Imagine There's An Image

One bright Saturday morning last October, I wandered onto the grounds of Navy-Marine Corp Memorial Stadium (the U.S. Naval Academy stadium,) in search of "pattern" images. I figured (correctly,) that I'd find some interesting patterns made by the tiers of seats and the early-morning shadows.

The best photo of the morning, however, came as I was leaving and noticed one of the four concrete ramps leading to the upper deck. The ramps had a clean, Art Deco look to them, looking very much like the sterns of four grand old ocean liners. The clean lines of the sunlit concrete, the deep shadows inside the walkways, and the beautifuly blue western sky all came together to present me with great photo opportunity.

And I'm glad I took it, with whatever camera I had with me - which turned out to be my Canon A40 2MP point-and-shoot.

The image looks great on-screen and as a print up to about 6" by 8". But when I tried to print it recently at 8x10, it just wouldn't hold up - the even tone in the sky shows too much pixelation. So I figured I'd go back and re-shoot some day using my 6MP Digital Rebel. All I'd need is a nice morning with a good blue sky.

But there's a fly in this ointment - the ramps just don't exist any more! I discovered this weekend that the stadium is undergoing reconstruction and expansion, and those beatiful ramps have been demolished. I don't know if they'll be back in the new design.

The moral of this story is that when you see something worthwhile photographing, shoot it while you can, shoot it now!

As Elvis would have said, "tomorrow - may be too late - it's now or never!"