Photography is my strange demon. The guilt of not having my camera in spectacular moments drives my artistic desire just under enough, damn.
Before I stepped off the boat tonight I looked at my rig and the age old argument took place just beyond rational thought.
(Take your camera with you!) whispered my ancient education.
(Naw, the sun just set so I won’t miss anything.) The thoughts inspired by my over worked back muscles seemed comfortably rational and strangely guilt riddled, but ultimately, final… Ahhhh, liberated from my sole-stealing, moment freezing, back wrenching need to freeze moments 1/250th of a second at a time. Idiot!
As I reached the top of my dock I noticed the sun hadn’t completely set and there was an orange dome of our local star that was perfectly bracketed buy two monolithic urban structures… It was ominous like a sci-fi novel cover! I quickly snapped my guilty attention away from the spectacle that would NEVER BE SEEN AGAIN and embraced my sloth as I increased my stride.
Never mind, it’s just a picture, NO One Will Ever Know (N.O.W.E.K), I didn’t shoot that picture.
(Except me of course…) Shut Up!!! N.O.W.E.K!
A block of red-orange light knifed between two condo columns and lit the white bloom of a row of apple blossoms up in a bright pink halo that was only missing a few dozen singing cherubs to complete the image.
No (fucking) Wek!!! Wishing my fantasy Rafaelian image would turn into a bunch of Steven Spielberg monsters that would chase me down and tare my eyes out! (Head down…)
I figured I go out to the barge at the end of the marina to check my e-mail, I see all that stuff every day, it’ll be no big deal…
When I came out of the condo complex heading out to the barge I look up and there is a giant Mississippi River-style show boat (that has never been there before, duh!) tied up on a starboard mooring with the very last sliver of sun illuminating her paddle wheels aft… The Baltimore Inner Harbor is roiling with a small fleet of silent sailing vessels and just as the our local star dips into the west a stratus-cirrus cloud formation paints the perfect image of a rat across the rainbow sky …and No One Will Ever Know.
N.O.W.E.K. — Words to live by.
No picture…it never happened!
I guess you two guys can relate…
My turn…. I am feeling your pain my brother… Imagine if you will , all the things that we have seen and done in our days on this earth. NO PHOTOS of that eh? Well , thats all right its still with us for some time . Lately my brain has gone on this sabbatical…At least thats what I feel. But , the good news is that the secrets and accomplishments that we have done N.O.W.E.K. It’s just for us !!!
Aloha
I guess that makes photography my strange addiction as opposed to my “strange demon” as stated above… There have also been many a photo I have not shot (although my camera was in my hands)just because the moment was too personal to be exploited. So I do understand that not all moments are photos, some are just “fallen trees in the forest”, they never happened.