http://imaging.nikon.com/products/imaging/activity/npci/npci2008-2009/index.htm
WORK UNDONE
As a harbormaster, I live and work on the water, which means that most of the time there is no solid ground under my feet or in my field of vision. I am keenly aware that the river that flows beneath the docks I traverse daily is just as artistically dynamic and beautiful as anything that is above the horizon line. Its fluidity, constant movement, variety of color and texture, ability to mirror and susceptibility to all of nature’s basic elements never ceases to surprise me. And so it was on the day I shot this photograph. I looked out my office window toward “Mark’s”, the floating restaurant I often frequent. It was late spring and within an hour or so most of this day’s light would be gone. But at that moment it was gleaming from the southwest and the wavering reflection of the building, including the ladder Mark had left leaning on a gutter, screamed out to be captured. I grabbed my camera and shot three photos, all within four minutes of each other; this photo was the last of the three. I had been initially drawn by the brilliant blue color, the lines of the windows, and the ladder. Later I found that I was just as fascinated by the sky masquerading as water, the reflections of reflections in the windows, its layering, and the painterly quality of the overall image, as though it had been created with a palette knife. I cropped nothing.
Feeling toward this work and how it interprets “At the heart of the image”:
What I love about this photo, and the real heart of this image, is how raw it feels and that the viewer doesn’t have to know exactly what it is to appreciate it. It’s visceral. The camera was able to capture exactly what I saw and yet the resulting image is as abstract as it is “real”. It invites you to look more closely, to ask questions, to dissect it, to react. The eye and the mind recognize the ladder as familiar, but what is it for and where does it go to? The sky? The water? This photo is all about testing and treating your senses!
THE EXCHANGE
I had just gotten to work at my floating office as harbormaster of a marina along the Multnomah Channel in Scappoose, Oregon. The 20-mile channel connects the Willamette River and the Columbia River, and abuts Sauvie Island, one of the longest islands in the United States. It is also home to a large bird sanctuary. It is not uncommon to see Canada Geese, Sandhill Cranes, Blue Herons, and a host of other birds, including occasional bald eagles. But this morning, my friend called to say that a bald eagle was at the very top of the fir tree adjacent to our foot ramp. I went outside to see it, caught a glimpse and immediately went to get my camera. I did not have a telephoto lens, but I kept shooting from various angles for perhaps half an hour. I saw others in the marina with snapshot cameras pointed at the eagle; still others were just admiring the sight of it. The day was crisp with a striking blue sky. The eagle surveyed the area below, looking stately and strong. Then suddenly the eagle began to call loudly and I could see another bird fast approaching from my left. I thought there would be a violent confrontation and I braced for it, my camera aimed at the eagle in the tree. Instead the adult eagle levitated up for a juvenile eagle to take her place, and then she swooped down and away, magnificent in her exit. My fellow viewers and I cheered. I caught two shots with both eagles in them.
Feeling toward this work and how it interprets “At the heart of the image”: This shot was all about timing and placement, surprise and dumb luck. And isn’t that what many incredible situations and memories are all about? This dominant bird, symbol of a great nation’s strength, gracefully rose in the sky as though she were draped in a cape and raising her arms upward while her progeny screamed toward her, talons out, eyes fierce and focused. It was a beautiful and amazingly orchestrated dance of old giving way to young. And so on any ordinary day, extraordinary things take place within the blink of an eye. That experience and this photo remind me to stay present in this moment.
GOING TO LONG CREEK
Shooting situation:
I was on a scouting trip for a new home for my Bengal cat, Zila. Annie, a young school teacher in Long Creek, Oregon, population 249, had invited me to visit her home. She had answered the ad I posted on Craig’s List and was potentially a perfect match for Zila’s exotic breeding and high maintenance lifestyle. Annie did not want a docile cat. So I was driving a few hundred miles from western Oregon to eastern Oregon, from lush evergreens to a drier landscape, sparse, where the sky is big. This was Pendleton Round-Up country. I was heading south on Highway 395, a two-lane road that you would not want to travel without a full tank of gasoline. It was a gloriously sunny afternoon with a bright blue sky dotted with huge white cloud formations. The farther I drove, the more I noticed how isolated the area had become, how the land itself was now the dominant feature, how people played a very minor role in this terrain. They might work the land, but they did not, could not tame this land. I was no longer in a valley; I was going deeper and climbing higher on the edge of what felt like a foreign place. I mean foreign as in “other-worldly”. Just south of Pilot Rock I happened upon a tiny wooden shack tucked into layer after layer of rolling hills. No people, just signs that there had been people or could be people. But not today. Today there was just the shack and behind it what might be the edge of the earth. I pulled to the side of the road, got out and leaned over a barbed-wire fence to take several shots.
Feeling toward this work and how it interprets “At the heart of the image”:
I remember thinking how wild this landscape looked, beaten down by summer heat and wind, no stranger to ice and cold, quiet in its vastness. I felt very small within it. It was the contrast between the lone structure and the land that struck me. The land seemed to go on forever. The shack was weathered and had begun to take on the appearance of the landscape itself. It was a marker of man, but it was changing, minute by minute. I was aware that if anything, or anyone, was left to this place, the earth would quite naturally transform it, and without a doubt absorb it. This photo epitomizes that certainty and illustrates the impermanence of it all. At its heart it reminds us that time is indeed very short.
WATER WORLD
Shooting Situation:
It was a crisp, bright and slightly damp early October morning. I had driven to Sacajawea Park in Longview, Washington, which winds through a residential neighborhood and is a popular destination for family picnics, dog-walkers, joggers and those with some extra time on their hands. I had found the small, but proud Japanese Garden at the northern end, but I hadn’t “connected” with any of my shots there. I had gone to the park hoping to see some fall colors, brilliant leaves on majestic trees, etc., but I was not sensing any seasonal drama. Then I happened upon these quiet water lilies, long past their bloom, aging at the edge of the pond; each one different from the next. My shot was not going to be dramatic; rather it would be subtle and require me (and the viewer) to pause in order to appreciate the complexity of such a simple scene.
Feeling toward this work and how it interprets “At the heart of the image”: What excited me about this scene was the interplay of light and shift of perspective. Those striking long shadows and the vivid reflection left me wondering where the water really was, and where the sky began. The clouds became liquid as they swirled and rippled. There was a curious serpentine divide between the bluer bottom half and the smokier top half that fueled the overall illusion. Of course, the two graceful cattail blades anchored the image and reminded me exactly where reality was. I thought about those visual games where you first close one eye and then the other to see two different versions of what is right in front of you. And isn’t that how life is? What I thought I might capture that day never materialized, and instead I experienced the changing of a season in a much more intimate yet powerful way. The heart of this image is about slowing down and taking the time to see what is actually there in front of and around you, to allow for all the possibilities, and to imagine those you may not yet see.
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