Obviously, we need to care about what we photograph. If we didn't, we wouldn't. Every picture means something to the person on the other end of the lens, whether it's a loved one, a beautiful place, or a particularly exciting meal. Everyone has their own reasons for wanting to remember something. Never mind, I just answered my own question.
New question: Why do people share photos? What part of our brain thinks that everyone wants to see our selfies or our lunch or our best friend passed out drunk on the floor? If a photo represents a memory or a story or an emotion - a hidden part of ourselves - then when are we not more selective in what we share? Why do we not take the time to explain the why?
As you may have noticed, the blog is back. After four and a half years, it's time to write again. I'm starting by taking pictures that mean something to me, and explaining the why. It's entirely possibly that I will post food, or selfies, or passed-out friends; as long as it means something to me, and I can share it with the interwebs, everything is fair game.
My first thousand words -- below the break!
 |
| Yachats State Park, 6/19/15 |
Walking down the hill to the ocean, I noticed that little guy on the left-hand side of this picture. What struck me at first was not necessarily that he was alone, but how alone he actually was. What you can't see on the right-hand side of the picture is a group of gulls, all being very social and bird-like and basically enjoying life absent this loner bird. There was another group behind me, and a third group a little further down the beach. About 60 birds total, and not one of them having a thing to do with the bird in the foreground.
The Millennial, new-age granola chick in me immediately started to feel a kinship with this bird: here he sits, all alone, rejected by every peer group in his environment, just living his life and doing his thing.
One group of birds starts testing the wind speed and glides from rock to rock. Loner Bird sits there.
One bird circles Loner Bird to see what's going on, and quickly goes to rejoin one of the social groups. Loner Bird looks at me knowingly.
A few birds fly from group to group - even the groups are intermingling! Loner Bird sits and stares.
Why is Loner Bird not with the others? Is it by choice? Is he sick? Just unpopular? An avian introvert? I have now convinced myself that I am the human equivalent of Loner Bird. Our eyes meet.
Now it's starting to get weird, so I decide to leave and go back to the motel. I make it up to street-level and look out to the ocean one last time, and to the rock where Loner Bird was keeping his vigil. The rock, actually, which was now empty; I look up, and an oddly familiar bird is flying directly above me. He circles a few times, does a low "caw" in my general direction, and flies off to join the largest group of gulls. Turns out, Loner Bird wasn't a Loner Bird so much as he was a Protector Bird.
I'm still not entirely sure what I took away from that encounter. Loner Birds and Protector Birds are generally not mutually exclusive groups; sometimes the best way to protect is aloof, from a distance. None of those other birds were even aware of my existence, but one perceived me as a threat, and practiced some combination of sacrifice and duty and inconvenience in order to ensure the security of the group. That got me thinking about how I try and protect those I care about and those who take care of me - whether I'm aware of it or not - and by the end I started to respect Protector Bird more than I even thought I would respect any bird.
Or maybe I wasn't thinking clearly. Or maybe I was projecting onto Protector Bird. Or maybe, just maybe, nature makes sense every once in a while.
No comments:
Post a Comment