This spring I decided to take a camera with me on my daily bike ride with our dog, Lily, as we rode/ran through the beautiful park area near our neighborhood. This park has two small lakes, a marsh, and it borders the Mississippi River to boot. Its two miles from our house to the park and we do about a five mile circuit in the park before returning home. It is a virtual feast for the senses in any season. Now, I do shoot 4x5, but in this “project,” since it is a “run” so both Lily and I get our exercise, I use a DSLR. I look at it like making “sketches” of the things we see each day as we pass through the different parts of the park. If a scene is particularly impressive, I can go back with the view camera and do another shot at a later date. With the small camera I sometimes take 30 to 50 images on a good ride, stopping only briefly for each shot or series of shots.
All very well and good. But the first thing I became aware of in the three weeks since starting this project, is the illusive nature of the ever changing scenery. Going past the same spots on a daily basis, it is quite apparent that each day any given location is different even from the day before. Spring itself is a rapidly changing event. The brown dead grasses and reeds of the marsh dominate only until the new green shoots appear. The glassy perfection of the small lakes on a windless evening later become dappled with emergent lily pads. The trees rapidly grow delicate light green leaves, which multiply daily and become darker as they grow larger. Time and life itself transforms the landscape sometimes within the span of a few days. On a more mundane scale, you can return to the same spot at the same time a day later and find clouds, or no clouds, etc. The wind might be stronger or weaker, the air itself might be more laden with moisture which gives the late evening sunlight a different quality. On weekends we run earlier in the day, and it’s a completely different landscape in the morning or early afternoon from the one we see in the evening.
One evening I returned with the 4x5 to a particularly nice spot on the lakeshore to photograph the dead reeds and brown timbers strewn along the shoreline in the soft red glow of the setting sun. The shot I had captured a few days before with the small camera was perfect, but I wanted a larger, crisper image to print. When I got to the spot everything was about like it was before. I set up the view camera, did a spot meter reading and got the film holder out. The sun was just above the tops of the trees on the other side of the lake. Everything was perfect. Then, suddenly a small cloud appears. A small column that seems glued right in front of the sun. Clear sky to the left, and clear sky to the right. It was like the cloud, or God was giving me the finger! Gone was that magical red glow that had been softly painting the dry yellow fallen reeds. Since the camera was all set up and focused, I re-metered and took the shot anyway. Just out of stubbornness. The Ektachrome turned out well exposed and it scanned well, and the resulting print will be very nice. Just no soft red glow.
I am finding this is pretty much the case each time I return to re-take a photo at virtually any location, no matter which camera I have with me. Nature, serendipity, probability, and maybe even chaos theory all converge on each moment for each specific place, rendering that place at that specific time entirely unique. This is not a lament. Instead it is a realization that there are virtually infinite opportunities to capture different images in the same park at the same locations for as many times that I go to them. Kind of mind boggling!
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks