Cold Spring Harbor 3:16

It’s 3:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning. I thought I could sleep last night. I could not. The excitement for today was too much for slumber.

I have a photo trip planned. Please let me tell this story.

There’s a church in Long Island that is just incredibly photogenic. When the fall foliage kicks in, the church is bathed with a background of greens and reds and yellows and auburns. And the church is right along the edge of a river, so it’s possible to get this photo with a watery reflection.

Getting this shot won’t be easy. The shooting location is on private property, and I used every amount of Chuck Miller charm to secure a shooting spot. And I only have a couple of hours to get the photo. I must leave the location by noon, as per agreement with the property owner. And there’s no rain date for this. The leaves are at peak foliage right now; a delay of even a few days will ruin the photo.

This is also an important trip for me – in that it’s really my first dedicated photo excursion with my girlfriend Suzanne. In addition to getting this perfect photo, I wanted to spend time with her – as well as show her the craziness I go through to get a potentially award-winning photo. Suzanne could be my “second shooter” on this trip. And surprisingly, she was game for this. Early morning pick-up … and she was on time, and had a box of sandwiches and snacks for our journey.

The sandwich box went in the back of the car, along with the Nikon Df camera, the Pentacon Six TL camera, the Nikon F2S camera (“Nikon Athena”), the Krasnogorsk FT-2 Russian ultrawide (“Raskolnikov”), and the new-to-me-but-old-as-dirt Kodak Panoram 3A camera. I have no earthly idea what my shooting distance from the church would be, so the car also contains various lenses for telephoto and ultrawide usage.

So it’s me, my girlfriend Suzanne, and five cameras on a road trip to Long Island. Yep, Suzanne gets to join me on a photo excursion as my “second shooter.”

I was expecting a sunshine day for this trip. Nope. The skies were bleak and gray, and rain was in the forecast. Ugh.

If I can get to the shooting target by 9:00 a.m., we’ll have enough to get the shots and leave the property. Photographer’s credo. Leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but memories. This is a rare opportunity to get the perfect church / foliage photo. I can’t allow myself to mess anything up.

Through the darkness, through the sunrise, through New York City traffic and lots of crazy Sunday morning New York City drivers … we make it to Cold Spring Harbor and the shooting location.

I check the watch. 9:00 on the dot. Aces. Let’s make this work.

Let’s get some test shots. I slap the Vivitar lens on the Nikon Df, and call out the camera settings to Suzanne, who dutifully writes them down. Yeah, I know I could pull some of this information through the camera’s EXIF data base, but that doesn’t always work for me. Some of my legacy lenses don’t incorporate the EXIF data into the photo, and I’m running around like a Tasmanian Devil trying to get the shot and not actually, you know, paying attention to HOW I got the shot and what the specs were on the camera …

Let’s take a raw photo here and see what comes up.

Okay. I’m in the right spot. Now let’s make this work.

I need a “proof of shot” image. You know, where I take a selfie shot of the camera as it takes a shot of the subject.

I set up the tripod near the fence. It’s time for a little HDR shooting. Let’s pull the color out of this shot.

Wow! This from an early shot? This is stunning!

Okay, no time to rest on a single photo. I’m here for the moment and the moment only. Make this work.

Meanwhile, Suzanne captures a candid of me in action.

I mean, it’s cold out there, but I feel like a million degrees inside.

I switch to the film cameras. The Panoram gets its turn on the tripod. Fuji Velvia 100 inside its 125-year-old mechanism. I get three shots out of that beast, if I’m lucky. I’ll send the film off to the lab this week.

Run back to the car. Get Raskolnikov. The camera starts acting flaky. Damn it, I don’t have time for flaky. I think Raskolnikov’s on its final frames of life, and I don’t have time to run back to Albany and get a replacement. Thankfully, Suzanne talks me off the ledge and calms me down, and I’m able to get the Russian ultrawide shooter to work. Maybe.

Raindrops are falling. A few at a time. But I know a deluges is on its way. I do not want this photo shoot ruined by a deluge.

As I switch cameras, a flock of geese fly by the church. Thanks, geese. You couldn’t have waited ten seconds to appear in the photo? Meh.

Nikon Athena on the tripod. I take a few shots with it. This roll is actually being saved in case I want to enter a “one roll photo challenge” contest. So we’re good on that front.

Film cameras back to the car.

Nikon Df gets another run. I attach the P6-NIK adapter (which allows me to interface Pentacon glass to the Nikon) and decide that I can get a swank shot of the church with the ultrawide Flektagon glass.

Let’s bring this home. First, another HDR capture.

I can not believe I’m getting these shots. This is perfect.

I also take a second to appreciate the reverence of this moment. Me, a kid of mixed religious backgrounds, who never felt accepted in either sect, who has blazed his own trail that combines the tenets and teachings of both into a visual beauty – the spiritual and the environmental. All in one delicate instant.

Okay. I turn the camera to a 90-degree angle. It’s time for a stitched panorama. This way, if the Kodak Panoram doesn’t give me the best film capture, I’ll at least have a digital shot.

Deep breath. Be one with the camera. Make this happen.

And …

That’s the panoramic shot I want. Look at ALL THAT BLAZING FOLIAGE framing the white-walled church. And somewhere in the distant fog, I could hear my dear sainted Grandma Betty whisper to me … “Buena Vista Panorama.”

Suzanne and I re-load the cameras back in the car. She hands me the camera notes. Just exactly what I need. I check my watch. 10:00 a.m. We’ve got all the photos we need. And it’s back to the 518 for us. Just in time for the skies to open up and a torrential rainfall to fall upon us.

What an incredible day. And these photos – the church, the water, the foliage – are better than I could have ever imagined.

My sincere thanks to the front office and staff at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Cold Spring Harbor, New York for allowing me to put this photo shoot together. Their assistance is greatly appreciated.

When spirituality and technology blend together … it works wonders.

Just like He works wonders.