Getting lost in the moment

Two weeks ago I decided to head out in the early morning to September morn beach here on Bowen Island. I have never been to this particular beach but had heard great things about it and I was desperate to get out and make some photos.

I got there at 08h00 which was a little later than I had hoped since sunrise was at 07h15. However I was not disappointed. The tide was in and the beach area was therefore relatively small. The light was unusual. The sun was hidden behind mist which covered the ocean and the beach was bathed in a soft warm filtered light. I was alone, so I put my camera bag down and immediately felt drawn to a rocky outcrop with some driftwood on it. While I started to frame some test shots I heard a ferry blasting it fog horn in the distance.

Suddenly a series of waves appeared out of nowhere. I need to explain something here. Bowen Island is located in Howe Sound which is sheltered to such and extend that the sea looks more like a lake than an ocean. Waves of any size are pretty rare. However, I did not reckon with the wake of a large ferry. All of a sudden I found myself in the ocean with this series of six or seven large waves crashing into the driftwood on the beach. Since I was busy framing my first shot as the waves started rolling in, I simply kept shooting while I tried to move up the beach to get out of the water. I am very pleased with the results and will probably add one of the series of images to the 4th dimension limited edition series.

I was so taken with the moment and carried away in shooting images that I did not even think of my camera bag. When the moment had passed I lowered my camera, took a look at my shoes and pants that were soaked and turned around to pick up my bag when I realized that it had disappeared together with my 16-45mm wide angle zoom which was in it. The magnitude of what had just happened sank in with a cold sweat when I noticed the now very wet bag lying high up on the beach.

My preferred bag for landscape shooting is a “Crumpler” shoulder bag. It is small, tough and lightweight. It is just big enough for my camera, one lens and my filters. The bag closes with a flap and Velcro pad and has no zipper, so it is not waterproof even if the material it is made of is water resistant.

I was convinced that the lens was destroyed by the salt water. I grabbed the bag and opened it, and to my utter amazement found the lens and my filters with nothing but a few drops of water on them. The bag had protected them from the impact of being tossed onto the driftwood and from the salt water.

The moral of the story is this. If you want to get lost in the moment, get a good camera bag…

Up close and personal with a tree

On Friday I picked up a new Pentax D-FA 100mm f2.8 macro lens. I have been playing with it for the last few days. On Saturday afternoon I took my son (he got a compact digital camera from Santa in December) and we headed into the forest near Killarney Lake on Bowen Island to see if we can find some photos.

The weather has been very cold and wet over the last few weeks and though the sun emerged on Saturday and had been shining for quite a few hours once we were inside the forest, everything was still dripping with moisture

This is part of what I love about the coastal temperate rainforest system. The forest has its own microclimate and it own sense of place. It is simply teeming with life and atmosphere. Once you enter under the canopy, everything goes quiet. There is an almost oppressive stillness that overwhelms you. Initially the forest seem somewhat monotone, with two or three large tree species dominating the scene and a tangled and messy forest floor to offset the simple vertical trunks of the trees. If you allow yourself to slow down and to adjust to the gentle and slow rhythm of the forest, your senses and perception adjust. Then the beautiful and fine grained details of this place emerge and present themselves.

We did not have to go far, in fact after two hours of shooting images we had barely gone 200 yards into the forest.

The first image I uploaded is an image of the bark on a Douglas fir trunk. It is easy to walk past these beautiful giants and to admire them on a grand scale only. But if you stop and slow down you may get a different perspective and realize just how many organisms make these trees their home and how many layers of colours, textures and life come together to create the bark that covers them.

The second and third images are close ups of the moss that covers the roots of the same tree. Normally moss is furry and lacy. But if you get close enough and enlarge them enough they start to resemble ferns. In fact, once you look, you notice that there are numerous textures and colours of moss in the forest. And that is only one type of plant once you add the lichens, ferns, berries, trees, leafs etc, the complexity is infinite. The brown twig in the third image is a dead leaf from a tree. It reminds me of scales on a reptile at this magnification.

I find that as I allow this little island in the Pacific to touch me and as I open myself to it, that the forests and nature that cover it gradually reveals itself in ever deeper ways. To me that is part of loving this place ever more deeply and of finding the Sacred beauty which is so easily lost on us in our hectic daily rhythms. These forests have a value far beyond the obvious economic and environmental debates. Our spirits are fed by these places and they put the temporality and smallness of our existence into perspective.

The ethics of image making

I wanted to delve into the question of the ethics of photo manipulation a bit more. It seems that since the advent of digital photography and Photoshop this is an issue that has become very topical. The most basic expectation from most people is that a photo is somehow a moment in time captured and objectively represented as opposed to a painting and drawing which is clearly a created representation. Critics of digital photography will often say that it is not real photography because it is made with pixels and can therefore be manipulated so easily. In fact real looking images can be created from almost nothing. I was leaning strongly towards this side of the argument until a few years ago. To be honest, I think it was mostly based on the fear that digital photography spelled the end of the craft, and therefore the destruction of my passion. I enjoyed the craftsmanship that went into creating a photo on emulsion and extracting it in a darkroom. There was a tactile magic in seeing an image appear on the white paper in the developer. But, logically the argument that traditional darkroom is the only valid form of photography because somehow it is more honest than digital imaging does not hold water. Jeff Curto's History of Photography podcast recently featured two images which I would like to use, to explain why I say this. First off the ethical question of what constitutes a real photo is almost as old as photography itself. The method of capturing images has also changed dramatically since Niepce first started his experiments in the early 19th century. In 1857 Oscar Rejlander published a photo entitled “Two ways of life” This image had a composition and feel that resembled a painting. However, the controversy around this image, and many others like it, that developed amongst photographers, was that it was created from numerous negatives in the darkroom. In fact most of the people in this image were not together at all and there was therefore no moment in time like this. This really does show how big the myth is that images coming from darkrooms are more honest than images from computers. Imagine this image was assembled from 30 odd photos in a darkroom over 150 years ago! The second point I would like to make relates to the expectation of objective reality captured on photos. This notion has gradually been challenged at ever deeper levels over the last century. In 1858 there was deep shock when “fading away” was published by Robinson. It was a photo that was assembled from multiple negatives and that portrayed a woman on her death bed by models. People thought that it was a real image of a real dying person and thought it was intrusive for a photographer to take a photo at such a private moment.

At the time visual culture was in its infancy and people did not understand what they saw. Today it is difficult to imagine that people would really believe in the objectivity of images because we are so used to being bombarded by fictional imagery. However, I suspect that deep down many people actually still do expect it, even if they do not really believe it anymore. I suspect that we blame the computer age for the demise of honesty in imagery and we long for a return to a place where we can believe what we see.

The truth is that it is not a technological question. It is rather a case of a maturing understanding of the meaning, limitations and risks of images. Photos have always been subjective. The photographer always chooses an angle of view, decides to exclude certain things from the view and put emphasis on others. It has always been a personal and subjective view of reality. This is especially true in fine art photos where the artist specifically attempts to communicate a unique view of the world.

So why did I decide to limit my manipulation of images in the computer?

It is a matter of personal integrity.

I love the hunt for and the thrill of finding and making a good image in the camera. This is the one aspect of the craft of photography that has not changed at all. Secondly I am trying to reveal my personal view of Existence with the Sacred in Creation. To find and reveal the inspiring, uplifting and beauty of this place while my journey here lasts. I chose to do that through a medium where I capture glimpses of time and place of this temporal world. My images is a portrait of my personal journey of stumbling towards a grounded and meaningful sense of “Being” in this world. To me it would be dishonest to create an “artificial” reality in a computer to portray that search since it would be disconnected. The final reason is simply that I have no passion for computers and would rather spend my time with a camera in nature, than in Photoshop under artificial light.

The ethical boundary should be defined in being honest about what the artist did, rather than how it was made. When images are meant to deceive they are unethical, when images portray the artist’s intent honestly they are ethically fine. There is nothing wrong with creating “artificial” photos in a computer and to sell it as fine art, if the artist honestly states that it is an artificial image and if it is integrated into their view of the world.

If you are interested in umderstanding the Histroy of Photography better, I would encourage you to listen to Jeff Curto's podcasts. Especially his History of Photography series. It can be found in Itunes by doing a search fro his name.