1000 words

If you’ve been paying attention at all, it’s rather obvious that I like to take pictures. When I go caching, I like to take my camera along. I don’t necessarily use it all the time, but I like to have it just in case. Sometimes, I get burned, when I’ve seen something especially cool, but don’t have the camera. I’ve even lamented about not having the camera along in a couple of logs.

As noted in another post, I’ll use my camera to cause a distraction in case muggles are paying close attention to me. But even though I’m using it as a distraction, I’m always thinking about how the picture could be used in the log that I’ll write about the cache find. Sometimes, the picture itself, will help tell the story of the cache find, and other times, the picture is there just because of something I saw, that I might not mention in the story, but thought it might make a nice looking shot.

When I first started caching, I had a 35mm camera so I most of the time I would only take the camera along when I knew I was going to end a roll of film and get them developed quickly after that. Then I had to scan the pictures and then upload them. I have a grand total of 5 pictures in my caching gallery that are pre-digital. Since going digital in late 2002, I have taken quite a few pictures. Some, as I looked through the gallery in anticipation of this article, made me think, whatdafuh was I thinking when I took that picture? Others, I’ve gotten lucky to be in the right place at the right time and others I’ve worked exceedingly hard to get the right shot. It’s probably like that with any photographer.

I’d wanted to go digital for awhile before actually getting my first digital camera, but I know one of the reasons I finally made the plunge was locationless caches. Locationless, or reverse caches are those caches where you had to find something, a specific object somewhere in the world, and then log it on the cache page. Geocaching.com relates it to a scavenger hunt and has since discontinued them, moving them over to Waymarking.com. Locationless caches usually involved taking a picture and uploading it with your log. Without a digital camera, it would be very hard to log a locationless cache, so that sort of pushed me over the edge into the digital camp. I now have almost 600 pictures taken digitally that I’ve posted in many of my logs.

Pictures enhance logs, in my opinion. It would probably be possible to take a picture at every cache you found, but that might prove to be impractical, unless you wanted to post spoiler pictures for every lamppost cache that you found. I’m sure cache owners wouldn’t be too pleased with that. I found when I take pictures, there are some times that I just hit delete when I get home. I took a lot of pictures on my road trip and when I got home and looked at some of them, I thought to myself, Eh, that one really doesn’t need to be posted. So it got deleted. And that’s ok. As I noted above, I really should have deleted some of the ones that I actually did post.

Sometimes when I take pictures on caching trips, it’s for the historical nature of the area. Most of the photos on the road trip fell into this category. Other times, the flora and fauna are just too spectacular to pass up. I’ll see some flowers and then get on a roll and it seems like that’s all I have are flowers. Other times it will seem like all I have are little scurrying creatures of some sort. Sometimes the pictures bring a bit of whimsy to my life and so I want to share them with others who read the logs. And of course, many pictures help tell the story.

A picture really is worth a 1000 words. Right now I’m averaging 114 words per log according to INATN. I can’t imagine how long my logs would be if I hadn’t brought my camera along for the ride.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:

Hofert's Walls #1 - by bookishblondie and LegoIan
Carpe Diem! - by HaZzMaTt
Bridge of Sighs - by TRUROKR
Walk of Fame - by Dru Morgan
A Slanted View with a Gentle Breeze - by TheDeviousMaxPower

Distractions

I like to cache, usually with other people because with more than one person, it’s usually easy to make distractions so that the other one can make the grab on a cache that might be in one of those muggle prone areas. But what do I do when I’m caching all alone? Tying your shoe can only work so many times, as does talking on your “GPS cell phone.” That’s one of the reasons why I usually bring my camera along. Photographers can get into some interesting places with a camera, just because they can explain themselves away as trying to get a different angle on a particular subject.

As I was looking over my gallery of photos, I realized that some of my more interesting shots have come because I was using my camera as a distracter. Today, I went out to find a travel bug hotel, but ended up abandoning the hunt because of a couple of muggles across the street from where the cache was hidden. They weren’t going to move away and even when I got out my camera, they kept looking over at me to see what I was doing. I got a very interesting shot of a bee on some wildflowers, but the muggles didn’t want to budge from their spot so I left, found four other caches and came back later. The muggles had moved away and I was able to make the grab quite easily then.

Caches hidden near fountains and sculptures provide excellent photography spots to use your camera as a distracter while you search. The fountain pictured had all sorts of interesting little sculptures around it and I had a great time taking pictures of them while searching for the cache. I particularly liked the one I got of the guy trying to lift the cement slab up. You can almost see him straining to lift the piece of concrete.

Earlier this year, I was driving down from Northern California when I happened to take a break from driving to find a couple of caches in this small town. As luck would have it, I ended up getting to ground zero about fifteen minutes before a church service started across the street from where the cache had been placed. I could see the cache, but there was a very small chance of success in retrieving the cache at that time due to the high amount of muggles in the area. It was then I spotted this beautiful water tower, so I decided to walk the half block down to the water tower and get a couple of pictures, figuring as long as I was here, I could probably get a Water Tower Waymark along with the cache. By the time I came back after walking around the block, church was in session and I was able to make the grab quickly, without any muggle interference.

I’ve used two different kinds of cameras when I’ve gone caching in the past. My first digital camera was one of those point and shoot varieties. It took great pictures, and its small size made it easy to carry around. However, it was one more thing that I had to carry around in my hands, because it didn’t have a neck strap like my current camera does. My current camera, a SLR digital, has a neck strap so I don’t have to have it in my hands when I’m out caching, but it is a little bulkier than the point and shoot. Either one worked well as another type of distraction to dissuade muggles that I really wasn’t up to no good, so it’s probably a personal preference as to which one you choose. By taking your camera with you when you cache, you can give yourself another option with which to search for caches. It will also give you some pleasant memories of the place where you cached, that probably won’t fade as quickly if you’d just retained them in your mind.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:

Kellogg Hill TB Hotel - Just up from "My Town" - by jcworshipper clan
The Plaza - by juniperb
Power Me Up! - by mountain_mmike