There is an adage of late in the photography world; the best camera is the one you have with you. I’m not exactly sure where this pithy saying came from. It’s not something I recall quoted from the mouths of Adams or Stieglitz, Karsh or Avedon, Capa or Nachtway. Photographer Chase Jarvis used it as the title of his 2009 book on cellphone photography. Perhaps he coined it. Granted, there’s some nice work in his book. But don’t you think he would have rather had a Hasselblad hanging off his neck instead of an iPhone in his pocket? What the author of this cliché meant to say, I think, is that you shouldn’t go out of the house without a loaded camera. Less you miss something special.
This certainly applies to nature and sound effect recordists too, right? I captured the clip below, the sound of steam seemingly coming out the walls of an upstart paper company, with a hand-held Sony PCM D100 recorder. To me, the sound was like a monster from another world breathing down into the Willamette River gorge. My higher-priced, better-sounding Sound Devices 702 rig was snug as a rug in a case far away. I wish I had the heavier shoulder-carried recorder and some nice mics, but I’m glad I had something. As a photojournalist, I was often asked if there was one photograph I took that I remembered the most?” My usual reply went something like it was the ones I missed that I remembered the most. I get the same sinking feeling now when I don’t have a recorder at hand and something cool goes down.
I’d love to hear your stories and tiny clips of interesting sounds you’ve captured only because you had a recorder at the ready. Or maybe educational stories about the sounds you’ve missed, and how you’re kicking yourself to this day.
Further reading:
- Read more here about Willamette Falls Paper Company in West Linn, Oregon. Paper has been produced at factories below the falls for over 130 years. This new company is making a go of it by using non-traditional fiber sources like hemp, and pulp from wheat straw. A future goal, according to their website, includes using recycled paper from the Portland metro area as a fiber source. Turns out, the sound I recorded last September, which I thought was pretty cool, was a sound the company did not want to hear. It meant the mill wasn’t running at 100-percent. If you’re in the papermaking business, steam energy escaping out the door, instead of running a mill, is never a good thing. It was a fleeting sound that is no doubt fixed. I’m glad I was ready for it.
