. At that point manual mode was as daunting as entering Harry Potter’s Forbidden Forest, Mordor, or having to make a trip to the DMV. It was far more difficult than taking out ones phone and pressing one button. The user was in full control of each and every setting on the camera. The camera itself would not help at all, perhaps besides a bit of auto-focusing and letting you know that your battery was almost dead because you had spent over an hour staring at the settings in bewildered terror. We camped out most nights in New Zealand, which may be a small country but which nonetheless has massive, open night skies, riddled with stars and celestial bodies. I made quite a few attempts at capturing stars to take home with me with unsatisfying results. My goal had escaped me at the time, but unlike many fleeting projects and ideas that have vanished like the supplies of bread and milk in grocery stores before an nor’easter, this desire to photograph the galaxy would stick with me.
Big Bend, with it’s challenges and obstacles, had focused my mind on a few personal goals I had set for myself while on this excursion across the many states. I wanted to document the trip with writing and photography, not just because they are hobbies of mine, but because I think I have a lot of room to improve in both facets. There is so much to learn and to master and what better place to hone these skills than across a country with a never-ending potpourri of different landscapes and countless beautiful views waiting to be captured by words and images. After Big Bend I decided I would force myself to stop watching Netflix and TV shows, instead pairing meals and downtime with a parade of photography and editing video tutorials.
Astrophotography still lurked in the depths of my mind, an elusive goal that I itched to conquer. I sat in the parking lot of the Carlsbad Caverns, chewing on an apple and considering that perhaps this foray into the caverns could act as a stepping stone to nighttime photography. I set my camera on the mode entitled ‘handheld nighttime scene’ (typically to take pictures at night you need a tripod) and set off toward the entrance after the rangers gave the waiting crowds the ok to enter.
After obtaining my ticket I followed a concrete path in the gaping maw of the cave from which, in the heart of summer, droves of bats stream into the darkening dusk sky. The bats must have been at their time-share in Florida at the moment; while they would have been cool to see, the caverns themselves are a wonder enough. If you’ve never been there allow me to take you and your imagination on a brief excursion below the surface.
Dim lights lead the way as you drop down deeper below the Earth. For what feels like the twelfth time you learn the difference between stalactites and stalagmites, a fact that you will surely forget by the time you are back on the surface. Areas where the lights are spread out make you realize just how impenetrable the natural darkness would be if not for electricity. You laugh nervously and think to yourself that the park must have a back up generator. You tell yourself you’re mostly joking and try to sweep these thoughts up into a dust pan, but they stick, littered around and catching your eye like so many pieces of glitter. The caves are somehow always a bit wet and they smell that way too, kind of like musty wet clothes. Still you have never been to a place like this before, how could you, you spend all your time walking around above ground. This isn’t something you’d find on the earths surface. Rows upon rows of rock formations rises from the floor and point down at you from the ceiling. It is eerily like walking through the tooth ridden mouth of a giant shark. While there are lots of other tourists exploring the deepness and darkness of the caverns you can often find yourself feeling surprisingly alone. You expected to hear a scuttling sound from one of the many hidden pockets in the cave walls only to turn and find yourself staring in the 8 depthless and lifeless black eyes of a spider the size of a horse. You consider how this horrible creature wouldn’t even need to put you out of your misery because you would immediately have a heart attack and die of pure nightmarish shock at the very sight of the thing.
The path through the caves is only a couple of miles long but it takes you into another world.
It was unlike anything I had seen before, a place that was somehow indoors, but vast and awe-inspiring.
I took a few pictures on my camera’s handheld nighttime mode with decent results. I stopped for a few minutes to pour over the pictures. While looking at the settings the camera had used to achieve images in the dimly lit caverns, it struck me that I could apply the same numbers in manual mode, tweaking and experimenting with them to acquire a better understanding for how they work, and maybe even better pictures. The result of this spark of an idea let to me taking hundreds of photos underground, with very mixed results. But I had swam out to the deep-end that is manual mode. I braved those dark waters and that was something of note, even if I did wade out wearing a few pairs of floaties on my arms thanks to the guidance of the camera’s nighttime mode.
I spent that night in Carlsbad. I slept well and woke up promptly around 6. For once it seemed that I woke up at a time my brain felt was appropriate, which I’m finding to be more and more of a rarity as I get older. I was ready to head towards Guadalupe Peak, Texas’ high point. The only problem was that while I had a delightful night’s slumber, for Bucket, it seemed, didn’t sleep a wink. I had left his lights on all night and his battery was decidedly deceased.
Not the best start to a day that I’ve had, but thanks to the power of AAA the problem was minor. Looking back there are far worse places this could have gone down, downtown Carlsbad was safe, close to a handful of auto-shops and had signal. There are many places that not only lack these but sometimes have large animals with sharp teeth.
To add to the early morning fun once the guy from AAA left I hoped in the car only to realize that my radio was now not functioning. Not only was that radio responsible for keeping my phone charged as it guided around random backcountry roads of America, but it was a large reason for holding the last few fragments of my mental state together while I watched endless miles of concrete flow by underneath Bucket and I on our trip. I started tackling this new issue trying tried and true techniques such as “turning it off and on again” and “swearing profusely”. Unfortunately, none came to any avail. By this time it was only a little while before the car electronics shop that installed the radio were opening up back home on eastern standard time. By this time after on-going issues with the second battery, which weren’t sorted out till Oklahoma, I had spent a lot of time on the phone with these nice fellows. Even FaceTiming at one point to install a new part to the battery. Have you ever Facetimed with someone you don’t know that well? It’s terrible. Maybe it’s because you generally only FaceTime people you are familiar with or know really well? Or perhaps this is just a “Billy issue” and I don’t like FaceTimeing because its a more involved versions of phone calls which I have loathed ever since I was a small boy with a prepubescent voice that would have sounded natural coming out of a cartoon elf that is peddling cookies to you. I vividly remember picking up the phone one day and answered. The woman on the other end replied “Sandi?” I moved the phone away from my ear looking at it in shock and getting the nervous butterflies of a small anxious boy who was petrified of nearly everything. I slowly lowered the phone down onto the receiver and backed out of the room, never to pick up a phone again (I hope you imagined dramatic music accompanies this sentence).
The point is: by this time these guys and I were very familiar with one another. They tried in vain to help me for well over half an hour, troubleshooting and having me check different circuits around the van. There was only so much they could do without being able to physically inspect the radio, but they were nice enough to research a shop near to me that would be able to help with the problem. It would be opening up in 20 minutes or so. I sat in the front seat and figured that while I waited I might as well start Buck and hope that the radio might just magically work or I could cash in on some good karma I had coming my way. Despite the utter unlikely-hood of that second option the radio light up in its normal function fashion and was notably less ‘broken’. I guess good things just kind of happen sometimes. How nice.
If you’ve followed along with this trip you may have noticed that I tend to get up early, generally around sunrise. This is because one of the main take aways from my foray into learning more about photography is that if you intend to shoot landscape photos the best time is around either sunrise or sunset. Not just because of the explosions of color in the sky, but because in the hours after and before these respective occurrences the light is best for taking pictures. The low light can add texture, form and definition to the photos while often giving them a ‘warmer’ feel that appeals to the eye. These windows of opportunity around sunrise and set are often referred to as “Golden Hours”. I had known about this tidbit for quite sometime but had rarely put it into practice after a bit of a harrowing experience in the White Mountains of New Hampshire in the summer of 2017, which I’m realizing as I write this is a story for another day, as it would add a great deal more words to this already loquacious post.
The problem with the golden hours falling around the beginning or end of the day isn’t the early rises or the long days, it’s the fact that much of my photography takes place while I’m hiking and generally speaking, when I’m hiking for pictures, I’m out on the trail alone. Let’s take sunrise hikes for an example, to get to the summit for sunrise (without camping out) I would have to wake up sometimes hours before and head out onto the trail in the dark hours of the early morning. Now, generally speaking if you follow the typical safety precautions of hiking and being outdoors it should be fine, but what these guidelines don’t account for is an overactive imagination. I’ll be wandering up or down a trail, my headlamp bobbing with each of my steps as it sends out a beam of light carving its way into the darkness. My mind, which is usually at least entertaining in the average situation, turns into my own worse enemy when I’m walking these trails at night. It gains a voice of its own whispering the worst possible suggestions into my ears. “You think there are any bears nearby?” “Sure are a lot of murders in this part of the world” “Hey, you should remember every scary story you’ve ever heard in your life, right this instant!”
I’ll often look behind me on a whim, ultimately finding the path empty. But the woods at night are a very different place. These trails through the woods become dark tunnels where trees with skeletal branches clasp and scratch against one another, bearing down from above and hoping to trap me in their scraggy, hungry hands. The dark walls around the path are impenetrably, the head lamp can only see past a few trees. It’s silent, save for the duet of my breathe and my footsteps. Finding the path empty I will turn my attention forward, relieved. At this point my brain has the awful tendency to sly mutter “What if you turned around and there was a maniac. Escaped from a local asylum, google eyed and raving and running directly at you?”
With all this in mind and only a few sunrise/set hikes under my belt let’s head to Guadalupe Peak which overlooks Guadalupe Mountains National Park (I had never heard of it either). I arrived to the park around 3 and with a 7.5 mile round trip before me it was clear at least part of the walk back would be in the dark. This prospect didn’t thrill me, but the opportunity to spend that day’s Golden Hour on top of Texas taking pictures was too good to pass up.
I was on the trail shortly after 3 with four hours until sunset there was no need to rush, but I figured the sooner I arrived the more time I would have to get a feel for my surroundings and decide what images to capture.
The hike itself was very nice, but didn’t birth many stories. Barren, rocky paths with no cover from the persistent sun overhead lead to forested walks high up on the mountain. I was able to look ahead and see my destination…or what I thought was my destination. I was wrong about what was the actual peak on three separate occasion, with always more mountain to summit over each rise. It was a mental game, not exactly my strong suit, but I persevered. Ridges, man-made bridges, and rocks scrambles led the way up the final ascent. Upon summiting the peak I was met by strong winds and incredible views. I had some extra time so I wandered about snacking and surveying the surroundings. I found I had a bit of reception so I Facetimed my parents to share the views with them before focusing on trying to get some good shots. I continued what I had started in the Caverns of Carlsbad, my new foray into the uncharted waters of manual mode. It was difficult and I would often switch to automatic modes and back again for references to what my settings might need to look like.
When I was satisfied I began speed walking down the mountain hoping to cover as much ground as possible before it was necessary to bring out the head lamp in true darkness. It was dusk, between sunset and nightfall, where a blue film descends over the land making the mountains in the park look like giant creatures curled up in sleep.
As predicted, I still had a few miles to go when the curtain of darkness descended over the Guadalupe Mountains. I turned on my headlamp which was decidedly weaker than I had hoped it would be and continued on down the trail. After a few instances of my brain tricking my eyes into seeing creepers and critters ahead on the trail I began playing music from my phone, a technique that I have found can distract my brain from brewing terrible potions of horrifying imagery and possibly dire scenarios. I got down from the mountain with the only tribulation being a few tumbles and stumbles I had on the descent.
I found myself reunited with Bucket, covered in sweat, dirt and with a small bit of pride. I had done it, I had walked right out of my comfort zone and into those foreboding, dark woods and out the other side. I hadn’t fully made the leap into manual mode and the greater depths of photography, but I had at least dipped my toes in and thats something.
While I am still far from great by any means, I have to admit to myself that I have come a long way from using my first camera in NZ and even have improved now as you read this since the Caverns. Of the pictures I took down below the surface of the earth and high up on top of Texas many are not great, some are down right bad. Blurry and unfocused. Yet, amongst those, between the overexposed and underexposure, amidst the crooked and poorly composed, well sometimes there’s some pretty good ones, ones worth sharing and thats what it’s all about.
