Photographs-Otherwise-Not-Taken, Taken

Inside of Library, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

"Nows within this now, rather like snapshots in an album. Each Now is separate and a world unto itself, but the richly structured Nows 'know' about one another because they literally contain one another in certain essential respects. As consciousness surveys many things at once in one Now, it is simultaneously present, at least in part, in other Nows. This awareness of many things in one could well exist in a much more pronounced form in other places in Platonia."

- Julian  Barbour (1937 - )
 The End of Time

Note. The admittedly busy title of this blog post obviously begs an explanation. I'll start by saying that it is inspired by a short email exchange I recently had with a photo buddy of mine (the Zen-master, Paul Cotter). In reply to Paul's kind comments about my recent "travelogue images," I countered with the suggestion that my favorite images from the trip are/may-be those I took with my iPhone and not my 21L-sling-bag's-worth of "pro" gear (the details of which hardly matter)! While I am not (entirely) convinced of the veracity of my claim (and others may differ), I have zero doubt that my iPhone gifted me many images that I will cherish in the years to come precisely because these are photographs I would otherwise have not taken! Some examples - click to see full-size:

View of a wall while waiting to be seated at a restaurant

Footprints on a beach in front of another restaurant

A view from inside the Novotel Auckland Airport
while my wife was busy getting us checked in

Frosted window inside restroom at the
Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park Visitor Centre

View inside a restaurant while being led to our table

Upside down view of one of the ceilings at the
Nadi International Airport in Fiji

Another (upside down) view from inside the library at
the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

 

A snapshot view of urban geometry while waiting
for my wife to pay the parking meter

A 5 sec exposure of a part of our boat ride to Milford Sound,
stabilized by my iPhone's computational photography algorithms

I have dozens more of these "Photographs-Otherwise-Not-Taken, Taken" images, all of which share this one salient pattern: had I not used my iPhone to capture them (embarrassingly easily by, literally, framing and tapping, and without any of what my wife describes as "glacier-paced compositional machinations"), they would all have been but fleeting moments doomed to be lost in the mists of memory and time.

Silver Water Plummets

"Our land of lakes forever fair below blue mountain summits,
of swans, of salmon leaping where the silver water plummets,
of glaciers swelling broad and bare above earth’s fiery sinews—
the Lord pour out his largess there as long as earth continues!"

- Jónas Hallgrímsson (1807 - 1845)

A kind note about the waterfall I featured in my last post (from a photography friend, Paul Cotter, whose exquisite portfolio and blog should be on the short list of anyone reading this - check out my links page to see what I think of Paul's work!), enticed me to ponder how differently I view my own images, depending on whether they were "easy" or "hard" to get — sometimes very hard, as when I tried capturing a view of the Selvallafoss waterfall. While it is easily accessible from a parking lot on the northern part of route 56 (on the eastern/inland part of Iceland's Snaefellsnes peninsula), I suspect that many tourists just take a quick look around (the parking area provides a gorgeous view of the volcanic lake, Selvallavatn), and get right back into their cars, oblivious to the beautiful falls that are hidden from view. 

I found it "difficult" to get this particular shot not because I needed to do any strenuous hiking (while there is a short walk involved along a mud-strewn and partly inclined path, the falls are almost within a stone's throw from the parking lot), but because my son (Josh, the next generation photographer/artist in our family) and I struggled with the ambient elements: (1) bitingly hard pelting rain, and - as if that wasn't enough - (2) unrelenting fierce mini-hurricane-strength "sentient" wind (that mysteriously swirled around us, seemingly without direction, trying to find a way to keep us an unbalanced as possible). In short, this was a beastly hard shot to get! - certainly by comparison to the image in my last post.

So, what does this have to do with the kind note from Paul Cotter? My kneejerk reaction was, "Many thanks, but now I'm embarrassed!" - where my "embarrassment comes not from being unable to take a compliment, but from the fact that I know that the earlier photograph was ridiculously easy to get: park car, walk 1000 feet to a bridge overlooking falls, set up tripod with a wide angle lens, screw on a 3-stop neutral density filter, and click. That's it! How can I possibly take any real credit (or be "rewarded" with a compliment) beyond simply asserting, "Well, I was there, saw an incredible scene in front of me, and went click"?

Objectively, I know (or ought to know) that "how good an image is" - regardless of what measure of "goodness" one uses - is not correlated with, or defined by, how hard (the photographer remembers) it was to capture. One can just as easily stumble across a timelessly "good" image as work furiously for days, even weeks, to capture a meh-level photograph. Yet, instinctively, my knee-jerk reaction is still always the same; I feel "embarrassed" when complimented on (what I know was) an easy-to-get image 😳 ... which the image above was assuredly not!

I Am a Leaf

"Like bubbles in a spring, 

the phrase floated effortlessly

to the surface of

my consciousness.

I am a Leaf."

- Paul Cotter

Back in September, while on a trip to the Pacific Northwest with my family, I wrote of an "unexpected kindness" that flowed my way in the form of an email from a recent "follower" of my blog, whose note politely inquired about when I'd next post a new picture. As I wrote at the time, the impersonal sterility of our modern world makes it easy to forget that what connects us all are simple, gentle, human gestures, like one photographer reaching out to another over the technological ether to ask, "I enjoy seeing your pictures; you haven't stopped posting have you?" It is in this same spirit of a deep interconnectedness among all living beings, that I offer in this post not a picture (none would do justice to the impact that the story - and its accompanying photographs - I am about to reveal had on me), but rather a link to an extraordinary - and extraordinarily uplifting and visionary - essay ("I Am a Leaf") that was recently posted by photographer Paul Cotter on the website, Gratefulness.org.

It is curious how I came upon Paul's essay (which I had not seen posted on his own site), for it too is evidence of the "interconnectedness" of things. While Paul and I have never met in person (I look forward to the day we do, for our aesthetic travels appear to have much in common), we have exchanged many emails ever since connecting over an essay Paul had published on Wynn Bullock in 2016. I got to Paul's post by following a link I'd seen on Barbara Bullock Wilson's Facebook page; as dedicated readers of my own blog know, Barbara serendipitously become a treasured "virtual" friend of mine soon after the first email she sent me after reading of my "discovery" of her father's color abstractions back in 2012). But back to Paul, interconnectedness, and his remarkable "I am a Leaf." Paul sent me a link to his essay after reading two of my recent posts (“Branches” and “Part of Something Larger”). Both of these posts, in turns out, had resonated strongly with Paul. After you read his essay, you will immediately see why.

Without spoiling your pleasure of reading Paul's own words, here is part of the email I sent Paul soon after I read his essay for the first time (I have read it multiple times since, and will not soon forget it's message): "Paul, thank you so much for sharing your story. I felt a deep chill reading it, though not in an 'ego-centric' manner, rather in a way profoundly devoid of any 'I' whatsoever. Your experience, and the transformative (dare I say, transcendent) quality of embracing being a  'Part of Something Larger', literally (frank admission) brought a tear to my eye. For a moment, just a fleeting moment, through your words and the images accompanying them, I remember losing my sense of self and reveling in pure being." 

Now, gentle reader, if you have not done so already, please go here and read what Paul has to say about life, vulnerability, self, reality, impermanence, interconnectedness, and - yes - why we are all, "just" leaves. The accompanying images are also nothing short of breathtaking; luminescent, spiritually infused, and all preternaturally soulful. In short, fine-art photography at its very best. 

Please share Paul's message with as many people you believe may benefit from his story. And then stay tuned for things to follow, as Paul has admitted to some long-term plans he has in mind. Thank you, Paul, for sharing your experience!