Capture a Stranger

[Wild Wassa]

I went to Faggotville in Northern New South Wales, inland from Balina. When I arrived I went straight to a plantation to take photographs, rather than cruise the streets. I'd gone to Faggotville to photograph an avocado plantation ... I like avocados.

I set up the shot, to do an HDR. I intended to do many exposures over an extended period, from sun-up to sun-down, including taking a time exposure showing star trails moving from horizon towards the azimuth ... all taken to enhance the HDR image.

All was going extremely well until I was assulted by an aggressive female stranger ... who could have been the other half of the plantation. One would have hoped the owner/manager of a plantation would have told the 'Memsab' that the plantation was being photographed by a camera wallah , after talking to the photographer ... but what are small overlooked details?

The woman drove up to me and the tripod in the evening (shock horror) in a most life threatening way. skids to a hault about a metre from the tripod with my Canon 300mm quartz optic on it and demands to know what I'm doing. She got out of the car, grabbed the tripod and demanded to know what I was doing, "Taking photographs of your orchard, as I have been commissioned to do," .... which appeared to be the most inept thing to say at the time.

The firebrand Shewolf who had grabbed the camera and tripod, thrust them towards me and said, "I didn't ask you to photograph this place." To which I replied, in an equally inept way, similar to my first lame excuse, "No you didn't, your husband(?) did!"

She then drove off in a huff back towards the plantation house. She was very dark, as dark as ... all adding to the ambience of my interrupted shot.

I then put the camera back, going on the marks in the gravel, to complete the time exposure ... but I got the precise alignment wrong.

Here is the shot ... it isn't a shot of a stranger, it is a shot with the unhelpful collaboration of a stranger ... even better. My latest shot.





HDRs out of alignment, display interesting posibilities for 'stars'. I haven't removed the power lines either, as I originally intended ... they also add to the horror.

Warren.