Way too much of an adventure for me!!!

LaFoto

Just Corinna in real life
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All in the way of photography...

I left home early this morning in order to see and maybe also capture the sunrise, even though it promised to be of the same kind that I had already captured yesterday morning (nicely, I might add) - a cloudless one.

All the same: I was on my way. Countryside, maybe a deer or a rare bird, those were my ideas. Lovely colours, hopefully, too. So first I went along narrow country roads but found it hard to really pull over to the side whenever I saw something nice. I pulled into a dirt track and it took me past a large farm yard and further into the fields. I managed to get some photos, that I then hoped would be nice, and carried on following that dirt track.

It lead me to the edge of the woods and at that point I thought, you better turn around here and go back. But something not normal (!) told me: try this path - it might as well lead you to a nearby road. So I went into the wood with nothing but my very normal smallest 3-series BMW ... with very bad :blushing: tyres :blushing:. The path, however, soon felt like I would have been MUCH better off with a 4-wheel drive off-roader. But there was NO way I could turn.

Well, I ended at this... what looked like a cross"roads" --- a "cross-muddy-paths" it was at the most. And then what had to happen happened. I got totally and completely and very deeply stuck. Any attempts on my own to free myself by digging out the tyres and by putting twigs underneath were to no avail - my tyres are so bad (please don't tell the police! I've got myself an appointment at the garage already!), they did not get any grip at all.

So I decided I would need help. To try and call someone was no use: I had NO IDEA where I was. What could I have said to whoever (no one would have occurred to me, anyway) I would have called where to find me?

I walked.
Towards that farm that I had seen on the way out.
And I was lucky. The farmer agreed to come all that way out and into the woods with me with his tractor to pull my BMW out of the mud. First time for me to ride on the side of a tractor, actually, and then he devised a scheme of how he could pull and move the car - and it required quite some logistics and tractor-manoevering knowledge on his side to place his vehicle so he could effectively pull and not do harm to my car.

I am home.
Typing this.
Which shows that we managed to get me out of there.
Now I have NO IDEA at all how to say Thank you to that farmer. I did say thank you in words of course, admitting that just saying so would never suffice to express my gratitude, but he wiped it all off with a movement of his hand. As if it were nothing. I took his name and address and said I might send him one of my photos. The bad thing is: none of them really came out as nicely as I had thought or hoped. There is not one there that I would deem printworthy, let alone enlarge-worthy... Hm... What can I do?

From now on I will always WALK into the woods and NEVER EVER assume any longer that a path as inconspicuous as the one I took today would take me to any larger country road, and I will turn round as soon as my inner voice tells me "You better turn round here"!!! :blushing: :blushing: :blushing:
 
:D This sounds very familiar :D I also went at some point to find new places to hopefully meet new animals and birds and found a nice parking area besides a wood road which seemed to be nice slightly sandy area under the forest so I pulled over, went and took pictures for a while (the b&w piper photo is from that time) and when I got back and started to manuver my car I also got stuck as it came out that part of the sand area was actually pure sand for about 1m and I just slided into it all the way until the front of my car was in level with the sand. No use of anything as 60% of the tires was below sand.

After digging for about 45 minutes someone finally drove past and stopped. Luckily there were two guys in the car and after thinking for 5 minutes we devised a nice plan :D We used the method one normally uses to change tires, we lifted tyre by tyre out of the sand using a lifting jack. Then we put some pieces of wood under the tires and I was able to back out of the sand :) After 1.5h I was free again :D I also thanked the guys and also found no nice way of really thanking them for pulling over like this.
 
"Listen to the voices!"


It takes quite a lot of practice and getting stuck a lot to learn how to get out of that kind of situation on your own! Glad to hear you're OK & no damage to the car Lafoto! You're both quite lucky really! Round here people would just drive past without stopping and any of the farmers would want money to pull you out!


Whenever I go out at night to photograph the stars I tell my wife where I'm going and leave an OS orienteering map out with the location marked on. That way if there's a problem or the car won't start she can get her brother or father to come out to me! (giving her directions including the un-named and un-marked lanes over the phone is not an option!:lol: )
 
Too much of adventure for being all alone, Corinna!! Glad you got out of it all right. :shock:

My husband is always wanting to do the exact same thing, almost to deliberately getting lost, I think. We've always made a point of getting off the beaten path to take pictures (the web site name is tongue in cheek) ;) but sometimes you DO need to know when to turn around.

He just tried it again when we were out in Utah last week, middle of nowhere, with no cell phone service in the area. Wanted to follow a rutted out dirt road that promised some creek about 8 miles in. I looked at the tires on our rental car and after about 4 miles in, said "We're turning around NOW!". :lol:

It was a wild, lonely area where we saw NO ONE. We did take some shots out there, haven't developed all the film yet. ;)

Oh, and since you can't send the nice farmer a picture from that adventure, you could either send him another of your shots, or just a thank you note letting him know you appreciate his kindness. :)
 
I made up my mind: Yes, I'll get another of my photos enlarged and will send him that along with a bottle of the finest spirit there is in the area ... he really gave me far too much of his time and energy and all for only a Thank You in words!!!

To give you an idea of what did come out of my session (before I went into the wood, in there I had totally lost my nerve to photograph ANYTHING any more, not even the rescue action) - after some after-processing - here you can have some examples. Nothing makes me overly happy, mind:

A1_Osterloh.jpg

This one shows the two farms in the background, the large and the small one to the left, which is that farmer's yard who came out to help me. (The spot in the sky is a falling leaf... if I knew how, I'd get rid of it, but I don't).

A2_Osterloh.jpg

Mind: it was very early in the morning, around 8 or so. Not much later than that!

And a black-and-white-conversion of the same:
A2_Osterloh_bw.jpg


And one more of the countryside bathed in golden morning sun:
A3_Osterloh.jpg
 
nice countryside :) I can help you with the leaf :) As from previous experience I hope you don't mind me reposting the pic in question:
A1_Osterloh.jpg


If you want I can help to remove the leaf also from the original so you can have it enlarged etc... If so, just send me a private note and then we can agree on how to change files :)
 
toruonu said:
If you want I can help to remove the leaf also from the original so you can have it enlarged etc... If so, just send me a private note and then we can agree on how to change files :)

Oh. Goodie! I don't mind your edition AT ALL.

And hey, was going to ask you if I could send you the big file, and here you are saying that I can. Thanks in advance. I might use this one for him, for it shows his farm in the background. Though I quite like my b+w conversion. Those with the knowledge (which is not ME, not even what paths that my 3-series BMW can manage are concerned :roll: ) might know if it is any good.
 
I like that B&W conversion a lot, LaFoto. Looks like you have some lens flare in there, which I always seem to find very effective. :thumbup:

Just from that image alone, I'd say the outing wasn't a total wash. ;)
 
oh Corinna... that is why I love photography - you never know how it will end up... in a mud or with a farmer and his tractor.... :)
 
mentos_007 said:
you never know how it will end up... in a mud or with a farmer and his tractor.... :)

Not the same as in the hay in a barn!:blushing: :sexywink:

Sorry!:blushing:

I really like the 4th shot & think it'd look great enlarged & in a nice frame!:thumbup: And a good bottle would be very well received as well i think!

It's very nice to see people being kind to each other & re-paying gratitude! Maybe I should move to Germany!
 
Update:

This morning I went back to this farmer's place with a bottle of finest wheat brandy and the black+white conversion as enlargement in a frame to give him my proper thanks for his help last Wednesday. When I arrived, I could see him bring food into his cow sheds. But he stopped and greeted me and I showed him my thank-you presents. He seemed a little embarrassed and most of all obviously was busy feeding the cows, so he asked me, would I please bring the things to the house, there was his wife, so I could introduce myself to her.
Followed by his very playful Golden Retriever pup, I went up to the house and knocked and his wife opened and said, Oh, YOU are the one!
And she, too, stressed that none of this would have been necessary, of course, but "She would not have got out there by herself, my husband said!"
So she accepted my presents and thank yous and let me go with the words: "So next time you need help, you know where to call, right?"

Isn't that nice????
(By the way, do you all know that you are very much into a secret of mine here? None in my family knows about this adventure to this day and I don't think I'm ever going to tell them. It is just too embarrassing.... :blushing: )
 
What's embarrasing about it?

I thought about how I would react if it was my wife who got stuck & I would be really proud and impressed that she had the nerve to attempt to drive down a difficult track & even after getting stuck, still had the nerve and prescence of mind to ask for help at a farm, and get it too! All on her own!

I think you had very good command over the situation and handled it very well!:thumbup:
 
Adventures like that are priceless. We have all been there. I think the key is to learn from the experience. Plus it looks like you got some amazing shots.

People who work the land are particular group. Since they have such a nice location maybe you could visit often?
 

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