Once in Lifetime or One Time in Life...

Once in a Life Time.

One Time in Life.

Think about the difference. One statement is based on scarcity, other on abundance.

A few years back Griffin and I were camping in the North Cascades in early September and had drove down to Winthrop before heading home. Leaving town there were two PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) hikers thumbing a ride from town to the Highway 20 trailhead. Since the Bible says to be kind to children, crazy people and PCT hikers we stopped and picked them up.

These two had started in California in late April and were now just about to start their final leg of the hike nearly 5 months later. Since I’ve hiked a tiny bit of this trail (45 miles) a few years back I felt a swaddling kinship. 

One fella was from California and the other from Holland (his trail name was Van Gogh). Our discussion had turned to ‘why do this’ and a question that has always confounded me on adventures like this: “What are you going to do when you get back to the real world?” I’ve always felt the real world is what lies off in the mountains or on the seas and not in the cubicle or the time clock, or in speculative investments or legislative bodies.

Van Gogh side-stepped the question completely and said, “I don’t want to be that guy who did that one thing.”

He clarified with an example of the guy who works his entire life with the exception of one three week vacation to someplace exotic and that is all he talks about since. Van Gogh said he had access to a job he worked for 6 months for 60 plus hours a week and the other half of the year he traveled/adventured (on the cheap). This man not only lives in the real world, but had experienced a good portion of it also. 

As I build my business this is goal I’m eyeing. “One time in life, not once in a lifetime.”

Finishing The Unfinished

I don’t necessarily procrastinate as much as I overcommit. I could fiddle around being creative full time plus and many times act as if have the kind of time to do so. The reality is I’ve got a couple of kids half time, a very cool dog, a house with plenty of projects to finish and that I need to downscale from. In addition to that I work on boats, sometimes work on deck, and love being on the water.

Sometimes it takes a while to get things done. Just over a year ago I had a shoot with Carrie Crockett-Valhalla of BellowWing. It had been something we had talked about a couple of times and she had just shaved her head and I thought the energy was right for an authentic portrait. She had been feeling ill earlier in the week and everyone was a little tired and worn out but we made it work. I will generally plan on at least three hours for an authentic portrait, we barely made it to two.

Carrie is a musician and one of her instruments she plays is the saw, which she had with. After a few individual shots with the saw I thought it would be a nice to shot a series for a composite playing off of the Game of Thrones. Also it would allow Carrie to stay in the chair and not have to wear herself out posing on my direction. With the help of an assistant we made 88 images during the shoot for this one image.

The composite is made up of 26 separate images. I must give thanks to Brooke Shaden who taught me the basic skills needed to make composites like this and how to bring them to life.  I had got part of it put together right away, but as life interceded it got pushed to the back burner. Months went by. But it didn’t disappear completely. When I have a good idea it’ll manifest as an image, I can see it finished in my mind and will prod me every once in a while, if not downright begin to fester.

So with a short day from working on the boat because of the snow I decided it was time to finish this one up. A quiet house, sleeping dog and well into the evening I finished what I set out to do, albeit a year later.

It always feels good to put one in the can.

A Look Back in the New Year

It was on a cold drizzly February morning and I had convinced Laura Gwendolyn Burch to attempt some artistic compositions at the Lookout Arts Quarry in Alger. The previous fall I had spent a couple of days at a Creative Live workshop with Brooke Shaden and was enthused with the idea of creating composites. I have always been drawn to the process, especially when I can create something that goes a little further than what is expected in the physical world.

There were to be two shots attempted. The first was to have Laura suspended from the zip line on silks over the quarry lake. The key shot was her in the splits and then series of shots whipping the silks in different directions.  With the assistance of Claire Cassidy, Eric James and Greg Dotson, Laura was lowered half way down the zipline and I was on a floating dock below, camera on a tripod with an umbrella gaff taped to a light stand to keep the camera dry. While the dock was solid, it did move slightly which would add to the effort of matching backgrounds in the composite. We had a row boat ready in case Laura ended up in the water, her costume was one normally reserved for the heated indoors, not the 40 degree rainy February morning. The shot went off without a hitch and we got Laura pulled back up to the top without a trip into the lake. She was cold and we got her wrapped up and in the van to warm up while I set up the second shot.

First composite from the zipline.

Those are real February raindrops.

The next shot was to be an artist portrait rather than a performance based one. I had had this image in my head for a while now and after my time with Brooke in Seattle I felt I could realistically make an attempt to pull it off. It would involve putting Laura wrapped in a black and gold piece of cloth (not a dress mind you, just a piece of cloth) on top of a ladder that was sunk in the quarry just below the surface of the water. I would get the key shot first and then have her flip out a piece of the cloth in different directions so there would be coverage completely around her that I would assemble into a billowing dress as she appeared to float on the surface of the water. I had bought about 30 lbs of dry ice to sink in the water around the ladder to produce smoke/fog on the water surface. There was enough dry ice to make one attempt of the dress composite so we got everything as squared away as much as possible. I was guessing I had about five minutes to pull off the shot after the dry ice went in.

The key shot.

With a pair of waders on I got the ladder positioned in the quarry and sunk the dry ice. I then put Laura on my shoulders and carried her out to the ladder. Without wasting any time, I made the key shot, then all the cloth pieces, maybe 80 shots in all. I went back out to get Laura off the ladder and we got her wrapped up and back in the running van to warm her up. She was extremely cold, her effort was tremendous.

Getting Laura to the ladder.

I could have not pulled this off without the help Claire and Eric (and Greg for the first shot on the zipline). Of all the people that have assisted me on my shoots Claire was by far the best. It was always an extreme pleasure to have her on set. I rarely needed to make any detailed explanation of what I was thinking when she was assisting me, just a few words, an expression and a gesture or two and she was rearranging what ever needed to be changed, always helping the model. She is quite a remarkable human being.

Eric helping break down the shoot.

While these are early attempts at making fine art composites they will always be the most rewarding to me. Especially the joy of working with such talented and wonderful people in conditions that were not for the faint of heart.

Two Days To Nowhere

Recently I made a trip down to Vancouver to see my Mom. I’ve been making this trip frequently and decided to take the long way this time. If I drive directly down the freeway it’s 230 miles and about 4 hours without traffic. This time, accompanied with my 15 pound companion, Pete, I headed to the ferry at Coupeville and would make the trip down the peninsula. Instead of the usual 4 hours I took two days and 575 miles to complete the journey.

Arriving late for ferry reservation I have a an extra two hours to kill at Fort Casey. Pete is ecstatic. Beach and trails abound. This was one of my favorite parks when I was a kid. If given a choice where to go on on a sunny weekend when I was 10 I would choose Fort Casey every time. Pete is of the same bent and we enjoy the mild weather on this Saturday afternoon. Pete gets in a swim and then we walk through the forest up to fort. Fall is is impatiently waiting at the doorstep, the colors evident but the mild temperature and calm air seems more like summer. It is a quiet kind of day.

I am not bent of taking photographs, but I will over the next two days. Sometime I simply can not help myself.

From Ediz Hook, Port Angeles

After the ferry ride we head for Port Angeles, a town I have always enjoyed. There is a certain grit to this town that sits on the shoulder of the strait. It’s a town that can’t decide if it was pushed up from the sea or shoved off the top of the mountain. It feels like home. After a few stops we make our way out to the hook for evening light. Again, it is calm and I am a bit clumsy with my camera. I feel rusty.

Moonrise Over Port Angeles

We continue with only some kind of ratio of west and south as a direction. We end up at Rialto beach north of La Push. It’s just after 9pm and the nearly full moon illuminates the beach so Pete and I decide an evening walk up beach is in order. Pete is sure of himself but I keep him on the leash. I enjoy his easy going temperament. The ocean crashes beside us as moonlight dances across the wavetops. It’s a little early for stopping for the night so we decide to drive around the other side of the Quillayute river to La Push proper. 

The reservation always feels a little funny to me, like a military base without fences or a guardhouse. The reservations is like an odd type of chemotherapy treatment for the cancer of expansion and what some mistakenly consider as progress.

I pull into the marina parking lot, as I am accustomed to do in most any town that has them. I study the boats, tied up to their lines, their stories. We wait long enough for a fish boat that enters the harbor, making it’s way to a slip. Pete sleeps on my lap in calm quiet of the night. It’s after 10 and I can feel the boat’s and it’s tethers. It’s skipper, tired, makes fast and goes through his routine. This gets turned off, this gets left on, this gets shut, this gets left open. He walks up the dock and starts his truck and lets it warm up. I wait for him to leave so I can experience this arrival to its finish. He leaves. I hold Pete’s sleeping head, start the van and leave. My arrive in La Push is at an end. 

We continue to the highway until running across a state campground along the Bogachiel river. It’s quiet and sparsely occupied. Pete and I decide this will be our spot for evening. Though the day I have been listening to the master cut of James Harper’s new album. The music resonates with me. It’s presence creates an equilibrium between the other worldly sense of now and the thoughts from what sometimes feels like my drunk monkey mind that so often prefers rolling in the past. The album reminds my of the contemplative riffs from the soundtrack of Jim Jarmusch film Dead Man. Pete and slumber off off to sleep as Neil Young cascades across his fretboard in my mind.

It’s not too cold but Pete decide he wants in the sleeping bag. This little 15 pound west highland terrier sleeps with the same abandon that my boys did when they little. There is no greater gift than cradling a being while they drift in the sea of the subconscious. We sleep until 8am. The morning is foggy and Pete and I repack and depart. 

I was only spending one evening out so I decided not to bother with packing my camping kitchen. I now regret this decision, miles from nowhere and I am without hot coffee. I don’t eat breakfast but coffee is sorrily missed. I look forward to getting to the next town and finding a coffee shop. 

We head down the highway until I make an impulsive turn onto the Hoh Mainline road. I’ve never traveled this road. It winds through miles of DNR land in various states of undress until you get about as far as you can from the highway and then you will find the Olympic Corrections Center. As I slowly drive past the compound I can see men walking the yard in the damp foggy morning. The only thing that separates us is a fence. The incarceration industry is alive and well in the Hoh rainforest.

I do not linger, and beside a brief stop at the high bridge over Snahapish river we make our way back to the highway. I bid this Orwellian detour farewell and continue my search for coffee. We stay on 101 until a turn towards Moclips to get us back to the ocean. Soon we enter Pacific Beach and ultimately the Surf House Coffee shop. The cafe smells of good coffee and I order a Venti with an extra shot so the barista doesn’t have burn that forth shot. He gives it to me but says his machine can pull singles and we start a discussion about coffee. I’ve been roasting my own coffee for years but really don’t know much about the larger coffee serving industry. I chuckle to myself thinking 30 years ago the only decisions for coffee drinking was cream and or sugar. After we exhaust the topic of oxidation and crema it’s time to continue on. Pete waits anxiously, not caring about my cup of coffee, but where’s the beach.

Heaven on Earth for Petey

Down the street is beach access and great access it is. Just enough of a barrier between the beach and the city streets and the highway is far off. A river to the south and an open expanse to the north. The beach was sparsely populated so without hesitation Pete was leash free and off and running. What joy Pete gets from running on the beach, in and out of the surf, digging in sand, and his favorite thing is sneaking up on unsuspecting kelp and tearing it to bits. After a good romp we have to find a working hose spigot and have an impromptu bath before he’s allowed back into the van. 

There’s a whole world under the world.

I like Pacific Beach and it’s little community. Once back on the highway we cross Joe Creek and shortly find ourselves driving through Seabrook. If there a place to be rolled up and tossed in the sea it would be this place. It’s the regurgitation of a developers boardroom pitch onto the coastal landscape. It stinks of pretension. A town of suckers and their investments. I do not hesitate in the place. Neil Young’s guitar drones on and Gary Farmer wryly smiles at me in my head. We continue.

I care not to venture into Ocean Shores and we turn for Hoquiam and Aberdeen. I’ve always like these two towns, though rougher than Port Angeles. We spend some time driving through its neighborhoods. I can see effort being made, fresh paint, new siding, outright remodels. This community is gasping for a breath, and not the kind from the likes of Seabrook. We stop for a second tank of fuel for this two day journey.

We continue around Grays Harbor to Westport. I like Westport and have a certain connection with the area. My father bought a charter boat here when I was a kid, one that he eventually brought to Anacortes and ran divers to the San Juans out of Skyline marina. Forty years later I would find myself working on deck on a charter boat running divers in the San Juans. An experience I value highly. 

My high school friend Lars worked on deck and later skippered a charter boat out of Westport. He tried to convince me to come down for a season to work in the charter fleet, I wished I would have. I love boats, especially work boats.

Surfers, South Jetty, Westport

Pete and I drive through town, I think he remembers this place and he begins to whine for the beach. We head to the park at the south jetty for a walk. The lot is nearly full of vans and empty roof racks. The atmosphere is pleasant and the beach is populated with happy surfers. There is too many people and other dogs on the beach to let Pete off, he has a tendency to want to make new friends, even if they are a quarter mile away.

Giacometti whispers in my ear on the beach.

We wander up and down to waters edge. I screw on a 7 stop neutral density filter so can I shoot into the sun with a wide aperture. The lens hates me for this, the camera hates me, the auto focus groans at me as I coax toy camera and plastic lens images out of pedigreed piece of equipment. The surfers drift to the south and I follow keeping them backlit as they ride. The vantage and the focal length yield a Giacometti-esque scene of solitariness among an expansive beach, large waves and a giant sky. They were alone in their environment, even if in groups. Eyeing opportunity, I was envious. Pete could care less.

Matchstick Forest, Willapa Bay

We had a snack and not wanting to linger too long we continued. The drive takes us south around the inside of Willapa Bay to Raymond. A working town of boats and chainsaws. We’re back on 101 and heading for Ilwaco. I would like to make it there before sunset. I get distracted by a matchstick forest but my camera is still angry with me from how I treated it at Westport. As we get further south down the highway Long Island becomes backlit against the bay and I stopped at boat ramp to collect the scene. It’s a worthy stop, though probably the nail in the coffin for arriving in Ilwaco before the sunset. 

Long Island, Willapa Bay

We round the southern end of Willapa Bay and head west. Hitting the junction between Seaview and Holman we find some beach access. The sun  was setting and Pete and I head for the water’s edge. I record a quick video to send to my son who is studying in Kyoto. Slivers of orange gently lay on wisps of clouds at the horizon and I tell my son the only thing between him and I is this bit of ocean. As the sun sets for Pete and I, it is preparing to rise in Japan. I miss my son and admire his adventure.

As the planet continue to spin us away from the sun we head to Ilwaco proper and the marina. It is nice to find a row of businesses along the marina’s edge, thriving. We drive around the other side next to the boat lift and take a look toward Cape Disappointment. Our time here is done and we make way for the Astoria bridge. There is little light left and I find a vantage looking out towards the river’s mouth at Chinook point. The tripod and long exposures extract the scene, albeit delicate. I photograph beyond what our eyes can see or brain’s decipher. I make these photographs not for the brain, but for the mind. I extract the sweetness of life from the honeycomb of experiences. Passersby most likely think I’m a nut job taking pictures in the dark. Maybe I am.

Chinook Point, Columbia River

We cross the bridge at Astoria. Our westward journey is over and the day is done. Time to turn east and let the planet’s rising tide take us toward sunrise.

Something Went Wrong

When I woke up the computer this morning and was faced with this message:

“Something Went Wrong”

Well, alright. Something goes wrong all the time. So much so that I couldn’t imagine this world without things going wrong. 

What gave me pause wasn’t what was wrong, but that it was giving me a choice. I could “X” out of this wrongness or I could be “Okay” with the wrongness. Furthermore it gave me pause to decide where it had gone wrong. One can’t really know what’s going wrong until it’s gone wrong.

As I stare at the message I can’t help but reflect on the great many things that feel as they had gone wrong in my life so far. A failed marriage, certain regrets with relationships, both casual and parental. Opportunities missed, if not downright ignored…

As I stare at the screen my heart wholly agrees. Yes, “Something Went Wrong”.

The beautiful thing staring right at me is the choice. The choice to close it out and ignore it or be okay with it.

So this morning I’m reminded that something went wrong. But you know what, I’m okay with that. Are you?

The Blue Sliver

The world is but a sliver between what is above and what is below. A sliver. A möbius treadmill in the playground of consciousness.

I reserve certain mornings for reflection. For long breaths to acknowledge the subtleties that otherwise get lost in the busyness of routines. I spend time in creative spaces that exist beyond verbal descriptions. I review the signposts that I haphazardly missed the first time around. I embrace regret so I might be humble when humanity peers at the reflections in my eyes.

And I love. I love the delicate blue sliver that this world is. Floating in balance between above and below.

Jump

What does it take to find the courage to jump?

A single step. 

An idea. 

A dream. 

A plan. 

Preparation. 

Knowhow. 

A distaste of mediocrity.

Passion.

Love.

Desire.

It is the same thing that drives each and everyone of us toward serving something bigger than ourselves.

Many times have I climbed up the side of mountain only to find myself standing on a precipice, and with a deep breath, desiring to step forward into the abyss, not in destruction, but in the extreme presence of the moment. Unable to be anywhere but so wholly and completely in the world. Desiring to blend every atom of my existence into the undeniable connection to the rock underfoot to the furthest star and everything in between.

But how do we jump in world that is usurped by conventions and labels? Of belief systems that value control over creativity. Of hierarchies that value servants over service. How can you free yourself from the bindings that you put on yourself of your own free will?

You simply have to jump.

Oh Summer, Where Did You Go

The rain has begun, it now feels like summer is making its exit in earnest. It seemed short this year, a missed opportunity that slid silently out a side door when no one was looking.

August brings continued warm weather at first but by the end there is chill in the evening. By the end of the month the rain starts to spit and begins washing the green from the leaves.

I remember the warmth of summer when jumping from inner tube to inner tube with cousins on a hot afternoon in a green Minnesota lake. Of sunsets on the saltwater after setting crab pots for a morning catch. Of cousins running through the fields of grass, soaking the warm sun and taunting each other with light hearted play. When we stumbled into the Smith River on a hot August afternoon before dropping into the giant redwoods, the river caressing us like a mother stroking the head of her boy as he sleeps blissfully, his head in her lap. When we joined my longtime childhood friend for his impromptu wedding in the lower valley, his son entertaining us with his water balloon antics in the backyard while the August sun warmed every bit of us, soul to sole.

I like to capture summer moments. Moments that can’t be staged or contrived in the studio. Moments of innocence and authenticity. Moments that cause me to linger in my memory as much as anticipate the season next year. Moments that remind me when I was young, when my boys were young, moments of being in the moment, moments that I dream of having with my grandchildren when my back is crooked and my lip quivers when I smile.

This is what summer feels like to me. Farewell my golden friend, I look forward to our next visit, it feels overdue already.

My Dream, My Island

My island is a dream,

and my dream is an island. 

It’s a piece of the world that is surrounded by the world,

in a dream that is surrounded by dreams.

It Is You

It’s not the sun that rises, but it is you.

It’s not the water that is wet, 

or dust dry,

or lemon bitter,

or the shrill of a cry.

It is you.

It’s not joy, or calm

or rage

or despair.

It is you.

It’s not fear or love, 

or deceit

or shortcoming.

It is you.

It’s not early or late,

or friendly

or without regard.

It is you.

It’s not hunger or tears,

or fits of laughter,

or viscous wounds.

It is you.

It’s not path or place,

near or far.

not clouds or valley,

or distant star.

It is you.

It’s not the sun that sets, but it is you.

-Thaddeus Hink