Cole's Island Creek;SC
People often
ask me for advice on taking photographs.
My standard response is that there are four basic rules. 1 – Remember your camera. 2 – Remember to put the memory card in your
camera. 3. Remember to have a charged battery with
you. 4.
Show up. Well, today I can add a
fifth rule to the list. Avoid plough
mud.
Plough mud is the area of land that the
tide expands over in the tidal estuaries.
Twice a day it is covered with incoming sea water, and twice a day it is
exposed to the air to dry. Sometimes
these areas are sandy, but other times they are a gooey, sticky muck that has
developed from years of decomposing marine life and plant matter. It has a bit of a pungent, decaying sea life
smell to it, and it is a brown so deep in color that it appears black.
I have
never been in quick-sand, but plough mud has to be pretty close to it. Often you see a shot alongside the water that
you want to get – but you need just a little bit more angle to catch the light
coming over the water. The photograph
above for example. So you gingerly step
out onto the mud, and it seems to hold just fine. Another step, another step and it is still
holding. Just another few feet and the
shot will be great.
No sooner do you start shooting the shots than
you get this sinking feeling – literally you get a sinking feeling. Well, no big deal, you are just going to be
there a few seconds. The next thing you
know the mud is above your ankles and you need to extract yourself. So you pull the foot furthest from the bank
out of the mud, and off comes your shoe, buried about six inches in the
mud. But by putting all your weight on
the other foot to try to get some leverage, that foot is eight inches in the
mud. Camera wildly swinging about your
neck, you are hesitant to get your pants dirty, but you notice they already
have a four inch ring of mud at the base.
So you try to get on one knee and extract
the other foot, which is now ten inches deep.
Your foot finally slips out of the shoe and you promptly fall over on
your shoulder, grabbing wildly at the camera so the lens doesn't smash on the
ground. So now you have two shoes buried
in the mud and you are still five steps from solid ground. Crawling seems the only option, and of course
you have to catch your balance, so the hand not protecting the camera is now
covered in plough mud up to the elbow.
Finally you make the bank, and find out why the marsh grass is named
Spartina Grass – it is named after the Spartans of ancient because it is so
tough.
So now you are covered in mud
that is hovering just above freezing, but your camera is safely on land. Now you just need a branch or a board to
crawl out on to get your shoes back out of the mud. For a moment you think maybe you will just come back later and get them, but then you remember the tide is coming back in. An internal debate rages about the relative
value of the shoes, but you realize that you have a long way to walk back through
the woods to get to another pair of shoes.
So now the piling of branches and boards ensues – you get the picture. Or maybe you don't get the picture - depends on if you actually took the shot before you fully realized your predicament.
Suffice it to say that avoiding plough mud,
regardless of the potential of the shot, is another rule for the photographer
that wants a career consisting of more than one photograph. Or a good rule for anyone who doesn't have an unlimited supply of shoes.
Well, it has been years since I have used a dial-up connection - photographs are painfully slow. By Sunday I will be back where I can get reliable internet, but will do my best to keep posting in the meanwhile. The moon is almost full, so maybe the extra high tides will allow me a good shot or two.
Have a great Friday !!
David
No comments:
Post a Comment