La Macchina Fotografica

Regular readers of this blog know of the Pyracantha Caper. For some time, someone had been decorating an agave plant along the old rail bed near our home with pyracantha berries. The berries were placed onto the thorny spikes of the agave in a somewhat festive manner. I decided to augment this clandestine activity with a flourish of my own berry decorations. It was a good way to spend that otherwise dull week between Christmas and the new year. I’d hoped others would participate in this secret, suburban art project. Alas, no one did.

I revisited the agave plant a week after my lonely decorating party, my heart bursting with expectation. Not only did no one add berries to the thorny plant, someone or some creature removed all of them that I’d applied. I’m officially blaming the smart-alecky birds that terrorize these parts and I’m accusing them of being the perpetrators. And, it’s not only the crows. One would expect that kind of misbehavior from those bad boys. The truth is that there are lots of birds of all kinds around here that eat the fermenting pyracantha berries and then dive-bomb my truck with their berry-stained poop. I can deal with the red plops on the truck. But, did they have to eat my suburban art project?

See for yourself. I have photographic evidence. Those birds are lucky that all the shooting I do around here is with a camera. Thanks to the drunk birds (some who have flown into our picture window while inebriated) all the berries are gone from the art project and the trees. Therefore, readers take note: there will be no more suburban pyracantha art projects until late fall.

Meetings—business meetings, that is—drive me crazy. Every one of them feels like slow death. I’ve never been to one that brings out the best in anyone, especially the best in me. I was a manager at 25, a vice president at 29, and a burnout at 40. Meetings, even today, at the age of 54, bring back the whole sordid tale.

With the prospect, on my mind, of a large meeting tomorrow (around a large table) I went for a walk. A long walk for a large meeting. Mist tickled the back of my neck and shortened the projected lifespan of my camera. My posture hasn’t been that good lately. I tried to, as my father would say, straighten up.

The first photo on a walk is always the hardest. It’s like starting up a car with bad spark plugs. A certain amount of black smoke is emitted. Click. Then it starts to flow. I enter a different dimension. So, I try to click my first click as soon as I can.

Once I started making images the sensation of rain on my neck disappeared. I turned my attention to the overflow pond in the park. The reflections had a gloomy quality that, at the moment, resonated with me. I pointed my camera at them. Suddenly, into my viewfinder flew a squawking bird! Singing a song of utter freedom and rebellion he soared into my image field—as if he were waiting all morning for my arrival.

By the time I looked up from my camera he was gone. With him went my angst. With him went my dread. I smiled with the realization that the impending meeting now meant nothing to me. How could a blasted meeting compare with a visitation from a spirit? I walked on with spring in my step and straight posture for four miles.

Sometimes a meeting is just a meeting.

It is later in the day than normal. I prefer walking after sunrise. By now the sun is too high. There are too many people. The park playground is full of screaming kids and their proud, young mothers. No one notices me. I glide past them like a specter.

Just past the screeches I find the tidal pond. A human-contrived ditch, it has gotten more endearing with the years. I now identify with the water hole. As with me, nature has worn down its rough edges. The pond is a mirror that bounces back to me what is of the day. Today it is the shrillness of the gleeful children. It shines and glimmers and sparkles with noise. But looking into it more deeply, it has a darkness that belies the too-bright sky overhead. I stare into it and find a photograph. I slowly squeeze the shutter for one, sweet click. The muses satisfied, I notice that the screeches suddenly turn to cries of delight. My broodiness is left in the shadows. I am free to enjoy the day.

An egret agrees with my better mood as she flies overhead and skids into the pond, breaking up the dark reflections. I hear a child gasp at the spectacle. Then I realize that the child is me.

During a walk near the local school I noticed a man on a roof of one of the prefabricated buildings that clutter the schoolyard. A giant tub of roofing cement in front of him, he was frozen in an impossible position. Seagulls walked around him, flew over him. He remained frozen except for one arm that swung back and forth as it lathered black goop onto the homely, little roof.

Back and forth, back and forth, he seemed more like a clock than a man. One bird edged closer to see what he was doing. Fascinated myself, I started to photograph him as if I were a tourist in an Italian piazza. In most every piazza there is a statue of a serious man with a pigeon on his head. Neither the statue nor the pigeon ever seem to move. I waited by the schoolyard to see if the seagull would light upon the worker’s cap. To my disappointment it did not.

Back and forth, back and forth. The worker reloaded his trowel with gunk. Even with that he moved nothing but his arm. A second and third seagull drew closer, joining the happening. I made another dozen images. The still, morning air hung with anticipation as the birds and I waited for the man to move something, anything other than the swinging arm.

I realized that my back was stiffening. How could the worker remain hunched over like that. Shots of sympathetic pain ran down my spine. One of the birds followed the swinging trowel with his head. Back and forth.

At last, one of the birds lost interest and flew off. The others followed. Tired of photographing the man, I turned and walked away, my back feeling the better for it. I looked back one last time to see if the worker had moved. Nothing had changed so I made one last photo as I walked off, my arms now swinging back and forth.

Tomorrow is a great day for photos. July 4th is a gaudy holiday filled with silly hats, parades, flags, bunting, and an occasional Uncle Sam on stilts. My camera is ready, I just cleaned the sensor with some exotic (meaning expensive) cleaner and the batteries are charging. Today I’m doing business chores that keep things going, the unglamorous underpinnings of life.

One of the things I do regularly (and in anticipation of a photo shoot) is maintain my image database and clean it up. It’s like dusting, it never ends and I never get the sense that I’m done with the job. Things merely seem better than they were before I got started. A bonus to the chore is that I always seem to find an image or two that I’d previously forgotten. The image library is ever growing and has exceeded my brain’s capacity, not to mention the myriad hard drives that blink at me all day.

This morning I suddenly came across today’s image. Unlike many photos I make, I distinctly remember the moment I clicked the shutter. A skein of curlews was rummaging around Muir Beach back in the winter of 2007. That winter was particularly rich with the sandpipers—I remember the feeling of exhilaration upon discovering them. They were there for months. And then, one sad day, they were gone. They’d migrated north for spring.

Thanks to photography, the captured moment will live with me forever. A curlew found a morsel on the beach and, with his fantastic beak, negotiated it down his gullet. It’s the moment a photographer lives for—that feeling that you got the shot. And so here it is, rediscovered after two years of dormancy. I wonder how many other photos are waiting for me to rediscover them. It’s a nice dilemma to have.

There is something to be said for routine. For if one follows a routine for some time it is something akin to a chant. The drone of familiarity can allow us to see beyond the dailiness of living. When one walks a similar path every day, certain things start to become clear.

And so it is with the lamp birds. On a singular lamppost near our suburban park—it is there where you will find them. The local pigeons love this street lamp for reasons that remain a mystery. Of the myriad lamps that populate this town it is on this one that that they congregate every day. You will see them in the morning. They are still there at noon. It is right there where they watch the commuter traffic go by in the evening.

Often, during these routines of mine—daily walks, daily bills, daily blogs—I find myself talking aloud. “I need a break.” “I need a vacation.” “I need a change of scenery.” I think that if I’m going to be a serious artist I need to see the world. But the lamp birds remind me that quiet miracles of mystery exist right in front of me. These birds would remain undiscovered to me without my daily walks. And while vacations are stimulating, grand, and exciting, they are not about quiet contemplation that can both celebrate and transcend the dailiness of life.

It was during the standoff with the rabbit that I met the quail. He was standing in the brush. In the fog. Deep in the dream of the morning I heard his song. Like the soft gauze of fog, his coo swirled around the hilltop. His beak opened with a smile. He laughed at the rabbit and me, wondering who would move first.

I slowly panned my camera away from the rabbit and tiptoed towards the quail. I tried to photograph him with his beak open in song. He teased me. He opened his mouth. I clicked the shutter. Too late. He opened it again. Click. I missed it by a twitch. I held my breathe. Open. Click. Damn. He laughed with a long coooo. The rabbit just stared, not blinking. “I have all day,” I whispered with clenched jaw. My finger tensed while on the shutter release. Coo. Click. I was getting closer. Maybe I was trying too hard. Cooclick. Got it.

The bird laughed at my seriousness. “Got what?” he seemed to ask, his head plume darting back and forth. I shrugged because I wasn’t sure. I think I just enjoyed the game as did he. Try this, he seemed to say as he hopped from branch to branch, bush to bush. “Coo!” I had to admit, I could not coo and I could not hop. My talents end at shutter clicking. Woosh. Tired of games the quail disappeared in the fog. Like the rabbit before him, he was now gone.

“Keep moving,” I said to myself, almost aloud. I was retracing the steps of a hike I’d taken a few weeks before. Memory plays tricks. I had no map, just the sketchings of a currently-distracted mind. My head was trying to remember a trail set against azure skies. However, on this day there was a fog so thick I could barely see my feet. “Was this where I turned?” This time I said it out loud for sure.

My brain kept reminding me of things I hadn’t done. This and that and that and this. I think there was a finger in the fog that was wagging, scolding me for a rotten life gone wrong. Then the jackrabbit appeared. For real. The damn thing was as big as a kangaroo, or so it seemed. He just sat there on the trail and stared right at me. “Oh,” I exhaled.

The rabbit didn’t move. Then he carefully scratched his ear. His nose twitched in that uniquely rabbit way. He then became still again. He kept staring. And staring. I stared back. I thought I might be hallucinating. But the rabbit was quite certainly real and he kept on looking. It made the chatter in my brain finally come to a stop. Stillness. At last.

The rabbit wouldn’t move, his eyes unflinching. A coo broke the silence. Right there, ten feet away, a quail stood on a dead branch. “Coo!” The rabbit pretended not to hear. I looked at the quail and then back at the rabbit. The fog was getting thicker, the air denser. Three creatures stood there—rabbit, quail and I. Only the quail seemed alive.

I felt lost on the trail. I was between here and there and unable to see either. With a sudden leap the jackrabbit flew into the fog and disappeared. The enormous burst of energy scared the quail who then fluttered into the whiteness. And I was left alone.

Magic had cast its spell. My mind was silent with gratitude. Something inside laughed at the silliness of my chattering mind. I decided to stand still for a few more moments. I photographed the empty trail where the rabbit once stood. I then walked on, deeper into the fog.

Somewhere on the side of Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County is a ranger’s office. The office was closed last Friday when I peered into its window. Inside was a sad collection of stuffed birds. I questioned why an office dedicated to the appreciation of nature would have a collection of dead animals in it. Taxidermy is an odd thing. I wonder how people would view it if we started stuffing dead humans for display?

Natural history museums have massive collections of stuffed animals, and drawers of beetles and butterflies—all cataloged and sorted. The act of collecting, in and of itself is interesting behavior. When one collects dead animals it’s even more curious. I remember, as a young boy, a local nature museum’s display of a severed elephant’s foot. All the kids loved it. But, is a hollowed-out severed foot the way we want to teach children about the respect for nature? It’s like a curio shop in a nightmare.

Today’s photograph captures my encounter with the rangers’ stuffed bird collection. The sad bird propped in the window haunts me. A still photograph of it is sadly macabre. If I’d taken the poor creature outside I could have made it seem as if it were still alive—an extension of the taxidermist’s art. It reminds me of an open-casket funeral when everyone remarks how good the corpse looks. It’s almost as if we try to cheat death every time we stuff and preserve something. But, to me, death becomes creepier when I see a once-sentient being that was vibrant and alive now suspended forever in a window, stuffed and captive forever.