A Traveling Sick Day
Photo courtesy of Benjamin.
In March through October, as we were planning for our travels, I knew that the time would come when one of us would be sick while traveling. At the very least, autumn and winter usually bring at least one seasonal cold to our home. I’m glad I knew to expect it so that I could file it in my mind as part of the natural rhythms of living life instead of seeing it as an inconvenience, disappointment, or interruption to our travels.
On the tail-end of Day 12 I felt the foreboding feeling of the pre-symptoms of a cold. Sure enough, Day 13 rolled in with a sore, scratchy, swollen throat and drainage.
Of course I’d prefer if it hadn’t happened during the one week I’d been anticipating more than any other week during Phase 1 of our travels. But, in truth, as I write this I’m still in bed where I’m warm and cozy, it’s rainy and windy outside (so I’d be indoors today anyway), and if I sit up I can see the ocean from my bed, which is heaven.
The ocean. It was my first request as we started planning our itinerary: one week on the Washington coast. It’s been too long since I’ve been here, and even then those visits have only been stop-offs as we drove through. This is my first time to sit and soak it up over a period of days.
I love the ocean. We arrived just before nightfall last night and I headed straight out onto the beach with Pepper. I stood and watched the water and cried. It felt like such a relief to finally be back with it. Pepper chased billowy balls of golden foam as it blew across the wet sand and he sniffed at piles of bullwhip kelp. The fog hung low over the foothills lining the shore and the sea stacks in the water. Everything felt gray except for the luminous foam pushed ashore by the rolling waves. Pepper and I ran along the beach and for one brief glorious moment, I released him from the confines of his leash and he flew across the landscape with the youthful exuberance of a pup.
The Pacific Ocean is my favorite. It’s raw and wild and powerful and it frightens me in a way that fuels my love and respect for it all the more. It stretches from Hawaii and my treasured memories there to the Pacific Northwest that I call home, tying the two together.
So here I lay, hot tea beside me, blankets piled high. I’m taking a resting day to give my cold the best chance I can to move through without too much fuss. I’m grateful for the cooperation of the weather so that I don’t feel like I should be up and out and ‘doing something.’ A rainy, cloudy, wet and windy day is the perfect day to curl up with a book or take a nap, so I’ll take advantage of the serendipitous alignment of my body’s request for rest and the hibernation-conducive weather we’re having.
As I lay here I can hear the roar of the ocean not far behind me, and the rain on the roof above. If I’m going to be sick, it’s not a bad way to wait it out.
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Postscript:
As I finished writing this, I received notice that it was time for my morning constitutional. This meant digging out pants, coat, and damp sand-covered shoes and walking a short distance in the cold rain and wind (20-30mph) to a porta-potty where I proceeded to have an experience that had the germaphobe in me low-key-asking, “Am I going to die?” Then walking back in the aforementioned weather to declothe, hand-sanitize and get back in bed.
So, in an effort to keep it real... yes, being in a warm bed just a stones throw from the ocean is a dream come true. But being sick is never fun no matter how you slice it and especially on a sick-day it sure would be nice to stay pantsless and in my houseshoes and savor the comfort of a clean, private bathroom instead of dressing to brave the elements and the germs. So I’m counting my blessings and savoring the heck out of them. But I’m not only going to paint a rosy-picture for y’all, because that would be so inauthentic to our lived experience. :)
Water Portraits
It was a hot day, the kind of day that is way too sultry to happily stay in the city. Without a plan for where we would end up, and with our cameras in tow, a friend and I…
It was a hot day, the kind of day that is way too sultry to happily stay in the city. Without a plan for where we would end up, and with our cameras in tow, a friend and I headed east along the interstate out into the mountains. When we found an exit that seemed good to us, we pulled off and entered the back gravel roads of the National Forest. Happily we found ourselves on a wide river cutting through the mountains that rose above. We parked and made our way down a steep, inhospitable slope with our cameras and proceeded to spend the day there. At first, we snapped some photos, but mostly we draped ourselves over the fallen trees, smoothed with weathering since their descent. We soaked our feet, legs, arms and anything else we could submerge in the clear, cold water, kept our clothes mostly dry and wished we'd brought our swimsuits.
I wasn’t expecting to enjoy a day of water, and left my lens filters at home. When shooting water, I’ve always used polarizing filters to reduce glare and reveal more of what lies beneath the surface. But, feeling drawn to be in and near the water, as I always am, I decided to see what I came up with without my usual filters. The sun was high so the lighting was good, but the water was moving at a steady pace and I wasn’t sure how it would translate into still images. However, I found that I was having immense fun enjoying the challenge of the ever-changing water and light, so I tried a few different approaches for a while before taking up residence on the aforementioned fallen tree.
In the time it took to snap those few photos, I managed to unearth a desire in me that I hadn’t before known existed. I knew that I wanted to photograph water, to commit to it, to create a body of work, and to see what came of it. I left that day feeling inspired and eager to get home and look at what I’d captured from the day’s brief shoot of the river.
As the photos uploaded to my computer and I saw them in full screen for the first time, I was astounded at some of the incredible images I was looking at. The colors, patterns, texture, movement and lighting were unlike anything I’d imagined. I knew more than ever that I absolutely wanted to focus on creating a body of work centered on all that water has to offer.
Twenty-three days ago I went to the river not knowing how it would change me and spark my passion and creativity. Since then, I’ve had opportunities to travel with friends and photograph water on the Pacific coast, at a pristine glacier lake in the Olympic Mountains, and in and around Puget Sound. I’ve discovered color and texture and playful light that I’ve never seen before, some of it unearthly and mind-boggling to me.
While all of the travel to gorgeous bodies of water was amazing, and the photography was absolutely rewarding, it was also a challenging process. Water and light are so fickle in their movement and in their relationship with one another that I shot countless photos in hopes of coming away with a handful of solid pieces. That meant there were so. many. photos to weed through and consider. There was a period of about a week when I was just completely overwhelmed and definitely couldn’t see that there was any hope of coming away with a solid body of work ready to show. But I kept walking away and coming back to my collection day after day after day. Every day I saw them new and differently. I was able to better discern what I liked and what I didn’t, which ones communicated to me or didn’t, and was able to delete a few more each day. It was an incredible boost to my skills as a photo editor to have to weed through so many shots to find the very best.
I’m also proud to say that all of the fantastical colors and textures featured in this collection have only received basic edits or none at all (and certainly no filters!). I loved so much of what the camera was capturing on its own that few of them needed much post-processing work. I feel that’s important to say because even as I was snapping the photos I was astounded by the bizarre and beautiful images staring back at me, so I know others will have a hard time believing them as well!
This is the first time I’ve ever had a body of work to showcase. I dabble here and there with a variety of creative endeavors that I enjoy, but I’ve never committed over a period of time, having a goal in mind, to create a portfolio of art. Doing so feels surreal and exciting and humbling all at the same time. I know these photos won’t appeal to everyone, but I hope they’ll appeal to some like-minded folk who know and love water like I do. I hope it helps others to look at water differently and to notice patterns and textures and the play of light across its surface and that doing so adds some extra sparkle to life. ♥︎
Photo of the artist at work by Katie at seekwelfare.com
This series was born out of my deep love for water. I've always been drawn to water. Sprinklers, water hoses and swimming pools, mountain streams, waterfalls, lakes, oceans, rivers, all of it. I most want to be in water, but if I can't be in it, then get me out on it or right next to it (although, if I'm next to it, it's safe to bet that at the very least my feet and legs are going in!). I decided to marry my love of water with my interest in photography and see what happened. For three weeks in late Summer of 2016, I traveled to a mountain river, a rocky Pacific coastline, a pristine glacier lake, and in and around Puget Sound.
I shot with a manual focus lens so that I could control how the light was reflected and translated through the camera. Believe it or not, these photos haven't been highly processed. In fact, the stranger any given photo seems to look, the less I messed with it. No photo-editing could come up with some of the strange beauty revealed to me during my photographic adventures! What I enjoyed the most in working with this series was discovering what's hiding in plain sight. Water is fleeting and moving and ever-changing. Constant movement paired with ever-changing lighting conditions makes for so much color, light, reflection, and movement to capture. The challenge of an always-changing subject makes for a most rewarding experience. My efforts were not only rewarded with a collection of photos that I love, but with a heightened ability to see water differently with the naked eye. I now notice details, textures, patterns, and colors that I missed before. It's most rewarding, like uncovering mysteries again and again.