70 Nebraskaland • November 2019
By Gerry Steinauer
GETTING BY
In early September, I was checking the plums on our tree in
the side yard when I noticed sap had dripped from a wound
on the trunk, forming a stalactite shape with great colors.
"Pretty neat," I thought. "I should take a photo of that."
Located low on the trunk, the sap was shaded from the
warm, photogenic morning and evening sunlight and even
the harsher mid-day sun. My problem: how to get light onto
the sap to make its varied colors shine?
I tried my camera's flash, but the light was too intense,
making the tree bark far too bright. My next thought was to
reflect sunlight onto the sap. I had recently lost my reflector,
so I grabbed the first, next best thing I could find that would
direct sunlight onto the sap – my Nebraska Game and Parks
25-year service award from a dresser top.
Shaped in the form of Nebraska, it had a shiny metallic
front. While I worked the camera, my wife reflected a narrow
stream of sunlight off the Panhandle onto the sap. No go. In
the photos, the sap had an odd shine. A remote flash with a
soft box was probably the solution to my problem, but I do not
own one. I would have to photograph the sap in the shade.
My other problem was the background, our lawn washed-
out in bright sunlight. This needed to disappear. In my closet
hung a dull, green Game and Parks T-shirt. Perfect.
I draped this over the back of a lawn chair to form
a shaded, neutral background and took my photos. They
turned out decent, not spectacular, but it was the best I could
do with the tools at hand and I "got by."
Gerry Steinauer is a botanist for the Nebraska Game and
Parks Commission.
THE LAST STOP
PHOTO
BY
GERRY
STEINAUER
