I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. Henry Thoreau, Walden
Month by month, photo by photo I’m making progress with this daunting task, key-wording, culling, editing, retouching the tens of thousands of photographs we’ve accumulated. The collection goes back to old print photographs we scanned into Lightroom, continues through our years together in Sacrament and on into our years in Alaska which have been punctuated with travels elsewhere and a two-year span in Mongolia.
Usually I’ve drawn energy from this project as I revisit memories and track the progress we’ve made as photographers. My editing and retouching skills have dramatically improved, and that too has been satisfying. But there have been low periods as well. Recently I pitched a story to the editor of a magazine. He liked the draft I showed him and asked for more. I finished the piece, sent it in… and nothing. It’s as though I’ve been ghosted. Unpleasant.
And so I find myself revisiting old questions. Have I lost the touch? Usually editors are enthusiastic about my work. Does “lost the touch” really mean “gotten too old?” Which leads to a downward spiral into the really big question I find hanging over my head at times: What if nothing ever comes of all this? What if this late-in-life push is, ultimately, pointless?
Things can get dark. But, are you enjoying your life? Barbra asks, trying to be helpful and cheering. The answer to her question is (on most days) an unequivocal Yes. And yet… and yet…
Faith in the past as an indicator tells me this moment of doubt will pass. That same past tells me that the only way to know is to keep moving forward. I suppose I could construct a metaphor about moons waning, disappearing… and then finding themselves again and waxing into fullness.
JD
A Collared Lemming burst from a thicket of grass and swam across a narrow finger in the lake which was filled to the brim with recent rains. Just as the little rodent disappeared in a patch of thick grass on the opposite side of the water, an Ermine popped out from where the lemming had just come, paused, looked around, appeared to sniff the air, then also swam the same course. I was scrambling with my camera hoping to capture something of the surprise sighting and managed to capture the above image just before the Ermine dove into the grass.
We didn’t often encounter either of these species during our years at The Lake, but there was hardly a walk after a fresh snowfall that we didn’t come across small paired tracks left by Ermines bounding through snow, so they appeared to be fairly abundant. Cool animals. I would love to have made friends with one the way Sam made friends with Baron in My Side of the Mountain… The closest I came was when one ran across the toe of my boot and into the entrance of our house as I opened the door one morning.
Upon publishing a photograph of a Wilson’s Warbler under the title Black Cap Jazz Singer a few days ago, reader Tanja Britton (see Tanja’s blog here), left a note alerting me to the American Ornithological Society’s decision to revisit the common names of species within AOS’s jurisdiction that are predicated on the names of the people (white men) who “discovered” or “identified” the bird in question as well as appellatives assigned by the “discoverer” to “honor” others. This would mean the renaming… the reimagining of a number of birds and our relationships with them: Steller’s Jay, Wilson’s Snipe, Baird’s Sandpiper, Audubon’s Oriole, Bachman’s Sparrow, and so on.
Hurray and about time. This “dibs!” approach to naming the beings we share this planet with could hardly reflect a more juvenile mindset. We, all of us, have the right to choose our own names, to imagine ourselves as we wish to be, to present our own identities and not to be enslaved by someone else’s idea of who we should be. We believe the same dignity should be accorded to all beings. And in fact, even in the instance of an “inanimate” object – such as, say, a salmon pool on a river – if one is looking at that landscape and can think only of imposing a person’s name on it, one is not looking closely enough.
Our view at Cutterlight has long been that if one creates a piece of art such as writing, a painting, a piece of music and so forth and one chooses to attach one’s name to said piece of art, it is appropriate and just that the creator’s name live on with that art for as long as the art lives. But this vain nonsense in pursuit of the illusion of immortality wherein buildings, airports, highways, and birding organizations are arbitrarily named after this person or that has always struck us as one of the least attractive impulses in Euro-American culture. The practice is as divisive as it is arbitrary – a fact we seem to be slowly waking up to as a society.
It is often the attitude among indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest that the totem poles they’ve created should be allowed to naturally decay over time rather than preserved. Their view is that all beings and all things have a span in which they exist in a certain state, at the end of which they must be allowed to follow their natural path into the next state of existing.
Amen.
Turning back to the matter of our avian friends…
As the AOS embarks on the enlightened task of reimagining the gray, nondescript names of men attached to various species, let them take one further step and strike from vernacular names disrespectful monikers such as “least,” “dwarf,” “lesser,” “house,” and the sobriquet we find most grating – “common.”
The only thing “common” about Gavia immer, the bird in the above photograph, is the unimaginative minds of whomever agreed this regal being should be so reduced. This bird can reach a bill to tail length of three feet (90 cm), a wingspan of four feet (130cm) and is reported to dive up to 250 feet (76 meters). “Common Loon” my foot.
They are Imperial Divers.
JD
My favorite fish is the Coho Salmon. I am absolutely fascinated by Lady’s Slipper Orchids. It’s difficult to name a “favorite” anything, and as I reflect on the matter it becomes apparent that it might be even more difficult to explain Why a given something is a favorite. The phrase “an integral part of the journey” flashes in my mind. The species in the above photo is the reason I became a serious birder and threw myself into photography. Oncorhynchus, Cypropedium, Lanius…
What is it in your life that has pulled you into travel, adventure, personal growth, new understandings?
JD
Every being has the right to a dignified name. Every human has the right to choose a name and an identity for himself, herself, themself. JD
Ursus Arctos is a holarctic species represented by several subspecies throughout the Northern Hemisphere including the Grizzlies of the North America West (U. a. horribilis), the massive Coastal Brown Bears of Kodiak Island Alaska (U. a. middendorffi), the equally impressive Chignik (Alaska Peninsula) bears (U. a. gyas) and various additional species scattered from the harsh Gobi Desert to Siberia, the Italian Alps and other regions. Adapted to a variety of climates and diets, physiologically Ursus arctos is the most varied of all bear species.
The Brown Bears we encountered in Hokkaido, U. a. yesoensis, are similar in appearance to the Coastal Brown Bears of Kodiak Island and the Alaska Peninsula which makes sense as, like their Alaskan cousins, Hokkaido’s Brownies subsist on a salmon-rich diet. But at an average weight of only about 450 pounds – large males topping off at under 700 pounds -, Hokkaido’s bears are small compared to those found in Alaska; Chignik and Kodiak bears can reach weights of well over half a ton.
Still, bears are bears and regardless of size, they can be fierce. Approximately 12,000 Brown Bears inhabit Hokkaido, a land area about the size of the state of South Carolina or the country of Austria and home to just over five million people. There have been 57 human deaths attributed to Hokkaido’s Brown Bears over the past 61 years. When the sow in the above photo cautiously emerged from the forest and woofed for her two cubs to follow her across the steep road we were pushing our bicycles up, we gave her the right of way.
The rugged, forested 470 square mile Shiretoko Peninsula where we encountered these and several other bears as well as Blakiston’s Fish Owls, Ezo Red Foxes, Sika Deer, Dall’s Porpoises, eagles and other birds is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
With a wingspan ranging from about 5′ 10″ to 6′ 3″ (170 – 190 cm), Blakiston’s Fish Owls are generally regarded as the world’s largest living species of owl. The photograph above is of one of a known wild pair which have been banded. The owls regularly visit a small stream where a pool has been created with natural rocks and is regularly stocked with Cherry Trout (sakuramasu, O. masau). A small inn with windows overlooking the pool provides guests with opportunities for a glimpse of this rare species which may visit the pool at any time during the night. The indigenous people of Hokkaido, the Ainu, regarded these great owls as spiritual protectors of their villages.
The summer I turned nine I encountered my very first Japanese glass fishing floats. I was in Oregon, and in addition to populating gift shops and restaurant decor, back then these mystical treasures still occasionally washed up on Oregon’s beaches, particularly after big winter storms. That summer I concluded my 13th consecutive reading of Call of the Wild, and Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe were still fresh. My mind was filled with dreams of faraway lands. The floats, hand blown by craftsmen, fragile, beautiful, traveling across the vast Pacific over decades and thus providing a link not only with the exotic country of Japan but also with ships and fishermen and a culture of yore were utterly captivating.
Over the years, we’ve been gifted a collection of these floats from friends lucky enough to have lived along one of the few beaches where they still wash up. The gifts are appreciated… but it’s not the same as finding one myself. From California to Alaska, in all the years since that Oregon summer I’ve never visited a beach without harboring vague hopes of finding one.
Somewhere past the town of Shari (斜里町) as we approached the Shiretoko Peninsula, we stopped at a beach to have our breakfast and watch sport fishermen cast into the surf for Cherry Salmon.
Barbra found the first one. My stomach turned a little… conflicted. Happy for her find, but disappointed that it hadn’t been me. But where there’s one… maybe… Planting my feet where she found that first float, I scanned every inch of the beach through binoculars. And then, without a word, I handed the binoculars to Barbra and took off, running with all the joy of a young boy turning nine.
I made this image from a picture I took at Mokoto Train Station in Hokkaido when I looked up into a mirror above the waiting platform and saw Barbra there looking at her phone. There’s something about the scene – populated with houses and rail, and yet eerily empty – and Barbra, alone, looking at her phone -, that seemed to imply something universal about loneliness and the fine line between expectation and disappointment. Compositionally, the frame within the frame here appeals to me… as do… exotic elements such as Barbra’s bright red hair, Japanese writing and the ambiguity suggested by rail that appears to be rusted and perhaps no longer in use.
I am happy to acknowledge the influences of others… here a nod to Stefanie Schneider and her Instant Dreams series, which I invite readers to check out on Instagram or elsewhere. I’m not sure that there isn’t a hint of the old Twilight Zone TV series in this image as well… I think virtually all of us of a certain generation carry within our psyches some lingering effect of Rod Serling’s creation.
Speaking of which… as I attempt to build more exposure for my own work, I’ve been regularly posting on instagram. At some point, I intend to build a website dedicated to photography. Until then, Instagram is a good place to see photographs in one place without needing to click around a lot. If you’re interested, here’s the link: jackdonachy. Be sure to leave a “like” if you like what you see. Thanks!
CutterLight 