Shootin' the 'boo

The first time I ever heard of the concept of a lawsuit was in connection with bamboo. When I was about ten years old, my father had planted some bamboo near the property line of our house in the suburbs of Los Angeles, and apparently it had fared much better than expected. So much so, in fact, that a bunch of it had intruded into the neighbor's yard, and was growing out of control there as well. Our neighbor was not a bamboo fan, and threatened to sue if my father didn't get the situation under control in short order.

Funnily enough, we have a couple of areas on our property where bamboo grows. And I have found it to be very photogenic throughout its yearly life cycle. 

The first image was taken using a very old 50 mm Summicron on an original Leicaflex camera. This is the first reflex camera ever made by Leica in the mid 1960s and, with its external light meter window, looks a bit like a cyclops. It is also unique in the Leicaflex line for having a mirror lock up feature, which allows you to mount the 21 mm f/3.4 wide angle lens. This image was taken in late Spring, when the new growth is at its peak. I was pleasantly surprised with the high quality images produced by this combination.

The close up view below was taken using my beloved Rolleiflex SL66 and the 120 mm lens, my personal favorite optic for it. This image was made in the middle of the summer, when some of the bamboo had started to turn brown.

Maintaining bamboo is actually not that difficult if you meticulously attend to the new growth in the Spring and clear out the dead stuff in the late Fall. I've heard that venomous snakes like bamboo, but so far, I've not encountered any while making photographs.