Happy Camera Day

Night sky photos & an ode to my Canon camera

Happy National Camera Day, friends!

Let’s take a moment to admire the wonder of the cameras we carry in our pockets that allow us to snap an image anytime, anywhere. No film, flashcubes, or Fotomat needed. Wow, has tech changed since I was a little kid sneaking my parents’ Kodak Instamatic to take blurry close-ups of flowers in the backyard. I still remember the lecture on wasting film. The digital age has been a blessing for me, profligate image maker that I’ve always been. I still mourn the death of the my Panasonic Lumix that slipped into the back pocket of my jeans and zoomed a crazy 700 mm and sported a “glass-through” mode captured the wildlife and mountains through my living room windows in remarkable detail. Panasonic doesn’t even make that sort of camera anymore, and my iPhone mini camera doesn’t come close. But in 2020 I bought an entry level Canon APSC camera with interchangeable lenses. And the rest, as they say, is history.

I upgraded to a full-frame Canon in October 2023, and in January 2024 I wrote an ode to my Canon EOS R8 camera and all the mysteries it allows me to capture after dark. That seems the perfect poem to share today along with photos from the early hours of April 18th that I haven’t shared with you yet.

If you’re in the mood for more of my photos, accompanied by poems from 18 of the poets in my new anthology More Poemographs for Peace, join our virtual launch tomorrow night, June 30th 6 p.m. PDT. Email me for the link: cathy@cathywarner.com.

And send some love your camera’s way today.

April 18th solar storm just after midnight from my balcony
I was in the throes of preparing to lead the 5 Day Academy for Spiritual Formation when I photographed a beautiful solar storm, complete with a faint green “picket fence” aurora [bottom row, left photo, left side] and the phenomenon known as STEVE [bottom row first two photos; this is the view to the west.] I didn’t edit the photos until much later. Here they finally are. Enjoy!

Ode to My Canon EOS R8 Camera

You’re the one I reach for after dark.
Compact container of electronics and ephemera,
you accompany me under the night sky.
Fastened to a cobalt blue tripod
you stand sentinel, still and steady
as the great blue heron fishing
the river channel not far from us.

I praise your illuminated touchscreen,
your intervalometer that allows
infinite thirty-second exposures,
your adjustable ISO that intensifies
inklings of ancient light. And I bow
before your perceptive partner,
pre-owned Rokinon lens whose wide-open
aperture amplifies astral light
revealing constellations obscured
by halogen beacons of human industry
that so often blind us to black.

Full-frame friend, I marvel
when you reveal glowing
masses of gasses, our braided
milky river, sliver of galaxy led
by the dark horse nebula
galloping the cosmos in season.

And I love you even when wrapped
in silky clouds that negligee
the silent sky obscuring
the lens’ usual objects of desire,
nights when lights from Lucky Dog
Casino cast eerie orange orbs over
estuary waters.

After hours I touch your cooling
case, cap your all-seeing eye
collapse your legs, and we venture
inside where I free the vaulted
treasure of your memory card
to gaze in wonder at the magic
you have conjured before my eyes.

A mashup of night sky photos from May & June. Upper left is at Fort Casey State Park Campground. Upper right is at Alder Lake. All other photos taken from my balcony.