Foxtrot Oscar
05-11-2010, 01:20 PM
Photosynthesis
He lay still on the woodland floor amongst the vines, creepers and grasses, the odd young sapling trying to find a spot of sunlight to aid its growth. The only sounds at his hour, his breathing and the soft rustle of an insect or two searching out a meal. Dawn had not yet broken, but the night had slowly began to ebb away. The midnight blue of the starlit sky had started it’s journey through the spectrum and the tiniest hints of the palest blue, almost white light showed that the dawn was coming closer with every minute and just beyond that time would be the time he was waiting for: the golden hour.
When the sun is low in the sky and the light is at its softest and warmest with that almost touchable quality, the world has a glow, there is a magic in the air. There are two of these hours everyday just after sunrise and just after sunset and really it’s not really an hour at all, but phrases with a ring to them tend to stick. The great photographers of our time always prefer one over the other and the debates on the virtues of their choice could continue for time immortal. He however, was an early bird. Always up before the cockerel has even thought about crowing.
He shifted in his prone position and reached up and keyed the laptop to wake it from its gentle hibernation, he winced and tensed just slightly from the dull ache in the soul of his foot and relaxed again as it rolled up into his calf and faded away. When people enquired at his discomfort, which he truthfully tried his best to hide he would reply “An old war wound.” Smile knowingly and leave it there. It was his best story, it was a story he never had to tell.
He had never been to war, he had never been an enlisted man. He was an accountant and during the before the final year of his masters degree he lived close to a large base of some kind, he didn’t care what kind of base. The men and for that matter the women too, in their uniforms with their stripes and their medals and larger than life confidence scared the living daylights out of him. While the armed forces personal were fantastically strong and could kill a man with the their bare hands, counting past ten was not a prerequisite. So around Easter time when there was a break from studies and tax time was not so far away a few of the local bars had got together with local students to provide a cheap, almost slave labour, alternative to a qualified accountant to help with the tax forms. Money had been a little tight that year and he was glad to earn a few extra bucks and the Bar keep always threw a good feed in to the deal. Some of the students there hadn’t eaten so well in months. It was right after they had finished eating, that the war then came to him. Two big guys standing near the end of their table talking in hushed tones, then BOOM an explosion of expletives and a two-hundred and fifty pound man was falling through the air towards him. Tax forms, big meaty burgers, heavy thick cut chunky fries and then two perforated discs in the lower lumbar region of the spine. Not a great story really, he had told it about a dozen times before it had become the shake of the head and the knowing smile. Some things are just better left to the imagination.
His masters had taken a little longer to complete, an extra year, a couple of back operations and some therapy, physio and the regular take a seat on the nice looking leather recliner had helped him back in to the world and strange as it is, it wasn’t all bad. Dropping back a year had seated him next to his wife, to be at that time, front and centre in the lecture hall. After what seems to be months of shy smiles and whispered mornings and very coy see you tomorrows he had finally asked her to join him for coffee. The feeling of completeness from that first yes had never left him. On their own they were prime numbers, but to each other they were both ones.
An ordinary, almost to an extreme, life then followed. Two children, now grown and with families of their own. The dedicated service to a company that cares about it’s bottom line only and then retirement and the search for a meaning and more than that a search for something to do with all the free time you now have.
The light was now yellowing the sky, slowly the warmth was sliding over the land, breaking through the woodland canopy and caressing his exposed forehead. The next ten minutes were crucial, they were what it was all about for him. He tapped the laptop once again and began a systematic checking of the tethers and the cameras, moving slowly and deliberately. Three cameras, three different lenses, three completely different situations and attitudes towards his subject, yet each one had been painstakingly thought out, planned and re-planned a thousand times in his head, several times on paper and quite enough times with a dummy subject.
The Morning Star is a rare plant indeed, it has taken upon itself to have a seven year life cycle. The culmination of which is the morning flowering, subsequent short life, and then death of the bloom and with it the plant in full. Naturally it has been studied in depth and other than the obvious botanical information that is available for consumption, that which can be said with certainty is it will flower with the bloom’s back to the sun. And as the hundreds of petals graciously unfurl, the edges of which have an almost mirror like quality, reflecting the warm golden light in a way no other bloom can come close to matching. The air will fill with a scent that has to be experienced and the bees will find their way, before the sun is noon high the awesome golden star will be spent.
To say he had thoroughly visioned his shots would be an understatement. He had been in this exact spot for the last seven mornings and had been regularly checking on the plant itself for nearly three months prior to this, what would hopefully be another beautiful spring day, since his chance discovery and recognition of the Morning Star. The mornings themselves had never been wasted, the exact time of the sunrise and the changes of the conditions and the quality of the light had been measured and re-measured time after time. Even the wind had been measured, although it had never really been more than a soft breeze, exposure times would have to be adjusted. With all the preparations he had made only the very smallest adjustments would have to be made.
Once again he gazed intently at the screen, three individual views greeted him. The light was perfect. The sun was slowly inching into the sky now. The time was at hand, fears of forgetting something crept up his spine, the list in his head were ticked and double ticked off one by one. The sun climbed, now full in the sky and the heat of the day was causing him to perspire at the temples. Should he risk removing a layer, no he should not, he should wait and watch. And wait and watch. He waited another full hour and called time on today’s blooming. The flower was not yet ready to share her bloom or her scent with the world.
The length of the dark shadows was now shortening by the minute as the sun gained strength pushed higher in to the sky and towards midday. He slowly and methodically untethered the cameras from the laptop and placed everything gently back in to his bag in the correct place and order, finally he folded and strapped the tripods to the back of the bag. A brief look around to check for any stray items and rubbish, although he already knew there to be none and he turned and headed back to suburbia .
In the absolute silence that the woodland was now in, the Morning Star: she bloomed.
By Fox
He lay still on the woodland floor amongst the vines, creepers and grasses, the odd young sapling trying to find a spot of sunlight to aid its growth. The only sounds at his hour, his breathing and the soft rustle of an insect or two searching out a meal. Dawn had not yet broken, but the night had slowly began to ebb away. The midnight blue of the starlit sky had started it’s journey through the spectrum and the tiniest hints of the palest blue, almost white light showed that the dawn was coming closer with every minute and just beyond that time would be the time he was waiting for: the golden hour.
When the sun is low in the sky and the light is at its softest and warmest with that almost touchable quality, the world has a glow, there is a magic in the air. There are two of these hours everyday just after sunrise and just after sunset and really it’s not really an hour at all, but phrases with a ring to them tend to stick. The great photographers of our time always prefer one over the other and the debates on the virtues of their choice could continue for time immortal. He however, was an early bird. Always up before the cockerel has even thought about crowing.
He shifted in his prone position and reached up and keyed the laptop to wake it from its gentle hibernation, he winced and tensed just slightly from the dull ache in the soul of his foot and relaxed again as it rolled up into his calf and faded away. When people enquired at his discomfort, which he truthfully tried his best to hide he would reply “An old war wound.” Smile knowingly and leave it there. It was his best story, it was a story he never had to tell.
He had never been to war, he had never been an enlisted man. He was an accountant and during the before the final year of his masters degree he lived close to a large base of some kind, he didn’t care what kind of base. The men and for that matter the women too, in their uniforms with their stripes and their medals and larger than life confidence scared the living daylights out of him. While the armed forces personal were fantastically strong and could kill a man with the their bare hands, counting past ten was not a prerequisite. So around Easter time when there was a break from studies and tax time was not so far away a few of the local bars had got together with local students to provide a cheap, almost slave labour, alternative to a qualified accountant to help with the tax forms. Money had been a little tight that year and he was glad to earn a few extra bucks and the Bar keep always threw a good feed in to the deal. Some of the students there hadn’t eaten so well in months. It was right after they had finished eating, that the war then came to him. Two big guys standing near the end of their table talking in hushed tones, then BOOM an explosion of expletives and a two-hundred and fifty pound man was falling through the air towards him. Tax forms, big meaty burgers, heavy thick cut chunky fries and then two perforated discs in the lower lumbar region of the spine. Not a great story really, he had told it about a dozen times before it had become the shake of the head and the knowing smile. Some things are just better left to the imagination.
His masters had taken a little longer to complete, an extra year, a couple of back operations and some therapy, physio and the regular take a seat on the nice looking leather recliner had helped him back in to the world and strange as it is, it wasn’t all bad. Dropping back a year had seated him next to his wife, to be at that time, front and centre in the lecture hall. After what seems to be months of shy smiles and whispered mornings and very coy see you tomorrows he had finally asked her to join him for coffee. The feeling of completeness from that first yes had never left him. On their own they were prime numbers, but to each other they were both ones.
An ordinary, almost to an extreme, life then followed. Two children, now grown and with families of their own. The dedicated service to a company that cares about it’s bottom line only and then retirement and the search for a meaning and more than that a search for something to do with all the free time you now have.
The light was now yellowing the sky, slowly the warmth was sliding over the land, breaking through the woodland canopy and caressing his exposed forehead. The next ten minutes were crucial, they were what it was all about for him. He tapped the laptop once again and began a systematic checking of the tethers and the cameras, moving slowly and deliberately. Three cameras, three different lenses, three completely different situations and attitudes towards his subject, yet each one had been painstakingly thought out, planned and re-planned a thousand times in his head, several times on paper and quite enough times with a dummy subject.
The Morning Star is a rare plant indeed, it has taken upon itself to have a seven year life cycle. The culmination of which is the morning flowering, subsequent short life, and then death of the bloom and with it the plant in full. Naturally it has been studied in depth and other than the obvious botanical information that is available for consumption, that which can be said with certainty is it will flower with the bloom’s back to the sun. And as the hundreds of petals graciously unfurl, the edges of which have an almost mirror like quality, reflecting the warm golden light in a way no other bloom can come close to matching. The air will fill with a scent that has to be experienced and the bees will find their way, before the sun is noon high the awesome golden star will be spent.
To say he had thoroughly visioned his shots would be an understatement. He had been in this exact spot for the last seven mornings and had been regularly checking on the plant itself for nearly three months prior to this, what would hopefully be another beautiful spring day, since his chance discovery and recognition of the Morning Star. The mornings themselves had never been wasted, the exact time of the sunrise and the changes of the conditions and the quality of the light had been measured and re-measured time after time. Even the wind had been measured, although it had never really been more than a soft breeze, exposure times would have to be adjusted. With all the preparations he had made only the very smallest adjustments would have to be made.
Once again he gazed intently at the screen, three individual views greeted him. The light was perfect. The sun was slowly inching into the sky now. The time was at hand, fears of forgetting something crept up his spine, the list in his head were ticked and double ticked off one by one. The sun climbed, now full in the sky and the heat of the day was causing him to perspire at the temples. Should he risk removing a layer, no he should not, he should wait and watch. And wait and watch. He waited another full hour and called time on today’s blooming. The flower was not yet ready to share her bloom or her scent with the world.
The length of the dark shadows was now shortening by the minute as the sun gained strength pushed higher in to the sky and towards midday. He slowly and methodically untethered the cameras from the laptop and placed everything gently back in to his bag in the correct place and order, finally he folded and strapped the tripods to the back of the bag. A brief look around to check for any stray items and rubbish, although he already knew there to be none and he turned and headed back to suburbia .
In the absolute silence that the woodland was now in, the Morning Star: she bloomed.
By Fox