From My Porch

This morning, we (and our various aches and pains) ambled down to Big Beach, plonked down on a log and gazed out over the high-tide-foreshortened, detritus-strewn beach. The swells were minimal with only a few of any note whatsoever while we sat there. The leaden sky seemed to leave the beach in an almost twilight illumination: little detail and blocked up shadows. Sometimes ya see something and sometimes ya don't. I didn't take a single picture. We wandered back home, where I had the privilege of making the lattes (again).

As the day brightened around us, filtering through the skylights and the surrounding forest, I ventured out onto the porch (we actually have two, one on either side of the main room). Bringing only my NEX 7 with my 55-210mm lens, I commenced another good rainy day project: shoot only from the porch. As the house is nestled right in the rainforest, it's like having a private shooting gallery! Anything within reach of that 300mm (35mm equivalent) focal length is fair game.

This theme also tickles me as it based upon one of my photographic heros, W. Eugene Smith. Check out his work on the web... you'll probably recognize quite a few. In 1957, a 38-year old Smith walked away from his family and a high-paying job with Life magazine to hole up in a jazz loft in New York City. Ostensibly, it was so he could finish his gigantic photo essay on Pittsburgh, but inevitably, Smith, a perfectionist, got sidetracked and over the next 8 years, shot some 40,000 frames. Of these thousands of frames, many were from the window of his 4th floor apartment. Anchored to a specific vantage point, shooting through open windows, even through the winter, Smith nonetheless produced a body of work that conveys an astounding depth of feeling, humour, and history. His work always features outstanding composition and he would take weeks to produce prints he felt were acceptable, often retouching, bleaching, dodging and burning extensively too produce the exact look he desired.

I am also reminded of the 19th century English natural philosopher who remarked to his colleagues that, magnifying glass in hand, he had travelled all summer, and never left the garden. It's all a matter of relativity.

CCCO