Taiwan - Taiping Suspension Bridge, Fog Shot from Side

Taiwan - Taiping Suspension Bridge, Cloud Cover

The good thing about being in a cloud on a bridge is that those up front disappear and you seemingly end up having the place to yourself.  Observing that there was nobody behind me, I slowed down to capture these people-less fog shots.  The one above is continuing ahead; the one below is after crossing and looking back:

Taiwan - Taiping Suspension Bridge, Cloud Break

Along about in the middle of the bridge a break in the clouds suddenly appeared, showing the valley below.  Didn't last long but captured what I could...

Taiwan - Taiping Suspension Bridge, Initially Crossing

Here you can see the family beginning to cross.  After snapping a few I hopped on and thought I'd join them, but never did because the Bigger Cahoona and I kept finding things to capture.

Below we were a little further along on the bridge.  After cropping to left found this to be one of my favorite fog shots:

Taiwan - Taiping Suspension Bridge, Entrance Sign

One day we decided to go to the Taiping Suspension Bridge.  This is an interesting experience not just because it's a cool bridge, but also because the of the road getting there; it is officially County Road 162 but commonly known as the Taiping 36-Bends Road because of the hairpin turns.  The original background color of the sign above was dark brown with off-white lettering, but I got to playing and photoshopically transformed it to my liking.

We arrived to find a well-worn tourist spot, but interesting nonetheless.  There was general disappointment because, as you can see below, the entire valley over which it crossed was shrouded in a cloud.  Didn't bother me - I was eager to dive in and get some good fog shots.

Taiwan - Kaohsiung Buddhist Museum, Bus-Shaped Restroom

Interesting to conclude a series on a religious shrine with this kind of photo, but thought it was clever how they dressed up the bathroom to look like a bus.

Next stop - a suspension bridge near Zhuqi township.

Taiwan - Kaohsiung Buddhist Museum, Flower Bud / Before-and-After Series

This was captured at the entrance to the Great Hall, where the wood carving was.

There's something soothing, calming, about sitting down and cleaning up a photo, making it look better than it was before, and time flies while absorbed in such an exercise.  The original pic is below:

The first time I learned how to use the clone stamp to change something in a photo I stayed up until almost three o'clock in the morning getting it just right.  And if you're removing something, what's behind it has to be painstakingly cloned into place from the surrounding scenery.  That was in 2003, and even then I had in mind to do a before-and-after series of some sort.  Click on the photo below to enlarge, then use the arrow keys to toggle back and forth.

Before:

After:

Later, when I'd had a little practice, a picture from Zedler Mill was doctored to remove the power lines and a log that had fallen into the creek, among other improvements.  This was in 2008.

Before:

After:

Taiwan - Kaohsiung Buddhist Museum, Pagoda Walkway

Nothing spectacular about this shot, really - just thought it'd make a nice panorama-like photo...

Taiwan - Kaohsiung Buddhist Museum, Bell Tower #3 / More Tinker Stories

[continued from yesterday's post]

Yes, Tinker was a hoot to be around and we loved hearing his stories.  Some sounded fantastical, but over the years he never wavered in the telling, and the facts remained consistent each time they were told.

There was another one from the Great War.  They were about to cross a river in the Battle of the Bulge in tanks, one of which was to be driven by Tinker.  During the pre-briefing they asked for volunteers to be in the first wave and Tinker's hand went up.  A risk taker, Tinker said he always wanted to be the first into danger.

So the time came, and off they went to battle.  Tinker went into great detail on the topography, enemy positions, and the difficulties they faced as they traversed the waterway.  When they finally did get across, his tank was in front of everyone else's and he stepped on the gas to pick up speed.  During this run toward the German defenses they were hit by mortar fire.

Tinker described the huge noise and bright flash as the tank was hit right where the turret was connected to the body of the vehicle.  He, as the driver, was positioned down low, between the treads, so almost immediately experienced a rain of shrapnel from the exploded round, shredded tank parts, and body parts from his buddies that were in other parts of the tank.  He was the only survivor.

After the initial shock of being hit, Tinker, once he realized that he was alive, knew he had to get out of there pronto.  Through the newly-made hole created by the mortar round above him, he picked his way through the shredded mess, trying to avoid touching any flesh from his tankmates, one of whom was torn almost exactly in half.

Once they saw the movement of someone who'd survived, the Allies, who had been taking up the rear, engaged in a fierce firefight to cover for Tinker - and others from other crippled tanks - so he wouldn't be blown to bits as he struggled to exit.  Finally he made it back to friendlier territory and lived to tell his stories to softies like us decades later.

One day while at Tinker's house he pulled out a box with some old medals, some of his own from wartime experiences and some from others.  We were sitting on his living room floor when he pulled one out, explaining that when they liberated a town in Germany they were parading down the street, which was lined with thankful residents.  One woman stopped him, and in appreciation a daughter that was with her gave him the medal that he'd handed me to look at.  Turns out the girl was a twin, and the medal had been given to her personally by Adolf Hitler.  He gave Teutonic twins these medals as awards for contributing doubly to the purity of the race that he sought to proliferate.

Another story he used to tell, one which interested me even more than his war stories, took place when he was a kid about six years of age.  They were raised up in northeast Texas, and one day Tinker and his older brother were out shooting rabbits for the family supper when they chanced upon a couple with their car way out in the middle of nowhere.  As they approached the clearing Tinker saw the man shaving, using the mirror of the car.  The woman was leaning against the car looking at something in her hand (a pistol).

Tinker and his brother froze into place, watching and wondering who these people were, when after a minute or so the man noticed them standing there at the edge of the clearing.  Suddenly he jerked up, face still half-covered with shaving cream.  He opened the door of the car, pulled out a Tommy gun, and asked gruffly who they were and how did they get there?!?  His female companion stared at them with mouth agape.  Tinker's brother managed to peep that they were just out hunting rabbits, and the man replied that they had better get out of there NOW and if they said anything to anyone everyone would die.  Both kids managed a hasty retreat and ran all the way back home.

When they told their mother what happened, she turned white and locked all the doors and windows, for none other than BONNIE AND CLYDE had just been robbing banks in the Dallas area!

These and many more stories, and all of the history that was locked into Tinker's experiences, prompted me to encourage him to either write them down or tape them verbally using a cassette recorder.  He liked the idea, so one day I brought an old tape recorder to his house.  We set up a studio of sorts in a closet, I turned the machine to record and started asking questions, beginning with early childhood.  We anticipated doing a series of these for an undetermined length of time so were in no hurry to get to the war or some of the other events of his adulthood.  Very unfortunately, however, after our first session Tinker's wife, Lena, got cold feed about the project and what it might do to him mentally, so it was ground to a halt after just the first one.  Even today I cringe at the opportunity lost, but fortunately have been able to preserve that one recording.

Taiwan - Kaohsiung Buddhist Museum, Bell Tower #2 / Dead Germans and the Christmas Feast

This post from ten years ago mentions one of the most fascinating people we've ever met; his name was Cletus B. "Tinker" Slatter.  He was a combat veteran of WWII, but unlike many veterans Tinker enjoyed talking about his time overseas and the battles he helped fight.  And rather than describe events with a grim demeanor, he saw most of it with a sense of humor.

For example, during the Battle of the Bulge, which went on for weeks, he got so tired of being there - in the cold, dirty trenches where being on constant alert frazzled the mind - that he actually stood up, met the eyes of a German across the way, raised his foot where the guy could see it and vigorously pointed.  He was inviting the German to go ahead and shoot his foot so he could qualify to go into the hospital and get out of that miserable place.  His enemy, partially submerged in his own trench manning a machine gun, simply laughed and shook his head, not giving in to the request.

Another time Tinker and his fellow soldiers were marching through the cold and snowy countryside when they came upon a farmhouse, long abandoned because of the war, and spied a chicken wondering around the yard.  It was Christmas day, so they decided to catch that chicken and cook themselves a Christmas dinner.

After building a fire out there in the yard they caught it, killed it and plucked its feathers, eagerly anticipating the first fresh meat to be had in months.  Trouble was, there was no place to sit.

During an earlier battle that was fought there the grounds were littered with dead Germans, frozen solid in all kinds of grotesque positions.  Then an idea hit..."Why not?"  So, as if gathering logs, Tinker and his comrades collected enough frozen dead Germans to arrange around the fire.  Then they sat on them, using them as benches while Christmas dinner finished cooking.

They'd just started eating when they heard a buzz, and within seconds recognized the sound as a Messerschmitt approaching fast.  Very tired and without time to even react, they watched as the plane went into a shallow dive, expecting to be strafed any moment as they sat using the pilot's dead, frozen comrades as benches.  But to their amazement and surprise, the guy leveled out at 50 feet and actually made eye contact as he flew by, wagging his wings on the way back up, disappearing in the distant sky.

Thus it was that Tinker and his men not only were able to enjoy a rare treat for Christmas, but lived to see another day thanks to a Christmas reprieve granted from a very unexpected gesture of goodwill on that special day.