Strawberry Fields (and Plastics) Forever II

This photo, 'Strawberry Fields (and Plastics) Forever II' is the

second on a theme of field workers and plastic coverings over newly

growing strawberry plants near Watsonville, California. Your ratings

and critiques are invited and most welcome. See my Early B&W folder

for another view of this same theme, taken Jan. of this year. (If

you rate harshly or very critically, please submit a helpful and

constructive comment/Please share your superior knowledge to help

improve my photography!) Thanks! Enjoy! John

This is excellent

Pete

Thanks. It's a favorite of mine.

The only problem is there are two of them, with another just about as good but somewhat different in the way the men are arranged. I had some thinking to do before I posted.

I appreciate your stopping by and commenting.

John (Crosley)

John, I would have loved to leave a critique, but with a shot as good as this, all I could do was comment on the overall quality.

I'm pretty impresed with your other work too.

P

Peter, you made my day!

All I did was drive by these guys, recognize the possibilities unfolding, take out my camera (always sitting next to me) and step out to the rear of my car and point, zoom and shoot. Got two shots, both wonderful before they moved over the hillock and out of view forever.

Sometimes life's like that.

John

Where Have All the Good-Tasting Strawberries Gone, the Beautification of America -- an homage to Lady Bird Johnson (???) -- and the need to keep your camera nearby:

This photo was taken on my way from my house (located in California country overlooking the ocean) on my way to the nearest supermarket just a few miles away.

It's in the nature of things that one can travel around the world and 'see' great shots and 'be prepared' -- after all, didn't we go around the world to get 'great shots?'

But several of my best-received and my personal 'best' shots were taken on my way to/from the supermarket, because my camera was at my side.

See, for instance, the first of this two-part series: Strawberry Fields (and Plastics) Forever, taken near the corner of my neighborhood's private road and the county's main road -- with a similar 'strawberry field' with the field roads (rodados) shown in a 'Z' figure and similar figures grouped in 'threes'

Another, very highly viewed photo, 'I (heart-shaped figure representing 'love') U' was taken near that main county road and the second road connecting that road to the nearby freeway -- in the cracked windwhield of a car parked by the side of the road. That car was parked there for part of a day, then it quickly disappeared. If I had to go home to get a camera (if I had the gumption and wisdom to go home after recognizing the possibilities) the car might have been moved, but that spur-of-the-moment photo has over 40,000 views) and it's one of my highest-views. (and it's not a nude).

The point of all this is, we're geared to 'getting the good one' when we travel, so often, and so we often forget to carry a camera with us wherever we go on our short trips 'around town'.

I take a camera with me whenever, wherever, which is why so many of my photos are taken indoors, in the Metro or subway, at night, and in bad lighting circumstances, because people and places are not restricted to bright sunlight or full daylight.

Even Ansel Adams took one of his most memorable photos in the moonlight 'Moonlight over Hernandez' (N.M.), even though he gooped it up with numerous chemical processes to 'enhance' it -- something that presaged our current continuing discussions over manipulative 'enhancement' through Photoshop and other photo manipulation programs.

Doubtless Adams would have been those who 'tastefully' would have tried to 'manipulate' his photos if he were born into the modern-day world.

In fact, he would have been a leader probably in trying to work with multiple images and stitching them together digitally because of their 'high dynamic range's' exceeding the dynamic range of his film (or other media) -- that's partly why he fostered the 'zone system' -- to zero in on how to get and hold the best exposure, and for that he was an innovator.

Why wouldn't he have been an innovator in a digital world, also, or have digitized analog captures if he had the ability to do so well and tastefully if he had matured in a different age, for here was a man so dedicated to his photography that he had a special rack built onto the top of his vehicle for placing a huge view camera on top, free of obsructions -- possibly also from billboards, which we now forget (or some never knew) perpetually and continually cluttered roadsides throughout America before Lady Byrd Johnson began her extremely successful campaign to 'butify Umerica' as she so charmingly put it -- one of the great unsung acts of an unpaid public leader in the history of America?

For America traveling then was a sea of endless billboards, Burma-Shave ads, Harrah's Club Reno or Bust signs (for those on the West Coast) and roadsides littered by broken shards of beer and pop bottles (before return campaigns were instituted coupled with huge fines) tossed carelessly outside car windows just for the thrill of having a 'clean car interior' and for the joy of hearing them 'smash' on roadside rocks which perpetually glistened from smashed pop and beer bottles, a glistening that stretched nationwide as beer and 'pop' drinkers threw out their waste containers to hear them smash on roadsides. (nothing to wax nostalgic about, hunh?)

Now, if we only could improve the 'rock-hard strawberries' that will grow from the plants that are peeking through this plastic tarping that is keeping the sunshine's warmth in and keeping pests out as the young plants mature. (The workers are spraying them -- sprayers are on their backs.)

Local strawberry farmers who are older lament the good old strawberries, the Mount Whitneys and others of substantial flavor but which 'bore' only once a year for a few weeks before having to be plowed under while these rock-hard wonders bear from March until almost October and even sometimes until November (it was in the high '60s Fahrenheit in December this year against all odds).

The technology is there to make a strawberry that is sweet, juicy and fresh, and very, very tasty, but this plastic also signifies the average fruit's journey of over 1,000 miles, usually by truck and sometimes worldwide by plane, and the need to bear fruit that won't bruise during that expected long journey, and which must be 'red' and appear ripe, though it's usually 'sour as all get out' which may be fine for those needing their vitamin C, but is heck for shortcake lovers.

Now, if the scientists can only hybridize a good-tasting, high-yielding strawberry that will bear nearly year-round, ship well, but taste as good as those old Mt. Whitneys, smothered with their own juice on Biscuick (or other) shortcake smothered by whipped cream . . . .

For that's the other message of this photo. The whipped cream these days comes from a cannister made in a factory -- and your basic strawberry shortcake basically tastes like heck without a mountain of sugar added to the berries.

In my neighborhood, roadside stands attempt to sell 'flats' of these strawberries to passersby for relatively low prices, but the stands don't thrive.

Reason: the berries don't really taste all that good, even freshly picked.

Scientists: Here's a problem begging to be solved. We shortcake eaters don't mind the plastic over the young plants, and the whipped cream made in a can, but we want good tasting berries.

(Inpired by a long-ago chance remark by local strawberry grower T. Jo -- Tanaka Jo, a Nisei, who raised an entire family and educated his daughters through U.C. Berkeley by growing the old-style strawberries on five lovely seaside acres almost adjacent to mine.)

© 2005

John (Crosley)

The two men, left, have sprayers, probably of herbicide, while the man, right, has an ordinary trench hoe, for uprooting malefactor weeds that have no place in this 'factory of strawberries'.

John

I know a photographer who owns a photofinishing shop and who foresees being an expert in photographing strawberries grown in this valley as well as other produce (Pajaro -- pronounced Pah' haro -- Valley). He tells me that probably these workers are applying fungicide to the fields in this early December or late November photo (strawberries are planted in fall and grow as young plants all winter, shielded by plastic as though they were in a 'greenhouse' -- in fact, the plastic acts very much as a 'greenhouse'.

John (Crosley)

These fields are full of creativity!!! 6/6 You know the goodshots yourself also!

Thats knowing yourself "Gnothi s' afton" as Ancient Greeks said ;-)

I do know the good shots, (generally), which is why, unlike what Brian Mottershead has written about the majority of high-ratings members, who take down their photos if they don't prove popular right away. I just post them and almost never take 'em down. If I post 'em (with a few exceptions which I've failed to analyze properly), I've put my faith in them and my good judgment.

There are lots of 'lesser' photos that comprise lesser folders which are NOT filled with anything near good photography -- just average photography that is interesting and designed to flesh out a theme (say five hours in San Francisco in the Afternoon and Evening, or 'interesting photos from travels, etc.)

I'm glad you're enjoying your meanderings through these photos (and obviously reading the comments . . . which can either be boring or edifying depending on your mindset.)

John (Crosley)