The Zen of Wood Chopping

Chop Chop Stare Down
Originally uploaded by paldusty

Many of you out there probably don't do this before you chop wood. Well after years of the "Wood Crafts" I have decided to show some exclusive secrets to successful wood chopping. Oh yes, you didn't know this? Once you have made eye contact with the wood one must speak directly at it and into it's soul.

We gave each other a cord of wood for Christmas as we do most years. Problem this year is the wood is not as dry as one would like it, so I have been forced to chop some of it into smaller pieces, so it will burn. Our normal wood guy is apparently gone so I had to find somebody new. It has been wood burning weather for sure. Winter arrived right on queue with several nights well below freezing and the need for a warm fire is crucial. Now I'm not saying that we live in the great North Tundra, but for here it is darn cold.

This is one of those "Manly" activities that is just not done that often any more (and frankly you can have it). I can remember back many years when living in Kansas provided the opportunity to do a bunch of this. In the winter it was not uncommon to go through 5, 6, or 7 and sometimes more cords of wood in one winter.

The whole point of this was to get practice at taking self portraits using a couple of features on the camera that seem to work rather well. If your taking a self portrait one of the things that causes problems is focus. If your standing next to an object that you can set the focus on, it's not too big a deal, but if, as in this photo and the others I took in this series, there is no tree or something else that was the same distance from the camera,as I was going to be so how do you get good focus. I used the "AF Servo" feature. What this does is track a subject keeping it in focus. Normally it is used for sports types of shots where you might have the subject running at or away from you. This featurew insures that the subject stays in focus as long as you keep tracking it. The only trick was to make sure that I remained in the AF frame the whole time. The other feature used was simply bracketing, which is no big deal, but it helps if you can move according to the timing of the bracketed shots. Once again since it's digital, you can take pictures all day without worrying about running out of film and also getting instant feedback on what you are trying.

So, even if you only have a point and shoot as I do and it is a half way decent model, you probably have some version of "AF Servo" on your camera. Try it and see what you can come up with. Just make sure that you "Talk" to your wood before you attempt to chop it.

Till next time...