THE ART OF MAKING ADJUSTMENTS

Rex Burress

Artists know about making adjustments as they proceed in rendering a subject. The source of light may change, causing a shift in the composition to be made, sometimes aided by accidental run-offs, or a better idea may develop, resulting in a new start.

Hiking is like art when you have to maneuver around a landslide, or take a detour, or even wander onto a side trail that beckons to be explored. Such adjustments are usually beneficial as you make your way to a destination, and the pauses can lead to interesting discoveries more intriguing than the goal.

Photographers, especially in pre-digital times, knew about adjustments when exposure, speed, focus, and 'f'' stops had to be aligned manually. Even with modern magnificent automated versions, finding and framing the subject and shooting at the right time is critical.

The other day I had to make an adjustment to my neighborhood walking route. I usually pause at a neighbor's lovely little lawn under a strawberry madrone tree and do some stretches in front of the iron fencing. But a moving van roared to a stop across the street, and the fumes and noise moved me on. In an unplanned route, I found artistic cattails just begging to be photographed. You could call it accidental discoveries found in “chance encounters made by adjusted circumstances!”

Then there are the adjustments to life: babyhood, childhood, teenhood, adulthood, seniorhood, with a lot of other hoods mixed in there, all requiring adjustments like tuning a car and getting the setting-screws and balance right.

Animal and plant life is constantly making adjustments. During this age, alterations must be made when land becomes occupied with industries and agriculture. Wild occupants there are either displaced or adjust to new homesites, although some species really benefit from human-built housing and personalized food patches.

I think of a pair of robins that built their mud-and-grass nest on a noisy air-conditioner cover one summer at Oakland Feather River Camp. The busy kitchen clatter was a few feet away, but the birds raised their family undaunted in an ingenious site that scared predators away! You see similar constructions scattered throughout a civilized community.

Bluebirds, and like-it-or-not, English sparrows and starlings, are eager to accept provisional bird houses, and a pair of Stellar Jays liked a bird house so much at Berry Creek, and since the hole was too small for them to enter, they built their nest on top! You can see that nest in the Feather River Nature Center, as well as several other types of nests--including the bag-like bushtit nest and a thimble-sized hummingbird mossy masterpiece to hold the two egg-pearls. A pair of Anna's built their nest on the chain holder of my porch swing one year! Every species has its own nest design.

Cliff swallow swarms flourish under sheltering bridges and on buildings where they can plaster their mud nests. When the addition was added on to Oroville High School, the archway was quickly adopted by swallows, which becomes a ground-keeper's dilemma. At Sonoma College, nests and 'filthy' droppings were washed off until students protested.

Any fisherman knows the importance of location and the correct lures. A series of adjustments are needed to get it right, perhaps even going to the other side of the bridge!

Some of the greatest adjustments have occurred in prehistoric times when organisms were floundering in evolution, making million-year adjustments to fit into ecological niches. Out of that morass came us, I think, still making adjustments today as we try to adjust to climatological changes and to the latest technological updates!

“All biological phenomena act to adjust: there are no biologic actions other than adjustments. Adjustment is another name for equilibrium. Equilibruim is the universal, or that which has nothing external to derange it.”

--Charles Fort

“Life is like adjustment of a camera: calculate the exposure, focus on the subject, develop the image, and if you don't succeed, just take another shot.”

“ Webster Partnerships: Adjustment; 'the act or process of adjusting [to bring to a more satisfactory state].' Adaptation; 'the act or process of adapting [to make fit often by modification].”