it is getting cold here in Rio…fall has arrived…everyone complaining of the rain…temperature has dropped to a chilling 68F….i am wearing a long sleeved shirt, pants and shoes…beach days are over (pictured above from non-NG shooting)..New Yorkers may scoff, but i am freezing….besides, my time is up on this National Geographic shoot…..i am coming home next week…
i have written before that i do some of my best work in the first few days of an assignment and some of the best in the last few days…the first ones from raw energy and beginners luck and the last ones from “damn, i had better get something”…i have pretty much been on the case here in Rio since New Year’s Eve, with a short but busy one week break in january…mentally on it the whole time…and, of course, i shall return…perhaps on assignment , perhaps not…for i am not finished..
i was actually secretly hoping i would not fall in love with Rio….i assumed a romantic relationship, but figured it would be over when it was over….i have several other projects to complete and have no time to get involved with any long term body of work, but alas she has me…real love is of course often painful…despite the beach scenes you may imagine as pictured, there is another whole world here…full of intrigue, passion, hate, sex, death, light, darkness, despair, cruelty and kindness…the gamut of human nature all played out on a stage like no other …
i have been sick , scared, injured, and upset…long days turned into long nights often with no result…many moving parts and often with the gears grinding….it is very hard for me to look at the work…but, i must soon….i am not one of those photographers who come home at night and rush to the computer to see what i have done…quite the contrary…i hate to look….deep deep down inside i am assuming some good work….but any long term results seem now far far away….on top of it all, i must justify all of this to the editors who commissioned me to be here….i need an Advil…
yet now my home front porch beckons….but, will my cat remember me? has my electricity been shut off ? battery run down on my truck? yes, my “real life” has been on hold…even patient family and friends are fed up with me…no responses to emails….missed events…forgotten birthdays…major responsibilities undone…of course no woman can put up with me…i will spend the next week apologizing to everyone about everything…and so it goes…
is this any way to live? or, is this the only way to live? i know my answer…what is yours?
David:
NO TIME to write now…will write something, long (?) about this this weekend (deadline like a goblin over my shoulder), but for now, will answer you with this poem….for you and your beating heart….
and by the way, pics above are gorgeous….balerina could be a book cover!
for you, tired young man:
A Blessing
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
-James WRight
David A H:
It is the only way to live, if you really want to live it!
I’m hard at work on two new projects – landscape! – and all I want to do right now is photograph. Other things are being neglected in the process, but that’s just as it is, as you rightly point out.
That experience when the work consumes you is very special both in the positive and negative. But I think when you get into that – the zone I guess – it’s when the good work comes. And as you sense yourself, deep down as photographers we know when we hit that moment.
So shouldn’t we just work until we cannot work anymore? Has any “known” photographer actually dropped dead from old age while photographing? That must be the way to go.
I’m pleased to hear you are in love with Rio – that can only be a good thing.
Have a good journey home.
Cheers,
Justin
Hey Uncle –
Cable’s Off,
Electricity’s Off and your cats had kitten in your bed.
It’s finding your own way to live and that’s all that matters, plus trying to be someone whose easy to forgive.
if you like the buzz it is the only way… like an electric shock.. either hold on or repel from it..
¨i have been sick , scared, injured, and upset¨ – DAH
hmm.. sounds like a time i flew with ryanair
.
“is this any way to live? or, is this the only way to live? ”
The only way? Of course not, but does it matter, as long as it is YOUR way? I don’t know you, but you don’t strike me as one just sitting home and being happy with it.. one can bend onself only so much, then one must do what one IS. Simple :)
Freezing? In 68 degree weather? The mind boggles at the concept.
Finish up this leg of the journey, come home and snuggle with the furball, get some hugs and some sleep, because you’ll be back there before long if it’s love. From the shots above, looks like the editors will be very pleased – I so feel the 2nd and the last image…be safe
This year I’m trying to see what I can get in push bike range of my house, partly cause I want to see more of my kids, partly as a challenge to find the exotic locally, partly for environmental reasons and partly cause I’m broke. It’s all good but nothing beets that away somewhere new feeling. Not the only but defiantly the most fun.
DAH, thanks for the sneak preview.
Any way to live?, you live the dream of many. Personally, I’m too much of a home-body to live that way. Love being home, love my life.
What is important, while you may be in love with Rio, or a woman there, you are clearly in love with your life.
Very beautiful photos, I like very much it…
For cat, don’t worry, hugs + milk + fish and all are forgotten :)))
Its just a balancing act…..
the
yin
and
the
yang…..
is that really a question?
I think we all know the answer…..
VIVA!!!
great images….
playful
and
romantic…
***
hmmm some of you seem to have missed that DAH said “…pictured above from previous shoots 8 yrs ago”
so those pictures, I believe, are not from this trip to Rio. They’re great nonetheless :)
can’t wait to see some shots from the current Rio shoot
(When it turns 60 degrees Fahrenheit- let alone 68!- in Bellingham or Vancouver is when people start ripping their clothes off and heading to the beach. 68F is summer weather here! Just have to get that said).
David, you have summed up the dilemma succinctly and eloquently as usual. I’m sure many of the photographers who hang out here can relate completely. You have described pretty much the way I lived from 1977 until 2000, even while I was ‘holding down’ a teaching job, my REAL life was spent on the road hungrily devouring the world’s places, falling helplessly in love with new countries and cities and languages, and then having to tear myself away physically and go ‘back to work’ but my mind and heart stayed behind in other places that had become emotionally, spiritually, intellectually important to me. I was a traveler before I was much of a photographer, and the photographs (and maps, in my case) became a way to try to hold onto the places after I had gone, and to plan for the next trip there…
Maybe I have too much imagination, maybe I’m too much of a romantic and a dilettante, maybe there’s a lacuna in my soul that is never satisfied, but I found myself longing to create a life of whole fabric in each place, to really learn the language fluently, to really come to know intimately the back alleys, to understand the layers of meaning and symbolism in each society… to find a woman who would welcome the caresses of someone who had miraculously acquired an insider’s sensitive knowledge.
And in each new place, this constellation of probably unattainable desires would recreate itself.
Maybe not totally unattainable… in several regions of North America (New York, Oregon, Idaho, British Columbia), and in Japan and South Korea, I actually did discover and create these kinds of alternate lives for myself to some extent…but I was frustrated by the lives I never had enough time on the ground to really explore or create wholly in Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, France, Mexico, and many other places. Each trip, while it made me long to be ‘embedded’, as it ended would remind me of the impossibility of being anything more than an outsider and a tourist…maybe a well-informed and sensitive tourist, but not really an inhabitant, not really an ensconced member of a community.
As someone who had taught environmental studies, I was acutely aware of carbon footprints as well, and felt like I of all people had to set an example. So around the year 2000 I resolved to settle in one place for better or worse, not to jump on airplanes and fly off to other places even for visits, but to dig as deep as I could into one place and one community. Since then my radius of travel has been roughly 100 miles from a center in Bellingham…just far enough to take in Vancouver and lower mainland BC to the North, Seattle to the south, the North Cascades to the east, and the San Juan Islands and Victoria to the west. My resolution has been aided enormously by poverty… I can’t afford to travel, even if I wanted to!
That doesn’t mean I have abandoned the romance of other places in my mind and heart. The world is so interconnected now, populations are so fluid, and both Seattle and Vancouver are magnets for elements from all the world’s peoples and cultures. But it’s not the same thing as immersing oneself in another country… so I often live vicariously, following the lives of others, as here on BURN, on the internet, in books and photographs and films… much as I have ‘embedded’ here, I cannot give up my ties and my longings for other places… in my mind and heart I spend as much time in Japan and South Korea as I do in Bellingham or Vancouver. Is this any way to live?
Or is there any other way to live… that I could wholeheartedly embrace? Any answers can only be tentative, conditional, and personal ones. For young or not so young photographers, restless and hungry to devour the world as I was, I have great sympathy. My tentative answers as to how to live, those of a 63-yr old who has already done a fair bit of globe-trotting, are not ones that I expect to be anyone else’s. The Buddhist influences that I have absorbed try to tell me that all these grandiose desires will only breed more grandiose desires that are ultimately unattainable and will only beget more suffering. The environmentalist in me deplores the amount of fossil fuel that will be consumed in globe-trotting lifestyles. Other parts of me applaud those of you searching with such passion. And a part of me wishes I could fly off to Vietnam tomorrow with no thoughts of return.
please know the pictures from Rio shown here are NOT my recent work for Natgeo as i think i stated clearly in the post…the pictures here are from a two day shoot from the New York Times and a 5 day shoot from L’Express in Paris 8 yrs ago, both pretty much concentrating on the beach …
i cannot show the work i am doing now of course, but they will be quite different and of much deeper magnitude…and yes yes, i want to do a book…well, i always want to do a book, but i see this as a soft back almost big thick magazine style book..anyway, i am a long way from a book..it will be fall before i can show what i am doing now…
SIDNEY..
yes, i too have worried about the amount of fossil fuel i have used in globe trotting as you say…however, globe trotting was thrust upon me…never my goal…and , as i believe you know, Rio is not just another city for me…it is a part of my long term project documenting the Iberian diaspora..25 yrs worth from which sprung both Cuba and Div Soul…my two other projects coming, Outer Banks and American Family are both quite literally close to home…i need go no further…the “distance” and travel aspect of Rio is unfortunate, but i have been involved in this migration so long that i cannot stop…i will learn Portuguese now as i learned Spanish before…i share your desire to steep…that is why i MUST come back to Rio one way or another…however, i have never considered even for a nanosecond that i had “grandiose desires”…i dislike travel…i do however love the feeling i get when i am able to capture some part of a culture, or some slice of humanity , that maybe will give pause or reflection or enlightenment for someone somewhere…because for sure that moment will never happen again, nor will the culture be the same even by the time my work is seen….let a few years pass, and the work takes on the nature of historical document at its least…that is what makes it all worthwhile for me…
cheers, david
How funny David, to hear you say you don’t rush in to look at your photos. For several years after I got into photography I hated everything I did for the first two weeks or so. I had to let it wait or I would delete it out of disgust. Two weeks makes a huge difference in how you see your work. Now, I am not so much that way. We all know you will find excellent photos in your collection when you do look at them.
I understand freezing at 68. Here in Maui we have had a north wind for 3 days and I can’t stand the windows and doors open and wear a cotton robe and slippers in the morning when I get up and an extra blanket on at night. The thermometer I purchased because I couldn’t believe it was 70 as indicated by the weather has confirmed that it has never gotten below 68. But it is cold! And my mainland friends are scoffing at me also.
And you are living the life you must. Why question it now? You are who you are and you are an incredible amazing photographer and life changing teacher. Regarding electricity, etc., put everything on auto payment and buy from the auto parts store a device that separates the connectors from your battery. The cat doesn’t really need you she is just playing you. And trust me, your family totally gets you and wouldn’t know what to do with you if you hung around like a “normal” person every day. Love life? That’s a bit different.
Can’t wait to share my photos that were accepted in the juried show that opens Saturday. I’m amazed my photography has turned to black and white film and shooting with a Rolleiflex. I was introduced to the camera and techniques of using a light meter last summer by a friend of mine in New York. He loaned me his Rolleiflex and I loaned him my old 5D. Best thing I ever did in photography, aside from taking your workshops. Your lessons on light and only shooting in “the” light has really been reinforced since using this camera.
Have a safe trip home.
DAVID,
I think we are actually quite in synch on the whole gamut of issues I tried to lay out in my little confessional piece, even if our personal answers at the moment may be different. I never meant ‘grandiose desires’ to apply to you in particular… more to me, actually! And I can only applaud your long-range commitment to Rio and look forward with anticipation to the work you will share with us. And I can easily understand how your involvement with Rio may feel like the culmination, or at least the next necessary and important step, of a lifelong trajectory of work for you. To which I say, “Rock on!”
DAH, Not sure if you are flying into Norfolk or need a ride, but I am there all next week 8-11 and can give you a lift to the OBX.
Just drop me a line kazs@md.metrocast.net
Kurt
David, nice post and a good question. My answer is: yes, this is the way of life I live right now! I love it, but I admit there are some downsides as well.
Just returned to New Delhi after a few days in a small town in the the tropic Western Ghats of Kerala, India. After 36 celsius in the tropics I am back to a moderate 27 degree celsius… no idea what that is in Fahrenheit…
When I looked down on India from my plane window this afternoon, I thought about all the great people I have met in the past two weeks and the beautiful places I have seen and this wild Indian way of life I have experienced – well, I love all this, but at the same time it also shakes me pretty well. Yes, I want it this way. It is an emotional roller coaster ride and an assault on my senses.
I love to dive into a different culture and experience a new way of life. To me it is a precious gift to have the opportunity to do this. And yet I also know that as Sydney said, I am only a tourist, an outsider, a visitor – yes with great interest, but still all these great places I see are not my home. My home is a small village somewhere in Germany and on all my travels I am always aware that this is where my home is. Or let me use a term that climbers use, it is my base camp. This place is the beginning and the end of any trip and certainly the place I want to call home. These days I have made a little room in Delhi my base camp II. This evening when a mad taxi driver manouvered me to my base-camp II, it definetly felt like coming home.
I will be off next Saturday to another trip, this time on a train so it will be more environmentally friendly and certainly even more of an adventure.
All I know about my home in Germany is that the first flowers are out and I have some new windows, my car gets used by my sister, but apart from that I have no idea what is going on in the world – no internet for a week… I guess the olympics are over… nobody is interested in skiing here… Cricket is on…
Yes, coming home is never easy, the hardest part actually. Suddenly the adventure is over. The silence is my greatest fear… hm, no idea how I will manage this. There is no guide book for coming home yet… I think it will take at least a week until I have settled back into my ordinary life.
On this trip I noticed again how much I enjoy to meet new people and dive into their lives. The last week I have spent not only in a beautiful scenery, but I stayed in a home for mentally disabled women, went to orphanages and yesterday evening I was at a place for handicaped children. It was such a joy to meet these kids. Language was no issue – we had fun and I really enjoyed to be with them. Hard to explain these moments – simply magical. I love these moments and at the same time they are a pain in my heart because there is always the moment to say good bye. This is the downside of this kind of experience. Maybe I take it too personal, but this is the only way I can do it. No doubt, the emotional roller coaster ride will go on for a long time. Maybe the only cure is to go back some time in the future???
So far all my days were extremely busy from the morning to the evening and just yesterday I had a bit of time to myself to take a look at what I had photographed in the last two weeks. Some nice shots, but plenty of crap as well. The journey continues for another two weeks. We will see.
David, enjoy the last week in Rio and I wish you plenty of good light!
Best
Reimar
Thank goodness we are talking about this! I’ve been heartbroken for the past two weeks since arriving home from India. I’ve been to India 13 times, often for months at a time. Have loved it from first sight but the last week of my recent trip, spent at the Kumbh Mela took my heart and soul.
I came home sick. Down and out..yet all I’ve thought about day and night is going back to shoot more. I finally came to the decision to go for it…booked a ticket for next week to get back for the Second Royal Bath, working on trains, a room and then this morning was reminded that there is a new visa rule in place in India…once you leave the country you can’t come back for two months. So that’s it…dream over :((( for now at least. It will be 12 years before this event takes place in Haridwar again, a long time to wait. Of course in the meantime I will continue with other projects both here and in India.
DAH I absolutely feel the same way as you about looking at my work. Can’t do it for a number of reasons… Too attached to the memories right now and too devastated by a major “photo tragedy”…the loss of my card wallet with all my (thankfully unused) memory cards the night before the big event I’d flown halfway around the world to shoot! Still haven’t gotten over it. Would love a “re-do” but guess I’ll have to Let it Be.
Dedication? I spent the night laying on the cold ground in a tent with two Naga Babas (naked ash covered sadhus) so I could be in prime position to shoot the event:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30716737@N08/4404633730/
The short answer to your question: For me, this is what it’s all about. What makes my heart go pitter patter. I wouldn’t want it any other way, heartbreak and all. I LOVE EVERY MINUTE OF IT.
You know, I have a life of whole fabric here in our happy little burg-I suspect that the fabric is mostly lint, though, but I could be wrong about that.
I believe it is a Chinese saying that says, “May you live in interesting times,” which I tend, largely, to agree with. I might amend it to, “May you live an interesting life,” which it sounds like you are having little trouble doing.
And wasn’t it Marley who said, “No woman, no cry.”
No apologies necessary……
once a master …always a BURNIAN…
“real life”…aha…Damnit …not in my dictionary…aha
I LOVE YOU ALL…Speechless …aha…for now
Be assured, David – your cat will remember you. Homecomings play out differently with different cats, but they always remember.
“temperature has dropped to a chilling 68F”
Hmmm; thats 20C, a typical NZ summer….. That’s a bit like going up to the islands (Vanuatu etc) in their cold season, June. You’re walking around in a t-shirt and shorts and your legs so white it looks like you’re wearing cricket pads! Yet the locals are all wearing polar fleece and beanies!
Also; how to spot a Kiwi tourist in Australia. The only ones swimming on Bondi Bach in August who actually think the water is warm! :-)
“Home is where one starts from.”
T. S. Eliot
We are Universal…therefore …we start from everywhere…aha…
Greetings David.
I’ve heard that this traveling photojournalism stuff isn’t the romantic life that many visualize. But you’re either drawn in or not. I love to travel occasionally, but I really love home, my wife, the beach and my interesting activities. I am always amazed at the living you make out of your suitcase.
In contrast, the weather here is gale force winds from the chilly north. It’s been rainy and 40 degrees, but I savor the solitude and tranquility it brings. The ocean is over-washing again. Nature is in control. We’ve been eating lots of oysters and fish.
I understand your fireplace is done and awaiting your arrival.
Enjoy your Rio, and I wish safe travels to you.
Take care.
Mike
It is a strange life – my family call it ‘wierd’, but as a child growing up i never really fitted in and liked to explore. When we go, we leve the familiar behind and every time, risk losing those we love forever. It is hard in many ways.
Last weekend, I found out in the most heart-warming way that my parents are able to forgive me for being away for 4 years. We also met abroad for the first time ever – and it was magical. I hope I will never again be away from them for so long and reading your opening lines David, for a moment even considered that this should be my life’s last big photographic foray.
But just as that thought was settling, i came across Cathy’s comment on Haridwar and remembered that that was a place that I missed out on last time I was in India. And, that even though my last experiene of India was quite disasterous in many ways, found myself wishing i could be back there again.
Perhaps this way of life is how it’s meant to be.
I have shared a few of my favourite quotes before but not on here. I hope you like them:
“I will not be just a tourist in the world of images, just watching images passing by which I cannot live in, make love to, possess as permanent sources of joy and ecstasy.” Anais Nin
“… all of us are dust or sand, all of us are rain under rain. They have spoken to me of Venezuelas, of Chiles and Paraguays; I have no idea what they are saying. I know only the skin of the earth and I know it has no name.” Pablo Neruda
and, in the same vein:
“As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.” Virginia Woolf
It’s 6am in Singapore – and the world is waking up for another precious day… enjoy it all!
Dear DAH,
Interesting rhetorical questions… I am in a kind of similar situation at the moment… I don’t know my answer though. I tend to listen to my intuition, which in my particular case contradicts the logic and even common sense… this listening to my intuition and ignoring common sense worked for me in the past, when I left military career and went to New York… I am again in Lithuania now… While it’s very personal, and complex… nobody can really tell one what to do, where to go, what to choose… I would appreciate any of your thoughts. The thing is: Basically, I have become a solitary wanderer… with camera. Although, besides military education, I have MBA, I would not be able to work any “proper” job anymore…I am 34. My home country is too small for me in every way. I am thinking to sell my precious little house in Vilnius and to go to New York, if I don’t manage to get the US visa, maybe Toronto… but this has to be in North America… although, I can easily go to London… permanent living in London isn’t for me, I have tried, very different from my dream city New York… in many ways. If I sell my house, and I must do it if I want to make a move to Americas, I will become a person wanderer completely… without own place to live, and without any property, besides new camera gear that I would acquire. Renting isn’t an option, because it would be too little money for funding my start in Americas…I am broke:). Own house is a very good think to have – practically and mentally… but life isn’t only about that, is it? If I don’t make it now, then when?… If not successful? What then?… Maybe, I am thinking too much and I would better rely on: “life will take me where it will” ?…
Frostfrog
Yes, sometimes they punish you .
“is this any way to live? or, is this the only way to live? i know my answer…what is yours?”
Oh my. How I resonate with what you have written. Much as I love my home, my Eddie, the everydayness of it all, nothing makes me feel more alive than the laser-like focus, total immersion, creative fire that comes during an extended photographic shoot. When you’re in that place, nothing else matters. Bills? Birthdays? Responsibilities? Taxes? All that matters is the next shot, your inner eye always open to new possibilities, your inner voice crying, “This is it. Take it!” Life takes on a vibrancy, even when things aren’t working out as you’d hoped or planned. It’s like those last rays of sun before the flaming orb disappears into the ocean; you know you can’t hold onto it so you savor every moment as if it were your last.
When I’m living like that, it is all about process not product. Sure I hope some of the pics will be keepers but that’s not what lights my fire. Simply living like this, with such incredible intensity and fervor is what enthralls me. And it doesn’t have to be an exotic locale or even particularly special in anyone else’s eyes. It can be as ordinary as life can be. But nothing is ordinary when I’m trying to document it. The most mundane thing takes on extraordinary meaning.
As I photographed Phil and Scott’s everyday life together they would tease me about my getting so excited when they’d start to wash the dishes or fold laundry, shave or take the dogs for a walk. It was all magical, to me anyway.
And now I’m back home, happy to see my sweetie, to sleep in my own bed, to work out at the gym and get back to swimming laps. I was ready to come home. I’d pretty much blown my wad in terms of energy and intensity of focus. That’s not to say I was done with the project. I won’t know that until I’ve tried to create a nice tight edit. And in order to do that I’ll first need to stand back from the photos I took and let myself develop a thicker skin, one that will allow me to see the work objectively, to disengage myself from the memories that surround each shot. I’m finding it hard to do this but will keep trying. I’m fortunate that I don’t have an editor breathing down my neck; I can take my time and try to do it right.
So, to answer your question, David, it may not be for everyone but as far as I’m concerned this is the only way I’d want to live my life.
Patricia
Cathy;
I was a bit like you when I came back from Timor Leste. In the end I decided I just needed to give myself a swift uppercut and get on with it… :-)
Patricia
Experiencing life through a camera lens is something that non-photographers don’t understand.
Recently, after visiting my mom for a three day weekend to celebrate her 80th birthday, my wife commented to me how I must have missed so much because I was always taking photographs. I tried to explain how rather than missing what was going on, photographing makes you hyper-aware of whatever is going on. It is more than a way of life, it is sort of a spiritual path, a meditation.
http://www.pbase.com/glafleur/moms_80th_birthday&page=all
Gordon L,
I don’t mean to disagree with you in general, but there are times when I deliberately leave the camera behind and make no attempt to photograph… such was the case last week when I took two Canadian friends to see the Korean National Dance Theatre’s one-night-only performance of “Chunhyamg-jeon” in Vancouver during the Olympics. I photograph dance a lot, and Korean dance a lot for that matter, but I disapprove of photography during a formal dance performance in a theatre… for one thing, even if it isn’t prohibited or the prohibition isn’t enforced very strictly, it’s an intrusion for the other spectators. In this case I probably could have gotten away with sneaking some shots, but I would have felt shabby doing so. More importantly, I find I cannot really surrender myself to the total magic of a premiere dance performance if I am busy looking through a camera viewfinder. Either I am there to make photographs, or I am there to have a different kind of full-immersion cathartic experience. This may not be true for you or for other photographers, but for me sometimes the camera really does get in the way of my enjoyment. Of course I’d love to have come away with images other than just the ones in my memory, but sometimes that must be enough, at least for me. Many of the most moving events of my life (and this was one for sure) are ones I haven’t and never would try to photograph.
Nah I don’t buy that hyper aware caper it is tunnel vision mentality if anything…..there is a better sense of place without looking through a rectangle. Shoot a few friends or next of kin funerals and the difference will be quite obvious.
Concerning this little debate – once, back in the very early 90′s, in late May, at about 4:00 AM when the Arctic light was simply exquisite, I was feeling very tired as I had been going for about 40 hours straight. I sat my cameras down on the lower ice of a pressure ridge, then walked about 30 feet away and plopped my butt down atop a block of ice right by the edge of the lead.
Suddenly, a pod of maybe 40 belugas materialized right in front of me, their white skin appearing somewhat pink in that hour’s light. They came churning through the water right in front of me and it was magnificent to see. I was entranched. I knew that I should run back and grab my cameras, but I could not pull myself away even for the brief time this would have required of me.
So I just stayed put, no camera between the belugas and I, and watched in awe as they passed by.
I have thought about that many times, and the photo that might have resulted. I had photographed belugas prior to that and I have photographed belugas since – but never, ever, did I see it like that and I don’t ever expect to again.
So I wonder about that missed photograph. Yet, strangely, I never can bring myself to feel bad about having just sat there, taking it in only with the lenses of my eyes, in total and complete solitude. Just me and the belugas. No camera clicking – no worrying if I might screw it up and miss the picture because, without a camera in my hands, there was no picture to be missed.
Hi David.
Haven’t had the opportunity to stay in contact here at BURN forpast couple of monthers, this year, so I hadn’t realized you were away this long. Love the look of the colour in your images. Something looks a bit Kodachromish about them..I’m desperately hanging on by my fingertips.
We’re all Bower birds in one way or another, and rather been one shining a light rather than one hoarding things away.
Still looking forward to talking. After the huge flurry of scanning where I got over a thousand images up I realized it may be well way too many, so have stopped for the moment, but still have many thousands to go.. Not to many in my mind, but possibly to many for others viewing such a site as PHOTOSHELTER. I don’t know.
Cheers.
take care.
Peter.
hmm..
i do feel hyper-aware visually, (beate would testify to that :ø), yet that has nothing to do with whether there is a camera to my face or not.. constantly seeing photos – looking for them – is a great pleasure.. past-time.. not living through a camera lens but living with a camera in yer head.
the travel side of things is somewhat irrelevant really – you follow your interest where it takes you, and if you´re lucky / unlucky enough it takes you on the road.. again and again.. traveling without purpose though is like cooking without purpose, and while that can result in an unbelievable feast it also has the potential to produce some unpalatable flavours.
i think one of the most misunderstood aspects of working abroad is that it is all fun.. all good exotic and rewarding.. no.. i adore it.. there is a romantic side which adores people watching at airports n bus stations.. that side also loves the first mumbling stumble out of a hotel and the first meetings with new people, of whom there are an endless supply of when moving away from home.. in part dependent upon the kindness of strangers, while also being potential pray to the worst kinds of people.
the side which really bites for me has always been the stomach cramp on closing my front door behind me and tucking the key away.. the walk to the first mode of transport can feel light headed, fearful and nerve wracking, depending upon the job and destination.. the loneliness of spending a good part of every weekend traveling and utterly alone in thoughts dominated by concerns.. has the hotel been booked okay? will the contacts i have to meet be fine people or dogs? will i get the shots i need? have i got enough funds to cover the expenses?
am i heading into another ´lost weekend´ of hedonism of the rough or the smooth kind?
thoughts which only subside for me upon switching on the bcc in the hotel room and sinking in to the bath on arrival with a drink of some kind.
i miss that first bath and drink a great deal.. the wave of relaxation.. free thought and excitement of teh unknown before leaving the hotel, sometimes for the last time in days :ø)
10 years of that and i needed a break and did not travel for work at all during 2008.. during which time the returning security and control over my weekends and the people i chose to spend them with felt good.. great.. had a baby with beate to celebrate .. lovely times.
now though.. that 1 year in 10 is over and the gypsy in me is demanding more of an outward aspect again.. the randomness and external influences, good and bad, all add up to the most rewarding of changes in perspective.. something potions can not do.. photographing, whatever the subject, which results in moving around is amazing.. meeting such a high volume of people is a privilege.. beate wants to work abroad with children.. there has been talk..
last year we managed to take our little family to croatia for 5 weeks while i worked.. then i worked in ibiza for a week.. the travel is creeping in again.. this year will bring a few more trips perhaps.. and more around my new home country..
always with a single goal.. always with focus.. it can get to a point where the world feels like your backyard and all the potential friends like neighbors with a shared passion. traveling with the pure intent of photographing your interest is an incredible buzz – so long as you´re able to let the detractors wash over you.
easy it is not – and perhaps that is one reason why those who say they would like to do it never do.
those that want to do it are doing it already.. wear the suit you want to wear tomorrow, today.
the coming home is never that bad for me these days – coming home is never an end, rather it is a new start with fresh perspective.
wafflewafflemumblemumblejabberjabber
d
PETER….
one of the reasons my older Rio pictures may look “Kodachromish” is because they were shot on Kodachrome…welcome back…
David B
I’ll let you have a speech in my future wedding!
DAH Asked “is this any way to live? or, is this the only way to live? i know my answer…what is yours?”
Its certainly A way to live. …….but the only? Certainly not for me. Its the one I choose at the moment. And I love it, except when I hate it.
In a previous life I lived a precarious decade, scavenging from day to day for money to put in my arm (later leg..later still feet..later still..lets not go there). No possesions, no responsibilities, no conscience. No yesterday or tommorow only NOW. it was an experience I wouldnt trade for anything. A completely alien world to most people. The adventures I had in that life were many(as were the tragedies)….but that life is gone.
Now I make pictures.
I travel round the world, or around the city I live in, watching a world that is not really mine, capturing little pieces of it in frames. I am a visitor in it for however long it is before its time to move on again, as there is nothing material in my life now that i couldnt walk away from tommorow, cameras included.
And who knows when tommorow will come calling? A new experience beckoning? or what it might be….thats the best part.
So; A life?, certainly. The only life? probably not for this camper.
JOHN
Dearest David,
I can understand the state you are living now, and trust me, I’m with you.
Not that I want to compare whatever you’ve been doing in your live as a photojournalist, but when I went to Rio to shoot a story, I planned to be there for only one month and I ended up staying for 4 month, where I totally got in love with the city and its wonderful people. Rio reminded me a bit of Palermo, a continuos shift between paradise and hell, love and despair.
There I have met some amazing people, some of which I kept contact with, some others unfortunately they passed to other worlds or in jail for their life. Going back to London from Rio, has had quite a brutal impact on my own life. Here in Europe or in western cultures there are many grey areas where people usually fit perfectly, compromising between personal life, commodities, business, and leisure. In places like Rio, Palermo or other areas affected by terrible plaques such as war, civil conflicts or social disaster, you find only enemies or friends, no grey areas, no compromise. This is what I miss from there. I hope next time you’ll have to go to Rio, I can come when you’re there, so that we can discuss even further these things in front of the first “saidera”!!
Big UP for real
Mimi
definitely : this is the only way to live
un saludo y mucha suerte en rio
neven
More kodachromey sorta moments
http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/C.aspx?VP3=ViewBox&ALID=2K7O3RJE3GM&IT=ThumbImage01_VForm&CT=Album
“….yet now my home front porch beckons….but, will my cat remember me? has my electricity been shut off ? battery run down on my truck? yes, my “real life” has been on hold…even patient family and friends are fed up with me…no responses to emails….missed events…forgotten birthdays…major responsibilities undone…
of course no woman can put up with me…
i will spend the next week apologizing to everyone about everything…and so it goes…”
——————————————————————————————-
ahhhh…tell it like it is..
thats the other side of the same coin imo..
biggest hug
Regarding kodachromey sorta moments, David, how much I would like to talk about your work! I’m not being critical (in a negative way). You give so much you certainly can’t be expected to give it all, but still, I’d so much like to hear about the aesthetic and technical considerations that went into that work and how you see those y2k Rio photos in the larger context of your development. I have my own ideas, but hesitate to discuss them publicly out of respect for your reticence. Looking at the magnum link, biting my tongue, biting my tongue…
Regarding leaving the camera home, or at least in the bag, I’m all for it. Sydney’s example explains my feelings quite well. As photographers we bother people by necessity. A photographer’s obstructionary and/or auditory presence at any event takes away from the enjoyment of the event. As a photographer, I have to feel that there is some larger purpose that makes that worthwhile. I’ve gone to a couple interesting dance events put on by an organization that I have previously worked with at similar events in a venue I have shot in the past. I had my bag, but never got out the camera because I knew from the lighting and the places I could go that I would not likely not get anything I would want to show. Most likely, I would only bother people. I went to the first event partly out of nostalgia, but was mainly just blown there randomly by the wind. It has occurred to me to get back in contact with them and make arrangements and get some worthwhile photos, but I’m at the point where that’s how I want to approach things–not willy-nilly throwing myself in front of an event with slim hopes of getting unlikely results. That said though, I do find it hard to just enjoy these events for themselves these days. Last night, for example, I noticed I spent about a quarter of the presentation figuring out where the light was coming from and how it was affecting different skin tones and reflective surfaces from different angles in the room and silently critiquing the photographers who were working the room and kept putting themselves in my, and everyone else’s, picture.
“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.”-pooh to piglet
“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. “Pooh,” he whispered.
“Yes, Piglet?”
“Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s paw, “I just wanted to be sure of you.””
call me wearied, but sailed and spun by breath, but in truth i sometimes weary of the question of how to live, how the ‘you’ (meaning I) must live, instead of the how do ‘WE’ live…for in truth, i’ve never thought, or cared, much about the hows of my life, singular, as to the ‘with you’….i’m a worrier, a constant worrier, not for myself, my life, my work, but for those i love, i care much much more about how they live and love and remain safe…
just last night i spoke to my younger brother on the phone….as some know, he had a heart attack (uninsured) last October and since has continued to struggle with maintaing his health (he’s done a fabulous and brave job of that), his family and family emotions, his business and home (he’s a fisherman with his own boat and charter fishing business)….and last night, we spoke of his big struggles of late: it has been a horrible horrible year…and has only a few trips over the last month and a half…pitching against the struggle, now, just to survive financially, emotionally, experientially….not a damn thing i can do to help but to keep sending him love and listen and wrangle small things for him and his family….
and in truth, that is the only thing i care about…not my photography, not my writing, not my books, but hte lives of those i love, my wife and son, my parents and in-laws, my brothers and their families, my friends….it’s a hard balance for most of us, i include myself in this equation, only focus on ourselves, on our living, on the way we make our happiness and twined mark in the world…on bad days, on sad and wearied days, i feel emptied by much of what i do, i feel often emptied by jobs and mentalities and occupations and philosophies that focus on the ‘me’ on the promotion of self on the questions of how ‘i’ live, as oppossed to how ‘you’ live…..
it is sometimes what i feel is so selfish about each of us, myself above all, ….
to david’s question, i answer it simply: on good days, i feel like James Wright, we all step out into the field and bloom and become one and fragrant…
on bad days, i answer it even less poetically: i have not fucking idea how to live and how to protect those i love……
no answers, no long essay, just an I dont know….
but i shall continue to try until i go with trying to make some small goodness: to help and to ring out those small corners of my life by real getures of love….
how to do that…i am still learning….and it often aches…
I have of late – but wherefore I know not – lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilential congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me: no, nor woman neither.
HAMLET
I was the victim of a series of accidents, as are we all. — Kurt Vonnegut
I travel round the world, or around the city I live in, watching a world that is not really mine, capturing little pieces of it in frames. I am a visitor in it for however long it is before its time to move on again, as there is nothing material in my life now that i couldn’t walk away from tomorrow, cameras included. — John Gladdy
Fuck shakespeare.
It was then I knew I’d had enough,
Burned my credit card for fuel
Headed out to where the pavement turns to sand
With a one-way ticket to the land of truth
And my suitcase in my hand
How I lost my friends I still don’t understand. – Neil Young
Fuck Shakespeare indeed!