It’s all about water, isn’t it? The search for it, the fleeing from it. Or, for an Ozarks photographer perhaps, the luxury of simply immersing in the beauty of it.
It is flowing water that most often attracts the photographer’s eye. Water moving over rock is composed of an infinite number of individual droplets, each carrying its own packet of light, and with practice, an artist can chose the right combination of shutter speed and aperture to either freeze those droplets for inspection, or let them flow into a ghostly fog.
Upper Reaches, Middle Fork, White River, Arkansas
11x16 inch pigment print $125
* 4x6 pigment print $25
*available only to blog followers
So why, when confronted with moving rivers, do I so often choose to seek out the backwaters, the eddies, the pools? The water has stopped, or is barely moving, life is slower here, there is time to contemplate, to collect things of interest, to nurture. And, often, it seems that the visiting photographer is just another of the collected items, floating and swirling to unseen currents, temporary, resting, destined to leave and continue the journey downstream.
Leaves are drawn to backwaters, and concentrate in numbers that represent their distribution and proximity. Water-loving beeches and gums and magnolias predominate this time of year along the upper stretches of the Buffalo National River in Arkansas – the leaves from witch hazel, alder, and a host of others blown and floated away earlier in the season. Many have sunk to the bottom, newer arrivals are still floating, so there is a depth to the image that extends from rock bottom through layers of soggy leaves to the surface of dry floaters, and above that to reflections of passing clouds and overhead tree forms, skeletons showing in the mirrors that come and go between leaves.
Today, I am using film and an old style Voigtlander rangefinder camera that is light to carry. Every camera has its own rhythm and ritual, and for this one it plays like this: envision, attach camera to tripod, compose, rethink, recompose, take meter readings, look at cloud cover for possible changes, make calculations, set camera shutter speed and aperture, attach cable release, wait for clouds to diffuse the light, re-meter and recalculate, trip shutter, leave camera in place, sit and open a thermos of coffee, munch on some trail mix, make a note in photo journal, pet Carl, take another look through camera, pack up and move upstream. Life is good.
Beech and Magnolia, Upper Buffalo Wilderness Area, Arkansas
11x16 inch pigment print $125
* 4x6 pigment print $25
*available only to blog followers
The images in this series of essays are from an upcoming exhibition
30 Days In The Life
that will be on display at the Fayetteville Underground April 6th-30th, 2011
30 Days In The Life
that will be on display at the Fayetteville Underground April 6th-30th, 2011
