In keeping with this morning's earlier post, I share with you this picture and attendant anecdote, now several years old.On a very warm and dry June morning, I set out early to photograph wildlife along the borders of our local land preserve (nearly 9,000 acres). I would go this day to a beautiful meadow set between a stunning marsh and a gentle, sloping mountain. Unfortunately my wait in the woody shadows––though I was dressed from head to toe in camouflage––produced nothing. So as I meandered homeward in the now quite-blazing sun, I came across a female snapping turtle returning from laying eggs in a sandy section of the meadow. She was, no doubt, a citizen of the marsh and was perhaps as old as I. I fell prone before her, blocking her path and positioning myself, my camera, lens and stabilizer, in order to photograph her. But I noticed a curious thing. Coming across the ground, near the turtle's front left claw, was a tiny inch-worm, a little green larva. It climbed onto the turtle's jagged foot, made its way up the foreleg, found the turtle's neck, and, unbelievably, it walked across the turtle's face and across her razor-sharp and deadly jaws. Where was it going? Why so directly?
Who could have guessed? It went straight to the turtle's eye and stopped. There it began to drink. And it stayed for a long time.
Ahh, a witness to a miracle. Or was it mere chance? Mere symbiosis? For here we three beings were in a parched meadow in the middle of a very dry June. A moist thing passes by, a turtle's eye, towering stories above the meadow's roots. I happen to stop a turtle and an inch-worm finds an oasis, a well-spring of life, with an intention as old as the earth.
The whole scene finally and quietly ends, with the inch-worm falling back to the ground as the turtle pulls its eye inward in one sudden blink. We each continue on our way.
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
[Click on the photo for a larger view. Image made with a Canon EOS 3, Sigma EX APO 300/4 macro lens, with 1.4 extender. 1/500th at f8-11. Kodak Ektachrome 100VS, pushed one stop.]
8 comments:
That is a cool picture. Do you use digital cameras, too?
That is truly a God-soaked moment.
A book idea: Take some of your best pictures from years past (or to come) and attach elegant essays like this one.
You might not get a DreamWorks movie deal, but I would buy it.
Kim,
I am a hold-out on digital, for a variety of reasons. There are just a few of us left, I am afraid. But I am (perhaps) only days away from the digital decision. My colleague, the chief photog at a nearby daily, will finally convert beginning this week.
But film is truly lovely. I will probably shoot slide/transparency film for as long as I can find a lab that will process it. There is nothing like placing a well-exposed slide on a light-table. I believe Mike the Eye Guy has actually blogged about that very experience.
My overall reasoning for delaying the move to digital has to do with a few concerns. One, there are ethical problems and weaknesses to digital photography: It is far easier to "fake" a digital image than it is to fake a negative or slide. In other words, there is no hard-copy to digital. I believe that if I were to photograph George W. Bush entering a hotel with Hillary Clinton, and I used a digital camera, a very shrewd defense would be to demand that I prove it; that I produce a hard-copy. For both Bush and Clinton could, in fact, deny the reality of the image. Now, if I had a slide, well, that is much harder to deny. That this is already something of an issue in the newsroom suggests that it could become a much broader issue in general. In fact, according to a recent Popular Science issue on the matter, software is being developed to create imprints of a photographer's retina on digital files to ensure that the photographer actually took the image (for copyright reasons); plus, there is certain software in development that will give editors power not only to determine the identity of the photographer but also whether the photo has been altered AT ALL. BUT, there is also software that is being developed to undermine both of those attempts at security and authenticity.
Second, if you've ever been to a wedding where there are lots of digital cameras in use, or if you've watched sports photographers using digital cameras, you will see one thing: LOTS of people staring at little screens to instantly "See" what they got. Alas, what happens is that, while staring at that little screen, other things are happening: Life goes on. Lots and lots of shots are in fact missed. (Film photographers only missed shots between rolls of film. But I can shoot 36 frames, rewind, and reload in under 11 seconds, so what I missed may not have been much [but sometimes it was and that's why I had two or three cameras going at once].)
BUT, digital photography does allow you to be more efficient: you can see whether you "got it." BUT, a pro should know whether he or she got it on film, too.
Third, there is this: that we are losing the historical archives we have enjoyed for over a hundred years. Historians have, since the dawn of popular photography, used forsaken negatives to secure an incredible record of who we are, where we've been, etc. Negatives are often outtakes, and outtakes are often rich with information. But digital photographers, especially amateur ones, are deleting their outtakes almost instantly. David Hume Kennerly, who shoots for Newsweek, wrote that had he been shooting digitally, one of the most telling photos in American history would have been lost.
You see, because he was shooting film, Kennerly recalled that, once while shooting President Clinton working a crowd, he saw the President hug a certain young woman wearing a beret. He called his assistant and told him to search his negative archives. Sure enough, there it was: A picture of President Clinton enjoying a personal moment with a toothy, grinning young woman. Kennerly is convinced that he would have dumped the image of––"that woman, Ms. Lewinski"––had it been a digital one.
Lastly, no one is sure how long digital files actually last. So corruption is a grave possibility. Slides, particularly Kodachrome ones, can last a hundred years in plastic with no problem. And prints can be made that last a lifetime and beyond. (Some new inkjet printers, when mated to the right paper, can also print archivally -- we think.)
This is way more than you wanted to ever, EVER know about digital versus film, I know.
Peace.
BG
Mike,
Thanks for the encouragement. I am also thinking of selling the "Contratimes" photos to any of my readers who might like a print (or two. Make it ten, minimum).
Peace.
Gnade
Bill:
No, actually some of the things you mention are things that I have thought myself, especially the idea of faking digital images. My brother-in-law managed to create a picture that looked like my in-laws' St. Bernard alseep on their living room couch; but we all knew it was obviously a digital picture.
I got a digital camera a year ago, strictly because I wanted to e-mail pictures. I have had some of my digital pictures developed, and they're nice, but none of them are as nice as the pictures I used to take with my first camera, which was fully manual. I think I took better pictures when I had a manual camera.
What a lovely post. Thanks for sharing it!
grace
I am in total agreement with mike the eyeguy. What is stopping you from creating a book that could be such an inspiration to others? A book that would give voice and recognition to the truely amazing creatures that God has so graciously aloud us to inhabit this world with. I happen to know that you have some incredible pictures that are just waiting to be shared with the world. It's a Gift Bill, don't waste it!!!!
Ah, see? It's not just I who want books out of Bill Gnade's many gifts. A poetry book, too, once you get started.. if you haven't already.
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