It has been a wet start in Yosemite. The things my team and I work hard to do are at times tangible, and at others more slippery around the edges. We teach hundreds of people how to photograph, how to look at the world around them, from the very big to the very small. My mind has been everywhere while attempting to manage it all. My bones and muscles are tired, and everything is on overdrive, but I keep on making the photographs, nomatter what.
It was a special thing to be able to share this place and experience with friends. Some will become lifelong, some I feel I have already known forever. One thing is certain, that here memories are made. Each step on the path draws forward another solid wall of granite, a mogul, or human obstacle of the physical or mental.
With each push through another day, I have had little time to trust my thoughts to words, to share any of this, to even make a moment for me. I don't really make these moments for myself, I am thinking about how to tell these stories to the friends who don't get to visit. Can I get any closer with each year of experience, to translating human vision into a rectangle?
These are snowplants, western fence lizards, lichen, granite arches, needles, puddles, and things that fill the everyday in the life of Yosemite. This place is special, but I have cropped out parts that are ugly, human, and created a misleading perception in a way. This appears as a naturalist paradise, where animals and plants are abundant in their habitats, but this is not the whole story.
It is in fact a modern version of a place that once was. The National Parks are amazing places, but they are also a dollar amount, they are a part of our society and politically pushed and pulled to suit the needs of our modern environment. I sincerely hope that future generations try to point the direction of our sacred natural spaces to a period of revitalization, expansion, and reduced human visitation.
No comments:
Post a Comment