Egg Timer – © John Neel

When I was first learning how to take pictures, I used one of these to get me out of the car when driving around looking for something to photograph.

It is called an egg timer or a sand glass. The basic idea is that you flip it upside down and when all of the sand empties into the bottom, you stop the car and get out. Normally a good well-made egg timer will give you a full three minutes. Although, I guess there are different kinds of sand timers that might also give other intervals of time.

To be honest, the three minutes is just a suggestion. You can use whatever timing you like. It might be that you use a song on the radio or your music device. Or, you might use every second red light, whenever you see a red car, or when you pass a coffee shop. It doesn’t really matter what you use as long as you get out of the car at reasonable intervals. The egg timer is simply one of many methods that can work.

I used to make a pact with myself that I would take at least one photograph before getting back into the car. The main reason that this simple idea works, is that it forces you to walk around a given location to find something interesting that you would likely miss if you just kept on driving. It is amazing how you begin to realize the smaller things and even the big things seen from a different perspective.

You might also use the timer as a way to limit the time you stay at a given spot.

Egg timers like the one shown are hard to find these days. Most things these days seem to require a digital interface. You might find one on eBay, a Dollar Store or at a garage sale. I bought mine a long time ago, like I said, when I was learning how to take photographs. If you can’t find an egg timer, I guess a stopwatch or a GPS might help you out. I imagine that if you look on the web, you might find a nice egg timer app for your iPhone, iPad, iPod. I’m sure there are any number of fun timing apps available. Personally, I like to keep things pretty simple. My egg timer does a great job and it doesn’t need batteries.

When I began shooting images, I had at least a few zoom lenses. The problem with zooms, is that it is too easy to stay in the car and/or shoot from a distance. I used to call zoom lenses “lazy lenses”. Eventually, I got rid of the zoom lenses and began taking fixed focal length lenses with me on my photographic jaunts. I have found that some of the best zoom lenses are your own two feet. Walking is the best way to see the world. Staying in your car is the wrong thing to do. I always find that the view is very different when I get out and walk. I lovingly refer to my egg timer as a “get your A## out of the D@%# car and see the world” device.

The biggest problem you’ll have, is finding a good safe spot to pull over.

FYI –

“The factors that control the period delineated by a sandglass have been systematically investigated. This form of interval timer (known since medieval times) depends on particle flow, which exhibits characteristics quite different from those of liquid flow. Thus, for example, the rate of flow is independent of the head of material in the reservoir, except for the last few centimetres. The particulate material need not be silica sand, but should be smooth and regular with grains of similar size: the vitreous spherical filler known as ballotini gave the most reproducible results. For a given volume of ballotini, the period is controlled by their size, the size of the orifice, and the shape of the reservoir. Provided the aperture is at least 5 the particle diameter, the period P is given by the expression where P is measured in seconds, V denotes the bulk volume of ballotini in ml, d the maximum bead diameter in mm as measured by sieve size, and D the diameter of a circular orifice in mm. The constant of proportionality K depends on the shape of the reservoir: the values for hourglass, coneand siloshaped vessels were found to be 7 10, 8 and 19 respectively. The presence of a horizontal annulus around the aperture considerably extends the period by reducing the rate of flow: K is of the order of 21 for such a construction. The internal flow regimes giving rise to this behaviour were pictured with the aid of 2D perspex models incorporating layers of coloured ballotini. The best 19 m 45 s glass exhibited a standard deviation of, but for sandglasses in general the variation could be up to . Any disturbance lengthened the period, but changes in temperature gave no observable effect within this margin of error.” – Author A A Mills, S Day and S Parkes Affiliations Department of Geology, The University, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK Journal

You can read about my book “Rethinking Digital Photography” here.

Please have a look at some of my other posts here.

NOTICE of Copyright: THIS POSTING AS WELL AS ALL PHOTOGRAPHS, GALLERY IMAGES, AND ILLUSTRATIONS ARE COPYRIGHT © JOHN NEEL AND ARE NOT TO BE USED FOR ANY PURPOSE WITHOUT WRITTEN CONSENT FROM THE WRITER, THE PHOTOGRAPHER AND/OR lensgarden.com. THE IDEAS EXPRESSED ARE THE PROPERTY OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER AND THE AUTHOR.