Gone Fishin.....

Take it! Take it! Take it! Put it in your mouth! Come on, you know you want it! go go go! take it! Take it! TAKE IT! OOOOOH YEA!

I'm talking about fishing here, what are you thinking about? That's right Fishing can be confused with other sports it seems when you are looking at just the words that you use in fishing. So there was a lot of the line above last week while I was with my grandfather on his 57th trip to Obabikonk Bay Canada to go fishing. Can you hear an 80 year old man say that line up there? I can because I heard it quite a bit from him, my uncle, and the guide we had up there. It was a glorious trip that could not have happened any other way. I got a little relaxed and quite a bit of sunburn being unable to get phone calls or emails for an entire week. I had time to think about a few things that had been bugging me which are all good and fine now; and after a 20 hour ride in the car arriving at Indianapolis at 5am this morning I'm ready to go to work at 7am tomorrow. (Yes I know It's Sunday, thus is my world). Either way it was a glorious trip, and I'm ever so thankful that I was able to go as I definitely did a little bit of relaxing.

(Sony Cybershot DSC-W90 set to the little green camera that lets me concentrate on fishing......or napping in this case)

Yea I am wearing pants and boots in that picture. I do own other clothes than that, but we all packed winter garb because any other time any of us have been to Obabikan we've frozen solid. I lost at least 13 fingers the last time I went. (ok maybe not, but it was freakin frigid ok?) This year it was 80 degrees on the Island. Everybody was astounded, we all had all sorts of winter garb packed that I never even touched except to move out of the way of the t-shirts. When I wasn't losing lures in the bay, or in the boat the weather was nice enough for me to easily feed my addiction despite the fact that I was on vacation......

(Nikon D700, 200ISO, Nikon 18-35mm F3.5-4.5@18mm, 1/80th@F14)

I took my D700 with me. I did good though, I only took my 28-70, 18-35 and 60mm macro. NO flashes, no telephoto, no SU-800 or pocket wizards. No CTO gels, or Gradiated Density filters (which subsequently would have been nice to have for the photo above...) Subsequently though I kicked myself once I got there because of course there were photos that I wanted to take that I didn't have the right equipment for. There was an eagle sitting in the tree the whole week above our cabin. Get a photo of a bird with an 18mm lens from 400 feet away and what do you have? 400 feet of tree with a tiny bird at the top. Fortunately I am of the mentality that the impossible only takes a little longer, and this was my solution:

(Nikon D700, 12,800ISO, NIkon 60mm F2.8 Nano Macro, 1/60th@F3 shot through the right lens of a set of Brookstone 30x viewing binoculars)

Yup, shot that through a set of 30x tinted viewing binoculars at dusk. I knew I took the Macro lens for a reason. It's awesomely grainy, and sort of soft but I'm just going to go out on a stretch here and call it artistic. Really I dig the shot, I can't complain at all after having to MacGyver a rig together just to take it in the first place. MacGyvered is a great way to describe my taking of photos last week considering that I really didn't take all that much gear with me. Of course like I said though I wanted all sorts of things that I didn't have besides my telephoto as well. Of those things included a Tripod, a remote release cable, and a D3x (I can dream right?) Either way, I managed to snake myself this shot:

(Nikon D700, 3200ISO, Nikon 18-35mm F3.5-4.5@18mm,30seconds@F3.5. The camera was facing straight up at a slight angle on the roof of our cabin and the 10 second release timer was used to avoid camera shake)

No gear is not everything. The best camera is the camera that you have with you. Cameras are a tool, and it shouldn't matter what kind of camera you have because it is the person behind it. A hammer is a hammer, a wrench is a wrench and that's that. All I have to say though wanting to have a nice hammer isn't such a bad thing is it?


(Nikon D700, 1000ISO, Nikon 28-70F2.8@28mm, 1/60th@F2.8)

That's my grandfather. He turned 80 this year and as I said previously he has been making this trip for 57 years. He's like a kid in the boat; catching fish to feed the birds as opposed to for our lunch. This was the greatest fishing trip I have ever had, and I'd venture to guess it was the same for him. He caught the largest fish of his life this trip which was a 38 inch pike. That fish wasn't good enough though because he then replaced it with a 39 inch pike. That's right, he caught the TWO largest fish of his life back to back on this trip. I have never seen him as elated as that moment, and moments after when the guide told him to send him photos of the two fish so he could make bookends for his mantle; my grandfather said he would talk about that day for the rest of his life.

Some of these things make me want to add the line, "takes resonably ok vacation photos" to my dating resume. I was pleased considering the photos I took were all photos that could have been done much easier, or better with that one piece of equipment that I didn't take. It just goes to show you like I mentioned a little higher that the best camera is the one you have with you. The impossible, or at least what seems that way, only takes a little longer. The milky way shot a little higher was taken by laying my camera on the roof of the cabin while standing on a chair with that same rickety corner that every shopping cart I've ever used has had, the seemingly imposible 20 hour car ride with some 80 year old men on the trip of a lifetime, The supermodel on TV that want to meet or date someday, getting over someone you've loved and lost, the Million bucks you know that you'll earn someday, or even a photo of an Eagle 400 feet up in a tree taken with a close up lens. Anything is possible. This took 80 years. More soon.