"I am not interested in shooting new things - I am interested to see things new."
--Ernst Haas

Falling Light

I laid yesterday afternoon and watched the light fall into dusk. That wouldn't be all that unusual for a photographer I suppose except that I was sick, stuck lying on my couch, listening to my partner Jenn read aloud from a book about Cook's voyages in Australia, and soaked in the warm late summer sun as it slowly journeyed to and beyond the horizon through my front window, over the garden and distance west hills. What made it unusual was that it was a journey over four hours.

It was an absolutely gorgeous self-indulging journey and one I would never have made if I had not been sick. For the first time in many years, nearly a decade, since an afternoon on the northern Serengeti, I just watched light. I watched it do that most magical thing - change the world.

It reminded me how impatient we are to not indulge ourselves in such an incredible journey. How for granted we take each daily event of magic. And perhaps why there are so few great photographs, and yet so many cameras.

When I was very young in my to-be-a-photographer journey my friend Ernst Haas had a stuccatoed monologue with me one afternoon, what I wrote down from it later was - "Go for a walk one day with the light, you will come back changed."

If you look at his work - B&W or color - you can see many walks, countless walks, walks with and without people, walks in cities, in countrysides, walks at night, and in the heat of the day, but all these walks have one common companion - Light. I think he took far fewer photos than he did walks with light. Thinking back on my precious time with him I'm certain of it. And that idea has triggered a rebirth in my photography, my need to create photographs, a need for more walks; and an idea for an essay, maybe a book, at the least a way to start re-seeing the world I perambulate - A walk with Light.

"ya gotta be good, but never turn down being lucky"

Every now and again someone sends me a link to a photo or series of photos worth sharing. These support the "ya gotta be good, but never turn down being lucky": http://www.pbase.com/redionne/kingkong

Also, if you just want another touch of visual inspiration check out the daily posting of images from around the world on the BBC Day in Pictures online and MSNBC.com The Week in Pictures.

Water thoughts

Last week rain finally fell on Portland, and my garden, and the roads I ride, but every drop of it was lapped up with joy and welcome - like a friend long absent.

Nearly daily I read articles addressing water issues which 'ping' my thinking about how to approach and communicate the our planet's growing water concern. Like the water problem itself, the solution for me photographically is equally elusive. Most of those stories, like this -Water reform is 'needed in Asia' - on the BBC news online, go unnoticed amidst the global panic over economies, wars, terrorists, etc. Ironically, in the coming years, regardless of how our car companies fare, and what leader is this week threatening his neighbors, water will remain at the core of our economic and security woes, it IS our woe. Yet for now, and likely until the day the tap runs dry in the homes of America and Europe, it's a problem to postpone. In the mean time:

• 1.1 billion people live without clean drinking water
• 3 900 children die every day from water borne diseases
• 2.6 billion people lack adequate sanitation

And the statistics flow faster and with more clarity than the water we need - if you are interested check out the World Water Council and International Water Management Institute to get a broader perspective.

Over on my Japanese gardening blog (diary) I made note of the rain returning here to "my" little planet - it was a very personal reunion - both to my thirsty little green friends and my water bill, which has soared in trying to keep the little green friends alive. And that has made me think and post this blog - water isn't personal enough - "enough". Enough is the key word. How do I create images that tell what "enough" is, means, feels like, to those impacted today, so that those who are not will sit up and say, "hang on, we have a nightmare on our doorstep!" We simply, we the American/Europeans of the world, don't face the problem in a personal way daily or any day usually, we don't walk miles for a gallon or two of "clean" water, we don't have our children dieing agonizing deaths in our arms from ghastly sanitation conditions, so it doesn't really exist as a problem.

Hang on, be right back....

Whew, thanks.

I was really thirsty spouting all that, needed a glass of water, wow, that was easy, just turn on the tap, fill the glass.

Back to the blog....

In search of a solution, both to my creative challenge and, more importantly, to the real challenge, I wonder if it doesn't lie in a garden a top a mountain chain in the Highlands of Paupa New Guinea. There 25 years ago I met the Huli people, the "Wigmen of Papua", the spectacular fellow in the picture above, in their tiny mountain valley high above the world and it's problems. Where the Huli live is near Eden, the Tagali Valley , but off the map, most maps anyway (Google map it - it's a blank spot). The soil is lush, alive, and the rain falls with Swiss-like regularity. Literally, stick anything in the ground and it will grow. And that's what has me thinking. From childhood Hulis are gardeners - every man, woman and child works in the gardens. So pervasive is gardening in the Huli culture that even young men passing through the bachelor cult igari haroli must succeed as gardeners - specifically they must grow an orchid-looking bog iris plant (padume). Durning this period they also learn a series of chants important to their passage into manhood, one of them is the "Water Chant". (Women may likely have similar passages but as a male I was not privvy to them.)

For other, but similar reasons I use to thinnk wouldn't it be incredibly valuable if when entering college every student was handed a small seed or seedling and we said "here, care for this and see it grow, and at graduation, in addition to your 'other' studies, you must present this little plant, alive and flourishing, to graduate." Imagine how that would change our lives? Imagine how that would change the way we view life? Imagine future generations of young people who actually value life?

And now I wonder - Imagine how that would make us view every drop of water we use on this planet?

Searching for new perspectives

Cycling photography has now become one of my new challenges - but cycling photography is and isn't like a lot of sports photography. Most sports are confined by the dimensions of some preordained space - a field, a court, the pitch, or the pool. What ever the imprisonment, it helps get ‘the shot’ for a hungry media, but seriously strains at the coattails of creativity. Let’s face it a lot of daily sports photo coverage is insanely boring – celluloid clichés (alright, now they are digital derivations).

Cycling in most of its incarnations has one enormous photo advantage - it is played out through the villages and countryside of the world – anything with a road or road-like surface is fair game. As a Frenchman once asked me while I was cycling in the French Pyrenees, “don’t you have high mountain roads in your country?” yes, I explained, but we don’t pave a road over every goat trail up there like you do. Photographically this yields a wealth of opportunities. What other sport enables you to cast your actors in an amphitheater of soaring granite and glacial sheets, or against the sun washed stone of a thousand year old Tuscan village. The disadvantage – they never stop moving, never.

The Pros (cycling photographers) have the distinct advantage of a moto” – perched on the rear of a motorcycle with credentials to zoom in and about the peloton (cycling’s big group of riders) as well as venture a field for unique perspectives and return to catch the race action.

As one without benefit of ‘moto’ cycling photography has presented some new and interesting challenges to me. (I’ve also turned to my previous wildlife work for inspiration – there too the ‘game’ is played out in the uncontrollable arena of life.) Fortunately I have no editor sitting anxiously waiting for ‘the shot’ to grace the front page of the sports section or the fleeting lead web story for the day. That freedom gives me the liberty to take some chances – something I just don’t think photographers (regardless your experience) are willing to do – the hell with it, go take a chance, screw up a little, you just might strike gold – accidents are the birthplace of genius.

The Boston Globe posted some of the best photos from the recently completed Tour de France – as you can see, some cycling photo pros are trying to find that new perspective – enjoy.

Over on my cycling website – BicyclingNorthwest.com – I am co-sponsoring a bike photo contest with local Portland shop Pro Photo Supply and Canon cameras. I hope that photographers of all levels and approaches get creative – taking advantage of the millions of opportunities the bike, its infinite habitat and characters, to create some very cool images. Here’s a link to the 2009 Bike Photo Contest.

Canon G10 & 5D get thumbs up on NPR

A previous posting discussed some of my new digital cameras and why I'm working in those directions so I thought it was interesting timing that the folks (NPR's multimedia director Keith Jenkins) on NPR's All Tech Considered thought the same -
How to choose the right camera for you

Little Camera - Big Fun

I don't typically get excited about gear. In fact, I usually have to turn to others to figure out the cameras and stuff needed to accomplish something I have imagined. But last year I traveled to northern Italy to do some cycling in the Dolomites and wanted to photograph the adventure (having missed some of the year before in the French Pyrenees). Having something little in my jersey pocket was flexible, spontaneous and freeing. The other thing is no one thinks you are a professional.

Trying to marry small and control has been the struggle. The first of the "little cameras" I tried a few years ago was a total disappointment - response time toooo slow. After years of "big cameras" with 6-10 frames per sec. - and on film no buffer download time - waiting wasn't going to work. The other issue is lens range. As you can see from many of the examples I post here I love wides, super wides even better!

My newest little camera photographer-friend Joni Kabana turned me on to, it's the Canon G10 - and I love this little thing. It's got enough weight to feel serious. G10 is the first G-series camera to offer wide-angle imaging via a 5x (28mm) zoom with optical Image Stabilizer. The addition of a 14.7 Megapixel sensor and Canon’s new DIGIC 4 image processor ensures exacting image quality. And from a serious creative perspective it has all the critical controls available in traditional top locations - exposure, ISO, shooting mode, and a actual optical viewfinder! as well as a 3.0” PureColor LCD II (461k dots resolution) with wide viewing angle. AND just to really make life fun it packs a sweet little 30fps VGA video. There are reviews all over the web - far better than this non-techie could provide, but from a image-making POV the Canon G10 is really awesome.

I now carry the G10 everywhere - literally! It fits in a pocket, a bag, my cycling pocket. I'm shooting a ton with this "LITTLE" camera - over the coming weeks I'll post some portfolios - still and video. PS - Canon if you are listening (knock, knock!) - make the G11 with a 20mm wide and you have a brilliant camera!