Conversations with a Soul (25 page)

There is something profoundly satisfying about pushing little piles of sand about with your fingers, or burying your feet in a shallow hole, then flexing your toes so as to create tiny cave-ins of sand, and equally satisfying, if disturbing, to confront a moment of truth.

Yet, notwithstanding the similarity of beaches, there are also some profound differences between them.

Apart from surfers, safely imprisoned in neoprene wet suits, the only other souls who run, whooping and splashing into the surf and immediately exit with as much noise and vigour are out of state visitors who have no idea of how cold the water of the Pacific Ocean can be! Accustomed to the balmy 75 to 78 degree oceans off the beaches of Hawaii, the sudden discovery of our 52 to 53 degree water gets their immediate attention! The gently rolling, sun drenched surf may
look
the same as the temperate surf off Honolulu, but the bone chilling waters of the Monterey coast are dangerous to the unwary.

Just how dangerous?

One hour in 50 degree waters without insulated clothing can lead to hypothermia, a state hardly conducive to a happy vacation.

Another danger faced by those unfamiliar with our coastline is that presented by rogue waves. Every year we read stories of youthful adventurers who ignore warning signs and venture out onto the rocks only to disappear when a rogue wave sweeps them off their perch and into the ocean.

As a child I thought that collecting shells, dead star fish and odd bits of kelp was fundamental to enjoying the beach. Why? I don’t know why, because I never did anything with them except take them home, put them in a drawer and forget about them until the smell of decaying sea life summoned an irate adult and my forgotten treasures were summarily consigned to the garbage bin!

Today, as an adult, I bemoan the lack of shells on the beaches I frequent!

However, I had to change my whole attitude towards shells when I spent a few weeks on Bazaruto, a small island surrounded by the warm waters of the Indian Ocean, off the Mozambique coast. I was sternly warned by those who knew the Island to take the greatest care if ever I was tempted to pick up a shell. It turns out that the tropical Island plays host, mostly in shallow tide pools, to a species of snails known as 'cone snails'. The narrow tip of the cone shaped shell is loaded with a tiny harpoon. When threatened by fish or human the cone snail expels the harpoon which carries enough venom to induce numbness and burning pain. In extreme cases the venom can lead to a coma or even cardiac arrest.

I am quite happy with cold waters and an absence of cone snails!

A sign at the exit from Marsh Corner declares that Point Joe is .5 miles away, but that’s along the outer perimeter of the bay. From the Marsh Corner beach, looking across the bay, it seems much closer.

Point Joe is a rocky promontory much beloved by a group of cormorants, a few pelicans and the occasional seagull. Unlike most marine birds the cormorant’s wings don’t shed sea water so they have to stretch them out and wait for the sun and sea breeze to dry their feathers. You can find them almost any day with their wings spread wide, almost as a sign of deep frustration as they perhaps ask,
Why were we denied waterproofing which was given to such low life as the seagulls?
In the absence of an answer they stand or strut about waiting for the elements to dry their wings, whereupon they dive into the ocean in search of a fish and the process has to be repeated all over again. Point Joe offers an ideal spot for these personal complaints, primpings and preenings.

In the early nineteen hundreds Point Joe was home to a Chinese gentleman, who built a tiny house from driftwood and rocks. From this home he sold trinkets and souvenirs to passing tourists. This was before the era of digital cameras and he probably made most of his meagre income by selling rolls of film.

No one seems to know whether
his
name was Joe, bequeathing that name to the place, or whether long before the man built his house,
the place
was already known as Point Joe, endowing the man with its name. Whichever it was, I think the real reason Joe made his home at Point Joe was because he could fall asleep at night lulled by the sound of the ocean crashing against rocks knowing he was safe in his bed.

Sailors and passengers, steaming or sailing past Point Joe a hundred years ago had no such promise of security. Today, a roadside plaque informs the curious that in 1896 the
St. Paul
steamship lost in fog floundered on the reefs of Point Joe. Ten years later the
Celia
shared the same fate. Old sepia photographs bare testimony to the dramatic sinking of these vessels.

Apparently no one drowned in either of those wrecks, which was good news to shipping merchants anxious for passengers!

Past, present and future meet each other at the shoreline. This makes the beach a rich, fertile place where memories are conceived, nurtured and carefully stored away. In this enterprise cameras and photographs are powerful conduits linking yesterday, today and tomorrow as well as admitting others to the moment.

Wherever you turn your eye you can see couples photographing each other; sometimes perching a camera on a garbage bin, then scuttling back to get in the picture before the timer goes off; grandparents photographing their grandchildren whether they want to be photographed or not; even the ever hungry seagulls have their moment of glory, captured in a snap shot, as they wheel and dive for scraps of bread.

Something I have noticed on numerous occasions is that, generally, men and women appear to have radically different approaches to being photographed.

A camera seems to invite something deep and mysterious to come to the surface in most women. The way they stand, the mystical smile, the immensely attractive unselfconscious tilt of the head, the laughter that bubbles up from deep within, the latent sexuality and a transcendent serenity all seem drawn to the surface and presented as a gift to the camera. At some deep level they intuitively understand that this moment in time is worthy of preservation.

Men, on the other hand, faced by the lens, generally adopt a facial expression that would be an appropriate response to the suggestion that they undergo root-canal surgery without benefit of anaesthetic. The spontaneous scowl has to be coaxed away by repeated requests to them to smile. They act as though they were totally unaware that they were being photographed, and never having gone through the experience before, require the photographer to continually ask them to look at the camera instead of everywhere else!

Everything in their demeanour suggests that the sooner this ordeal is over, the better. I would not be surprised to discover that it was a man who invented the 'point and shoot' terminology for taking photographs.

The word,
photograph
, is the result of an interesting marriage of two Greek words:
Phos
, meaning
light
and
Grapho,
referring to
a stylus, or paintbrush or drawing
. To photograph, then, is to paint
or draw
with light
. This makes a photograph less of a snapshot and more of an exploration into the essential reality of the world about. One photographer described his experience like this:

I have particularly noticed moments of fresh perception during an afternoon of taking photographs. A photograph can capture the feeling at the moment of experiencing something, just as it is, but first you must open your mind and see: the afternoon sun glancing off a bright yellow-green moss covered rock in the middle of a clearing in the pine forest; a long horizontal bulbous cloud, dark with rain, yet brilliantly lit underneath by the evening sun; white mist over the bay, through which the faint outline of a island, a boat, and a lone seagull suggests something out of nothing; a pile of steaming cow dung surrounded by yellow dandelions. In order to capture these moments you look not only at the objects themselves, but also at the light shining around and within them. Then putting the camera down and looking at the ordinary world, suddenly it too seems bright and vibrant.
⁷⁰

The skill of being able to see and understand the mysterious character of light is one required of every great photographer. They see what the rest of us frequently miss - a moment in time illuminated by
the life-giving quality of light sometimes gone in a split second, sometimes present for thousands of years
.

Few mastered the art of 'painting with light' as skilfully as Ansel Adams, who for the last 22 years of his life lived in Carmel, a mere three to four miles from Marsh Corner.

Ansel Adams, attuned himself more precisely than any photographer before him to a visual understanding of the specific quality of the light that fell on a specific place at a specific moment. For Adams the natural landscape is not a fixed and solid sculpture but an insubstantial image, as transient as the light that continually redefines it. This sensibility to the specificity of light was the motive that forced Adams to develop his legendary photographic technique.
⁷¹

Far more complex than merely the reflective
intensity
of light which can be measured with a light meter, and is a part of the technology of photography, the
character
of light is about a creative, life-giving quality which allows us to see what otherwise remains hidden. Light doesn’t simply illuminate an object but it brings the object alive in a specific way and invites the artist to capture that object
at that moment in time
, which led Adams to comment of his beloved Half Dome in Yosemite Valley,
...it is never the same Half Dome, never the same light or the same mood.

This becomes patently clear by contrasting his famous “Half Dome with the Moon Rising,” and his other photographs of Half Dome, such as those taken from Cooks Meadow. In the former, cloaked in moonlight, the mountain sits brooding and mysterious and dares to summon our own dark thoughts and journeys. The latter collection of photographs, taken in full sunlight, brings the mountain alive with joy and promise. One expects to hear the laughter and chatter of small children at play under the watchful eye of Half Dome, for now the mountain has shed its ominous persona and presents itself to us as a friendly, nurturing place.

For Ansel Adams, as for all romantic artists, the world in which they lived and worked was palpably alive. Less of a static object to be captured in paint, plaster, stone, paragraph, or photograph the world all about is a vibrant, living reality, bursting with energy and therefore ever changing, but to see that vitality you needed the light.

A dancer cast in bronze defies time and gravity in an elegant arabesque, inviting wonder at the beauty of the human figure; a moment captured in paint presents us with the drama of sunset, while another work invites a journey
through
the images to the human saga of joy or agony from which the images drew life and to which they silently bare witness.

Adams was at home with the artistic quest to share the wonder of life.

The whole world is, to me, very
much 'alive' -- all the little growing things, even the rocks. I can't look at a swell bit of grass and earth, for instance, without feeling the essential life -- the things going on within them. The same goes for a mountain, or a bit of the ocean, or a magnificent piece of old wood.
⁷²

Skilled photographers understand how the mood of a moment can be changed or presented by different qualities of light, yet even those of us who have little or no training in the art of photography understand the principle. The
character of light
has to do with the way in which different sources of light reveal something that disappears as soon as the light changes. Suddenly something is present which just a moment ago was not there and in a second will disappear. No matter how bright the moonlight or how grey the day, each calls alive some quality denied the other, thereby inviting different stories about the same subject.

Traditionally we’ve assigned the mystical radiance of moonlight to romantics where the harsh realities of daylight are softened and romance is allowed to blossom. We indulgently allow that moon light has the power to inspire the amorous who suddenly discover a proclivity for whispering “sweet nothings” and making promises that frequently look very different when the sun comes up!

Romance, however, doesn’t have a proprietary claim on moonlight. For many, moonlight is the harbinger of terror. The ill-defined shadows which banish clarity and the mysterious cold light that possess the power of concealment and disguise combine to create a strange landscape that invades the imagination and sometimes brings alive our worst fears. Folklore has long promoted the idea that moonlight has a magnetic attraction for dangerous, insane behaviour, an idea that is kept alive by the inclusion of “lunatic” in our vocabulary.

Apparently biblical poets understood the contrasting character of light. Urging a robust faith in God as a means of counteracting the danger of the night, one psalmist promised:
You will not be afraid of the terror by night or of the arrow that flies by day
, while another echoed the same idea that:
The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night
.
⁷³