2010 Tour 2
I don't really feel that I've reached the opposite coast until I swim in the ocean. This beach was near Arcata in far northern California (near the Redwood National Park, as seen above). It was cold but was a passable substitute for bathing. No showers yet on this tour.
In many respects, the fact that routing is largely non-negotiable on tour means that you see a lot of the landscape richness that most people never see. America is sublimely beautiful. I probably shouldn't even say that, because all of this was here long before there was ever anything called "America". The beauty owes nothing to the nation, except maybe its destruction.
The sights reframe in my mind the tired old antagonism between city and country. Country people have a (reality-based) stereotype of urbanites as insular, closed-minded, and unappreciative of the richness of the natural environment; in particular, coddled and unresourceful. A lot of the time, that's true. City people hate on country people for being uncultured yokels. And it's true that plenty of country people are more excited about the new Super Walmart outside of town than the fact that they live in a landscape which has enormous power and spiritual significance. The argument is moot anyway, because now everybody lives on the internet and their cell phone. The point of all this is that geography has basically nothing to do with anything (anymore).
"Experience" in and of itself is not enough. I've started understanding the landscape the way you understand a show in an art gallery that nobody goes to, or a rare musical recording. You get blown away and something inside you changes, once you realize that the stone and water and air was there long before the lame culture wars, and will be there long after our petty bickering is forgotten. It's not about cataloging endless stimuli, it's about being molded and humbled by a forceful confrontation with your own smallness and filthiness in the face of the sublime. You want everyone to see what you see, to be changed the way you're changed.
Labels: Rosetta
posted by M. Weed at
11:07 PM
4 Comments:
Once again, seeing your photography renews my desire to learn what I may of the craft myself. Curious: why do you make use of the fish-eye lens? I think many of your most memorable pictures are taken with it, but the realist part of me objects to something which is unabashed in its distortion.
In regard to the first photo in the set, I think you'll appreciate this shot, which I took about two years ago on a road trip with a friend--mine must have been taken within 10 feet of your vantage point
Yeah Tim, that's the scenic pull-off on I-84 in eastern Oregon, just east of Pendleton. I had been there before in 2006. Those areas have a lot of diversity in the landscape. Until this tour I had no idea how harsh southeastern Washington State was. Idaho is interesting in the same way, alternating between highland desert and wooded river valleys.
Nick -- the fisheye is a 180-degree tool and is "uncorrected". I think of it as having less distortion than a "corrected" ultra-wide angle lens. I use it when there is too much to cram into the field of view... it gets used often because the places that most motivate me to shoot are places characterized by bigness.
dude....i was just there. http://www.flickr.com/photos/scarmando/4816693068/in/set-72157624554318766/
Post a Comment
<< Home