"Boinga, Boinga, Boinga" Shots

My family and I recently returned from a "mini vacation" in the Adirondacks, near Lake Placid, NY. The trip evoked many wonderful memories of taking similar trips with my mom and dad over 30 years ago. Though I haven't been in those parts for many years, the Adirondacks' unique charm and quiet ambiance almost instantaneously enveloped my soul. I felt as though I had come home.

Since the trip was geared more for "family" and camping, I spent relatively little time prowling with my camera. Of course, I did manage to catch a few images of the "rocks and water" variety...particularly on the ausable river.

Indeed, there is a short story attached to the images I took there, which I'd like to share in this blog entry. The title - "Boinga, Boinga, Boinga" Shots - refers to the "bounce" (translated as a "Boinga" sound) that all intrepid photographers perched on exposed trail bridges over the river go through while patiently waiting for the reverberations caused by (largely disinterested) passerbys to die down so that they can finally click the camera's shutter. Since I wanted to produce silky-smooth water flow, I needed my exposure times to be fairly long (> 5 to 10 sec). But, being the tourist attraction that it is, the ausable river trails are naturally overrun by adventurers; not all of whom appreciate the "fine art" of taking long exposures. Capturing a shot such as the one that appears at the top of this entry thus requires an enormous amount of patience; both on the part of the photographer and, unfortunately, on the part of the passerbys.

This particular shot was the result of - what must have seemed to an outside objective observer - a comedy of errors. First I had to wait for the clouds to block out the sun. A process which played itself out multiple times over the course of a hour or more, as small bands drifted in and out of view. Next, I had to "coordinate" cloud-blocked composition opportunities with stretches of time during which the bridge was entirely free of passerby footsteps. This was far from easy. I had to make quick sideways glances to the left and right, while holding my camera in position for a preplanned shot. Of course, there were several "opportunities" which misfired. Typically, if I clicked the shutter and the bridge was free of hikers, a cloud would dissipate faster than I had anticipated and the shot was ruined. Just as typically, the clouds would stay in place and the light would be just right, but a hiker (or two, or three, or an entire family!) would appear - mysteriously - from out of the woods (and off the trail) and noisily make their way - boinga, boinga, boinga - across the bridge.

Once, just for good measure, a family of three started on their way from one end of the bridge toward me and my tripod near the middle, and stopped in mid-stride when they saw me lift my eye and head (and may have heard me mutter something like "Arghh" after missing a chance to get a shot). Seeing that the cloud cover was still good and that the party was (at least for the moment) motionless - and upon hearing one of them say to the others, "Hey, look, a photographer is taking pictures, let's be quiet" (which brought a smile to my face) I bent back over my viewfinder and was preparing to press the shutter, when - boinga, boinga, boinga - forward (and onward and closer) went the boots.

The unfolding events were far from over. I lifted my head, uttered another soft "Arghh" under my breath, and felt the group halt again (and heard the same member softly admonish the others, "Hey, he's not done, hold on a minute.") Back to my viewfinder I go, only to see the clouds break and the bright sun beat down on the water. I lift my head back up, this time because of the blinding light; but this time hear, "OK, he's done, let's go." Before his sentence is finished, the cloud cover comes back and my eye goes back to the viewfinder, only to see the effects of the - boinga, boinga, boinga - footsteps coming closer to me. I keep my eye glued to the finder, hoping for a miracle. As the group passes me, one of the hikers accidentally trips over one of my tripod's legs (though there was ample room to maneuver around). I straighten up and accept the sincere and immediate apology; but as I do the cloud cover vanishes.

The group of hikers is now standing a few feet from me, and is both quiet and intrigued by what I am taking pictures of. I answer a few questions (while waiting for the clouds to come back to block the sun), and - seeing the cloud cover return - quickly turn back to my camera, and hear a "Hey, good luck with your shots fella" followed by the now omnipresent boinga, boinga, boinga sound (and reverberation) as the group moves away. I lift my head (in half disgust, but with still a bit of humor at the Monty-Pythonesque predicament my desire to capture this little scene has placed me in) and see the group, once again - and for the last time, since they are now getting close to the other side of the bridge - stop, and no doubt seeing my increasing angst - sincerely wish to allow me to take a "quiet" shot. Gratefully, I bend down, see that the cloud cover is still good, and take my shot. As soon as I hear the click of the shutter after the exposure is complete (though there is no way the group of hikers could have heard from where they were standing), I feel the boinga, boinga, boinga of their steps as they step off the bridge and move off into the woods and out of site. That whole process, to capture that one shot, took about 40 min.

When I got back to my car, and after I had a chance to reflect on my experience, I admonished myself for my infantile-like reaction to the not-always-accomodating natural elements (cloud cover vs no cloud cover) and the presence of hikers with heavy boots. Apart from the obvious fact that I had no more right to be on the bridge than the hikers (so that, in truth, they "owed" me nothing by way of accommodating my purpose for being there) , we were all a vital part of a little self-contained "world" out there on that bridge. And the hikers, whose boinga, boinga, boinga certainly affected my ability to capture an image at the instant that their boots were going "boinga, boinga, boinga," actually helped me produce what I feel is a better image than what I was likely to have captured were it not for their presence.

The simple reason is that the interplay between the bright sun, cloud cover and the boinga, boinga, boinga all conspired to slow me down. These elements collectively helped ease my mind and soul to a slower pace; one much more attuned to the Adirondacks' own natural rhythms. I may have wanted to take a quick picture and go, but I didn't take the time to ask the ausable river whether it wanted its picture taken in such a quick and impersonal manner. As a photographer, I ought to have known better. And I humbly and sincerely thank the merry band of hikers - who kept going boinga, boinga, boinga - for reminding me of the need to just slow down, immerse myself in the environment and quietly listen to my subject.

Hawaii: Visions of Primal Serenity

I've recently self-published a book of photographs of Hawaii, taken while my wife and I were celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary back in the summer of 2006.

Hawaii is an indelible part of me. More so even than my blood, my skin, or any of my physical possessions, for these are all far more transient and ultimately communicate far less about who I really am. But the depth and timelessness of my affection - my reverence - for these sublime, preternaturally beautiful islands, speaks volumes about the nature of my soul.

I visited the islands for the first time in the early 1980s as a beginning graduate student in physics. As soon as I stepped off the plane, and saw the gentle giant green mountains, the billowous clouds serenely floating over them, the deep inviting aquamarine blue water lapping the ragged shore - its dull roar echoing somewhere off in the distance - and tasted that intoxicatingly sweet scented tropical island air, I knew my soul had found its home. It is sublime, it is mysterious. There is an abundance of raw wild energy; and an immersive transcendent tranquility that subsumes all.

God, Yahweh, Buddha, Brahman, Tao, Ein-Sof, or whatever other linguistic "label" one is comfortable in using to refer to the infinite, attains a physically manifest luminous form in this paradisical oasis. Hawaii is magic.

At the end of the book, I've included a section of much older images, taken during my first series of visits to the islands between 1982 and 1988. The time I took to design the layout of the book, and to select the images for it, gave me an opportunity to compare my "eye" and aesthetics as they are now to what they were about 25 years ago; and to reflect on my own evolution as an artist (as well as to learn something about the creative process in general).

Something immediately struck me as I was viewing my large collection of "old" and "new" shots. The much older shots, which were all taken at a time when I was (possibly) a technically proficient photographer but had not yet matured as a "fine-art" photographer, were technically well executed "depictions of what I happened to be looking at" at the moment, in this case being Hawaii. While most are better than standard postcard fare (at least I hope so ;-), the truth is that, if I give an honest self appraisal of my earlier work, I see "scenes of Hawaii" and little more. Yes, they're pretty; yes, a few might (and do!) look nice on a wall. But they are pictures of Hawaii and little else. It is not false modesty for me to assert that any technically competent photographer, with a requisite skill level, could easily have reproduced (indeed, surpassed) many of my earlier photographs. So how are the new ones different; and in what way do I think they are "better"?

Well - jumping 25 years or so forward in time (and, in my case, about 75 thousand or so more images, give or take a few thousand, film and digital) - what I see myself doing more and more of (at least trying to) is incorporating the scenery "out there" into my bag of photo tools that I use to express what I feel "on the inside" when otherwise looking at the scenery. This represents both a subtle and profound shift.

The scenery, in an important sense, has become an integral part of my photographic toolkit, as important as - and distinct from - my usual assortment of purely technical tools (such as camera, lenses, filters, and so on). The scenery itself is no longer the core "object of focus" for my other tools. It has become an essential part of my toolkit.

It no longer really matters to me, in the deepest artistic sense, whether I am in Hawaii, or here in Northern VA, or Florida or anywhere else, in particular. My "goal" as a photographer is no longer to "show someone what I'm looking at." Rather, my goal is to communicate - express - a bit of "what I felt" when taking a picture to someone viewing the resulting photograph or print. I am much less concerned with whether the viewer "likes" what he or she "sees" - or identifies, objectively - in a photograph; and much more interested in conveying a feeling, a mood, a state-of-mind and/or heart, that persists even as viewer steps away from the image.

What is of lasting value (to both the viewer as an "involved interpreter and recipient" of an art work, and the photographer as its author) is not the fact that a particular photograph contains, say, a recognizable image of a "door," but rather the subjective emotional impression that the image of the door imparts to the viewer both while the viewer is actively viewing the photograph and afterwards, when the physical photograph is transformed (during the act of viewing) into a hybrid objective-subjective memory in the viewer's mind. It is my feeling that I am trying to convey; not the "object" that I took a photograph of to express that feeling.

What the viewer objectively "sees," of course, is the "object" (or objects) in the photograph; just as what I objectively "see" before I press the shutter is the (almost, but not quite identical) "object." Art, when it happens, depends on the simultaneous appearance of two transformative acts: (1) the photographer uses "objective reality" as an implicit tool to craft and communicate certain elements of his own - inner, subjective - reality; and (2) the viewer sees past the "objects" in a photograph and feels something - a residual imprint, perhaps - of what is, objectively speaking, not physically present, but hints at what the photographer felt while taking the photograph.

Of course, the degree to which the viewer "feels" what the photographer does (or what the photographer wishes to express) is impossible to measure. That is as it should be, for were this to be possible, art would be reduced to an "objective" science, which would be a pity. While I would certainly be delighted to know that someone resonates with one of my photos for exactly the same reason as I (or at least, in the same way I remember resonating with a "scene" while capturing it with my lens), it is not imperative that this is the case.

In truth, at this current juncture of my ongoing evolution, what I strive for in all my work is to convey the simplest feelings of calm. I understand that each viewer will take away from my images what he or she is predisposed to feel. Perhaps some find disharmony in what my eyes sees as serene patterns. But even in these cases, if viewers react more on an emotional level to my photos (even if the emotion they feel is different from the one I wish to convey) rather than in some detached, emotionally sterile or empty, fashion, I am still partly satisfied as an artist. For my goal is never the object, but a feeling.

So, getting back to the Hawaii book, why include my old pictures at all? Collectively, these early images define the first real "breeding ground" for my art. For it was in Hawaii that I first turned my camera onto something that I was truly impassioned about. Rather than taking the "same old" tired shots of "emotionally inert" subject matter (that may nonetheless have been a part of an otherwise valuable learning experience in a photography workshop, for example), I found myself taking shots in Hawaii for reasons that emerged quite naturally out of my own soul. In short, somewhere in the mists of time, lost among these old photos, is a magic Borgesian moment - well-defined but impossible to directly point to - during which I was born as a photographer.

More Fog

Here is a shot I have some fond memories of, from about a year ago; taken (as are almost all of my shots) in a local park (Lake Accotink), this time while on a "fog break" from work.

What I remember vividly about this shot is that it was a complete fluke...I was focusing all of my attention on some driftwood much closer to my feet (and not visible in the photo here), and actually made quite a few (in hindsight, unsuccessful) exposures, when I heard a flock of geese overhead. Without taking my eye off my camera's eyepiece, I swiveled the camera on its tripod (and went as wide as I could on my lens) to see if I could get a glimpse of the flock...and got off a single shot. While I was delighted in seeing the geese, I did not expect anything to come of my rapid swivel- tilt- press-shutter action, and I immediately went back to shooting the driftwood.

Well, its not quite a Cartier-Bresson, but it turned out to be the only keeper of the day that day! ;-) I was lucky enough to have it published in the British Black & White Photography magazine (issue #45, April 2005).