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This week: Observations on a Hike Up The Gorge Edited by: Fyn  
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“You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”
― Ansel Adams
“All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.”
― Susan Sontag
To me, photography is an art of observation. It's about finding something interesting in an ordinary place... I've found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.---Elliott Erwitt
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First some background. The Gorge at Watkins Glen, NY is roughly 1000 steps up and then 1000 steps back down, all the while walking on wet stone steps around, behind, through or in front of seventeen waterfalls. I took almost 1000 pictures. Halfway way back down we met a couple. She walked with a white-tipped cane, a guide dog at her side along with her husband who was describing every nuance of the hike to her. She had a dazzling smile and would slant her head to the side as she listened to the different sounds. To that point, I expect she saw far more than I had through the lens finder of my camera. Yes, I got some extraordinary pictures, but she saw though his words, and it really made me stop and think and remember.
As a child, I was in an accident and after eye surgery to remove 1960's era windshield glass from my eyes, I couldn't see for six months. Until the bandages were removed, we didn't know if I would see again. I didn't take any more pictures, but looked and saw the rest of the way down.
The slate grey, stone steps were wet from the spray of the waterfalls, the narrow path winding sometimes mere inches from the water and at other times, twenty feet above a cascade. The water sounds ranged from sounding like a gentle rain to a torrential downpour. I held my husband's arm and traversed perhaps 400 steps with my eyes closed, listening to the slap of wet jeans hitting rock, to the squeal of children's voices, to the sounds of water trickling down the rockface of the cliff above us. I focused on the fine spray misting against my face and concentrated on not slipping, feeling each step with the ball of my sneakered feet. I could feel the heavy dampness of the tunnel, the chilly air whistling around us. As more and more water leached up the legs of my jeans, I could feel the clamminess invade and could swear I felt my toes shriveling into cold, wet raisins.
My husband insisted I look at something. "Describe it to me first," I said.
"There is a huge web between two branches of a birch tree that is leaning out over the water. It is only perhaps a foot from the fall we just walked behind. The web is vibrating from the force of the water pounding down. In the center is a large black and yellow striped spider, maybe an inch long. Water droplets cling to every strand of the web; that's the reason I noticed it. Each droplet is catching the sun and it is like the spider is floating in rainbows. C'mon, open your eyes, you have to see this!"
"I just did," I smiled. But then I looked and it was exactly as he'd described it!. Except, due to the fact that I am scared to death of spiders, I'd swear it was at least three times bigger than he'd said. And it did look for all the world as if he were nestled in rainbow pillows.
For the next hour as we made our way down the gorge, he took pictures and I looked. The sun was still out and slanting down into the gorge, catching the far wall which was wet. It shimmered, as if myriads of diamonds were just clinging there, ripe for the picking! Thunderheads building up blotted out the sun and the wall went flat, deep grey and just looked wet.A few seconds and volumes of difference. The air chilled. My jeans were wet to mid-thigh from slogging though numerous puddles. Thunder cracked overhead although we'd seen no lightning. It reverberated, echoing back and forth between the canyon's walls.
A park ranger hurried past us warning we were under a weather warning and to make our way quickly to the bottom. He said there'd been heavy storms to our west and the water levels could rise exponentially and to be extra careful. Sure enough, by the time we'd reached the bottom, the waters were roiling. One waterfall we'd walked behind on our way up was a flat stream you could see though. Now water pounded down and from the spray alone, we were soaked to the skin. Where the water hit below was now a boiling white froth. Even yelling, we could not hear the other speak. Minutes later, the skies opened and water was now streaming down the path of stairs...a hundred step waterfall that was as treacherous as it was beautiful.
The unpaved parking lot was a sea of slick, slippery, clay-like mud. Ours was the only car left. Had we really parked that far away? It was silly running through the teeming rain, splashing muddy water as we ran: slipping, sliding, with arms cartwheeling to retain our balance--we certainly couldn't get any wetter than we already were! We stopped outside the car, thinking of how wet the seats would be. He popped the trunk, grabbed some garbage bags and we sat on them. I was freezing, so he turned on the heat. We immediately fogged the windows up! Defroster on high we headed to our hotel room. Although it was only seven in the evening, we had our lights on; it was that dark due to the storm.
Later, as I sat outside our hotel room, enjoying a perfectly clear sky and listening to the water thundering down yet another waterfall, I thought about writing, and photographs and painting pictures with words. How we as writers use nuance and metaphor to portray landscapes; how a brush of an adjective or a swirl of simile can enhance a scene, how we portray sounds and colors to the point one can feel the echoes and hear a rainbow. I thought about a man who spends his days bringing sight to a blind woman and how her inner sight put mine to shame. Back home, looking at the photos of the area I'd walked with my eyes closed, I look at them now with a different perspective. Somehow, they've gained a new depth, layered with the experiences of both seeing them and feeling them and I sit here thinking that it is exactly this we attempt with our writing! |
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Raine  writes: Absolutely. We don't exist in a one dimensional world. Our writing shouldn't either. All five sense should be used in a description, not just sight.
Absolutely!
A*Monaing*Faith  says: Great job on quotes and appreciate the video link! Love when newsletters are more interactive. Great idea about going blind for a day also.
This comment was stuck in my mind...and I thought of it on my trip...So, Thanks!
Quick-Quill  comments: Thank you so much for posting that video. I don't watch the show but I had to see what this was all about. It was amazing.
Just so beautiful! And again, one that came to mind this newsletter.
~A.J. Lyle~ adds: An awesome newsletter, Fyn. Your examples were inspiring. 
I try!
NOTE:We are extending the deadline for the Teen Anthology submissions until August 31st in the hopes of getting more submissions. |
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For Authors: July 31, 2013 Issue [#5809]
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