I thought it might have been the sunset of the century. I rushed out and ran to the C-shuttle stop only to find a notice of route deviation. So I went to the False Creek Ferries’ landing but it was Sunday and they were no longer crossing to the bottom of False Creek. I ran back up the hill and caught a bus on Davie. But once on board I realized we were going the wrong way, north almost to Burrard Inlet before turning east and eventually back south on Main. It’s because of the Nike Race, the driver told me, apologetic. There are road blocks everywhere. It’s been a hell of day.

When I shot off the bus at the train station a fantastic storm cloud was towering to the east, but I had no clear line of sight and none of the obstacles were worth showing. I pressed on towards the water, looking behind me as I walked fast. By the time I got to a spot where I could catch my breath and setup, the cloud had pretty much died and my sunset had misfired.

I took the time to shoot a few « I was there, any way » pictures and a pano, but I shot at too wide a focal length and my verticals are distorted. Later, in Photoshop, having stitched the 10 shots into a 239 mb file, it took me 2 attempts to apply the superb « denoise » action of FFDD6; it’s highly processor-intensive and on such a large file, it tests the very limits of my poor laptop’s endurance.

But all this is just a hazy blur. My mind is elsewhere. Soon, once again, as it has for over a year now and always will, time is going to contract itself like a snake recoiling before a bite, and then it will explode in all directions, hours turning into mere seconds and a week into an eternity. East is visiting West, the Big Apple meets the City of Glass, a terrace vs a balcony, so much fun in perspective it’s hard to breathe and accept this will not be it. Yet.

Darkness rains on troubled days, its drops slowly wetting each hour like as many poisoned pearls sliding down wet sticky hair, headed for the corners of a helpless mouth closed shut to swallow the unavoidable scream that lets air hiss in, along with the poison and a certitude that doubt remains for the time being and long after.

But then always the light bursts in, like Galadriel’s, and its unflinching rays begin a trembling dance, dissolving the madness and reaching for the deepest recesses, cleaning the shell from its hardened iron crust and eventually, when time has done its art, the only thing that remains, naked and exposed, is the essence of one, and two. Ready to fly again. And fall. Because everything is energy, and energy is waves. Rien ne se perd, rien ne se crée.

When patience finally pays off, when the many fruits of a long labour are ripe, when sweet rewards fall from the sky like rain on a hot summer day, when distance is abolished and life becomes simple and fluid, when sunsets turn into sunrises, dusk into dawn, when regulations and bureaucracy return to the dark stinky closet they should never leave.

In the meantime we push on, always forward, without ever resting, somehow breathless but teeth clenched, tired but ever so resolute.

The time will come.

 [This entry was originally published exactly a year ago - July 27, 2007. This is an anniversary reprint. On that date, lightning struck and the greatest wheels were set in motion. Time stood still for only an instant and then leaped forward. A beautiful day indeed...]

This time it was only midnight. I walked towards False Creek and the bridges to go record some invisible colors. Somebody was sleeping on the beach. I can’t blame them.

Six months ago today was the happiest day of my eventful life. How time flies. The road at our feet still stretches to infinity, winding and in turn obscured by shadows or glowing in the warm afternoon sun, but it will never again be lonely. Gotcha indeed.

« It was a lovely day of breaking the rules, of throwing preconceived ideas into the wind, of going back to the source, of shaving the unnecessary, of looking deep inside instead of out, of holding a single hand rather than many, of spending time with angels, of walking barefoot when shoes are in order, of wearing jeans because they feel good, of eating with bare fingers, of doing exactly what we wanted, of staring into the sunset while dreaming of sunrise, of not caring too much about what they think, of taking a last step down and a first up, of burning bridges and opening new doors, of taking chances and daring to jump with no ground in sight, of seeing an everlasting fog finally lifted, of understanding it all, of figuring out how simple life’s complexity is, of saying yes after so many no’s, of definitely accepting the truth as only currency, of taking a deep breath and arriving home, at last. »

This will be a surprise slide show, unless you are already familiar with 66 Square Feet. My post is merely meant as an echo, because I like to pile up beauty in here until it finally tints my soul. Let’s just say that these amazing close-ups were taken by a magnificent photographer, with a superb little camera and a killer instinct. What else? Oh yeah, on a gorgeous terrace and in the probable company of a very, very noble black cat. The link is below. Treat yourself.

 I link therefore I am

Sometimes, unaware, I catch myself complaining. It happened to me last night as I’d gone out to shoot the sunset. I was missing my bokkie. A stubborn layer of clouds was obstructing MY horizon and dimming what I had hoped would be an explosion of airborne colors. And there were too many people on MY beach - well behaved, mostly quiet and enjoying a beautiful end to the day, but too many of them. So I snapped a few pictures and went back home without touching the fancy drink I had brought for myself, and which I drank sitting next to MY balcony instead - not on it because the bloody pigeons are winning the battle and covering it with an effective layer of guano. Effective, I say, because it turns the balcony into a stinky minefield for me, and a happy playing and breeding ground for them. Whoever was criticizing pigeon-dislike recently should be tied up and rolled into said layer until he understands the ridiculous stink of his pompously futile discourse.

But then, at home, sipping on my Ice Bet while I glanced at the sunset pictures which turned out to be quite nice, it suddenly dawned on me that I was an idiot. Yes, you might have known that about me for a long time, but for my part I frequently lose sight of such a trivial fact. There I was, bitching about nothing and less, standing in the middle of a little paradise, my mind filled with the presence of a beautiful freckled angel.

Understand this: I live in an extraordinary place. From my balcony, I see the ocean. The beach is located exactly half a block away. In the morning, I am woken up by the cry of seagulls. If I walk lazily 10 minutes further, I get to a park that is arguably North America’s largest urban green space, and certainly the most stunning. From home, I have 30 km of uninterrupted waterfront running/biking paths available to soothe both bored pleasure and addicted running needs. So my nearly daily encounters while running are raccoons, swans, harbour seals, turtles, eagles and balanced stones. A little over an hour by public transit takes me to bear country, lush temperate rain forests, wooden suspension bridges, pristine mountain streams and peaks that remain snow-capped most of the year. Killer whales are roaming not too far to the south. Cougars to the north. Yet within five minutes from home I have groceries, liquor, drugs, food, movies, transport and restaurants. I can walk to work in 35 minutes. Actually, there’s nowhere downtown I can’t walk to. And there are flowers everywhere.

Yet I bitch. Is it human nature to always want more? Probably so. And to be honest, I will soon get it. But the fact remains, this.is.extraordinary. So I do my best to cool my head and appreciate it all as one does of an ephemeral bloom, long awaited, sudden, intense and so short-lived, yielding its glory to the distant glow of memories and expectations of what’s to come next, all over again. The seeds will have traveled to new grounds. The bloom is always different. The awe remains.

There are times and places when - and where - one wishes the former would stop and the latter could be taken home. But time surely never stops and those places only follow us home on frozen photographs and wrapped up softly in our memories. It’s up to us, then, to match our pace to that of life around us and to make sure the memories live on and generate new dreams.

The Seawall is one of those places, and last Sunday night, one of those times.

I had noticed on my afternoon run that Kent Avery, the singular man behind the famous balanced stones, was at work on his regular spot half-way between Ferguson Point and Second Beach, and I’d decided to come back for sunset.

When I arrived, the sun was just dipping lazily behind the gentle mountains across English Bay, leaving us with nothing but a cloudless sky and a palette of colors that were still too dull to exploit. I would have to be patient.

As I was slowly setting Abe up on the tripod, a man rushed past me, headed towards the city, and said: « If you hurry up and turn around, there’s barely enough light left to get a shot of this. » He was pointing at the moon. I smiled to myself and muttered: « Dude, you have no idea how wrong you are. The light hasn’t even appeared yet. »

Kent was still around, balancing two last stones near the water’s edge. Eventually, seemingly satisfied with his work for the day, he came over and started talking with passers-by. After glancing at my camera, he asked in a melancholic tone: « Did you ever use Kodachrome? » It said nothing but said it all. I replied that I had been more of a Fujichrome fan and the conversation picked up. We talked about good old times vs the new, about the Photoshop lab we now have at home and about the ever-lasting need to still get it right from the start, in-camera. He mentioned he was working on a book of photos of his art and stories he’d accumulated during nine years of « being around ».

People were walking past us, commenting out loud, in admiration. « They look like little people » said someone. « I can’t understand how come they don’t fall down right away » added another. « This is so peaceful » said a small girl that could not have been older than 10 or 12. True, there was a peculiar stillness in the air and the balanced stones seemed suspended in space, defying gravity and our very understanding, as if painted unto the scenery and as such, immortal. They would, however, be short-lived. Tides and the wind have been making sure to keep Kent coming back week after week, and he does.

I was in no hurry to shoot anything, and neither was he. I knew that the magic was probably going to happen after most people had given up and gone home. There are, really, two golden hours. One is the painters’ favourite, late afternoon, when a low sun washes over a scene in warm orange tones and long shadows. The other is the photographer’s, or maybe just mine. The sun has already disappeared below the world, light is evening itself out, shadows give way to richer midtones, and if one is lucky, the sky puts up its most amazing display of colors as the sun’s rays are still reaching far up into the atmosphere. It’ll happen anywhere between a few minutes after sunset and a good hour later. As a rule of thumb, when people are getting chilly and leaving and I wonder what to do, I stay. It usually pays off.

As time passed, the Seawall was emptying itself of its human fleas. Darkness was gaining on a long day. People were fewer and fewer. At last, the light changed. Subtle nuances emerged in the sky and calm water by the shore began flirting with them. Abe came to life on her pedestal.

XXXX

It was getting late. Kent had finished taking shots of his open air temple on a small digital point-and-shoot and took leave. « Come by and show me your pictures some day, he said. » I was about to ask him where his office was when I remembered I was standing in it. « Sure, I replied, ‘be glad to. » Even he might be a little surprised by the results. It’s hard to believe that in the almost complete darkness which reigns an hour after sunset, so much light still exists for the sensor to record.

At such long exposure settings, the game is one of patience, of trial and error. Reciprocity failure kicks in and makes any precise calculations pretty much impossible. But nothing about Sunday night’s conditions was precise. It was the romantic hour, a time for fantasies and visions and dreams, for drifting thoughts and longing unleashed. I had to see the colors with my inner eye, the real ones having gone almost blind as Abe, even in manual focus and with my guidance, struggled to find her crisp edge.

And there, unavoidably, as the shots were stacking up unto the memory card and a silent night had fallen on the Seawall, I found myself connecting, to other places and different times, to memories and paths and directions, to the absent one who ought to have been standing there next to me, and soon would be, somehow, somewhere.

This blog is taking four days off while East meets West, and vice versa. Sonnez haubois résonnez musettes...

It’s been quite a while and they were getting dusty, but the best 90 South Africa pictures have made it into their own photo galleries. Nostalgic, eerie, beautiful, they will remain what they instantly became as the shutter was pressed: icons, timestamps, history been written and frozen in time. The two galleries are available from the main Photography menu above but to be sure you’ll visit, I’ll even include the links here:

South Africa Part 1 - South Africa Part 2

Don’t look for a particular sequence or logic, there is none but that of colors and moods. Of course most of these pictures have appeared in previous posts here on the blog in the On the Road Category, scattered between January 18th and April 18th. So while turmoil is once again gripping South Africa, here are glimpses of natural peace and harmony. Images of an extraordinary trip, in extraordinary company, for an extraordinary purpose.