It's not all fun & games

Cornwall on Hudson- October, 2003

Sometimes composition, lighting and f stops don't mean a thing. Although I am loathe to admit it there are occasions when traditional processing proves to be too lengthy and a digital camera might be just the ticket when say .... homeowners coverage is the issue. Suppose out of nowhere (oh okay, after three days of rain followed by heavy winds) a forty foot oak was to fall on your house.... admittedly you'd want the expediency of digital vs the art of film.

One day, out of the blue (oh okay, after three days of rain followed by heavy winds) my wife received a call from our neighbor, who in the understated manner only the very British can pull off reported... "I was walking your dog Winter (in case we'd forgotten our dog's name) when I noticed a rather large tree was resting on your house."

This was not an entirely accurate description. The 'rather large tree' was a live oak, which defying all odds grew EXACTLY on the property line fell first on our neighbor's house and somehow found itself... (if a tree falls in the neighborhood and no one is there to see it does it roll or bounce? Your guess is as good as mine...) on ours. Our house looked worse but supposedly

theirs sustained more structural damage. One worker from the local gas company, dispatched to ensure we were not at risk for blowing up the neighborhood, in an attempt at gallows humor, told me we needn't worry about a Christmas tree that season; we could simply add lights to the intruder tree.

Yes, you had to see it to believe it. Unfortunately the turnaround time on these prints was upwards of five days and about a year and a half before my wife got her digital for Mother's Day.

Oh well, as I've been known to say

Never digital - always film- but in the end neither can argue with a forty foot oak.