I don't think the heat is getting so much worse, I think I'm getting older and the very basics of aging mean it's harder to carry around a big camera and withstand high heat. When I was younger I often ran the five mile lake loop in the late afternoons in August. Sometimes in conditions that seem insane to me now. One day I ran the loop and when I got back to my car an sat for a few minutes with the air conditioning blasting I listened to a favorite local radio commentator who mentioned that it was currently 105°. In the next minute he told his audience he was going out for a run after the broadcast. Why? In the hottest part of the day? "Because, the trail is far less crowded. Nobody else is crazy enough to run in this heat..."
For the last ten years I've been out walking around with a camera through most of the Summer's wretched excess. Back then my line in the sand was a "feels like" temperature (heat index) of 105°, anything higher than that got me back into air conditioning and skipping the melting point insanity.
Everyone told me that I'd be less able to handle hot environments when I got older. I didn't believe them. I didn't want to believe them. I thought I could go on ignoring common sense for... well, a long time.
But this Summer seems different. It's not that I couldn't survive the heat it's just that too much heat isn't fun anymore. I think we age in spurts no matter what our best intentions are to try and hold the effects of aging back. A faltering at around 40. A slow down at 70. Another drop at 80 and so on. But each person starts at a different level of fitness and resilience. If one is sedentary, eating poorly, plagued by chronic conditions they are starting out at a much lower level of fitness to begin with compared to a healthy marathon runner of the same age. A fit seventy year old might be in better shape than an average 40 year old (and have less stress into the bargain) so that gives all of us something to aim for. But we'll all decline at some point.
I'll be seventy in October. This is the first Summer I can remember; maybe the first time I can remember, that I grabbed a camera, hopped into my car, headed downtown and looking at the outside temp gauge on my dashboard (100°) said, "fuck it!" and headed back home. I surrendered partly because I knew that carrying around a heavy camera in that heat, combined with the heat sink properties of all the blacktop running criss cross through downtown, amplified by dozens of reflective buildings bouncing the sun back into the mix, would be no fun and could be...actually...dangerous. A negative "bonus" that affected my decision was the fact that there weren't any people anywhere walking downtown and it's hard to photograph when there are no subjects.
I felt foolish to have wasted half an hour only to come home feeling defeated by the elements. But, on the other hand, I didn't suffer the heat load and physical stress of trying too hard for too little reward.
I pulled up to the house and grabbed my shiny, black camera off the passenger's seat. I walked into the house and luxuriated in the 74° air conditioning. The 40% humidity. The comfort of a it all. I pulled some iced tea out of the fridge and thought about all of this.
Remedy? Tomorrow I'll get busy earlier. Like right after swim practice. When the "mercury" has yet to crest 90°. When people are getting their stuff done early as well. Out of the heat. Like sane people.
This is where I make the case on the blog that I need to have a chrome/silver finished camera with a silver finished lens on it. So it reflects heat. So it doesn't transfer heat to the electronics inside. And just like that I can rationalize a limited edition, silver SL2 or a silver M240. So, something good came of this truncated exercise today after all....
blog note. the near relentless accrual of massive page views here seems to have subsided. I was noodling around in Google Analytics and found that my current total pageviews have crested 92 million. Wow! That's just insane. But I guess nearly 18 years of daily typing tends to attract some readers over time.
I just wish I knew how to make better use of this...
that's the look of a beleaguered runner in mid-Summer.
At least the trail around the lake has tree cover in many places.
And if you get too overheated you can always jump in the lake to cool off...
the hat brims are getting bigger this year. And the sunscreen is getting stronger...
Virtual desert? Naw. The weather here is more like the tropics these days.
Still my favorite hat. Not my best hat but my favorite.
Somewhere out in New Mexico. Where it can also get quite hot.
Get some altitude and at least the humidity calms down.
Swims going well. Back in that groove.
In the heat I take a small, light colored camera bag with me.
I keep my black camera with its black lens in the bag until
I'm ready to shoot. And I stuff it back in when I move on.
that's a fat, western Haiku.
8 comments:
You know the old saying, 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." It's bull.
I too feel hotter with direct sun exposure, approaching my 80th birthday, much hotter than I felt in my mid-60s. I have not read an explanation for why my skin feels hotter. I do not seem to sweat less so it is not less evaporative heat loss. We lose fat, muscle and other tissues, particularly in our extremities, probable due to compromised blood circulation, but I cannot connect this to the feeling like my skin is burning in the sunlight. It is uncomfortable and I forego lots of physical activity in the direct sun that I used to do. My recent facial Mohs treatment also makes me shy away from sun exposure.
"I think we age in spurts". According to a recent article, in New Scientist magazine, you are correct. Apparently, we don't gradually decline but experience marked drops. Every time, I struggle out of bed, I think I'm going through another one and then I recover. Unlike you, I tend to run in the evening simply to avoid direct sunlight. Totally agree about the need for lighter cameras. I'm making do with an EOS RP because it is small and relatively light. Hope your recovery from surgery is going well. Andrew (in very rainy London)
Excellent points! We need to buy all the cameras we have in silver. I’m explaining this to my wife…
Years ago on DPReview, I posted a question in a Nikon DSLR group. I asked what was the smallest gear you would use if age or injury forced you to stop using your 35mm system. Most of the answers were some version of Charlton Heston’s “from my cold dead hands” speech. As for me, my outdoor event camera is my FZ1000. My m43 gear is my “big rig”. Age, asthma and air quality require adjustments.
I’m still adapting to the heat here in Texas, the move from New Hampshire in 2022 was a rude awakening. In NH they run a red warning crawl on the morning TV news when the temps are expected to be 90 or higher.
I’ve always preferred shooting on the shoulders of the day, but here it’s almost a necessity for much of the year. I slip out just before first light and am back home before things heat up too much.
Same. Ouch. That one hurts.
Ken, the Texas heat and humidity is very much an acquired taste. Welcome to the oven...
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