Ghosting Along Offshore
On one passage offshore, I brought my handheld 5x7 Linhof Technica. It's definitely not the smallest point and shoot camera in the world. With a 210mm lens and film holder it weighs a little over 12 pounds. Mine has a universal view finer, and focusing is accomplished through a split plane parallax system combined with a dedicated focusing cam for a particular focal length lens. This is a 100% mechanical camera. Think of it as a giant Lecia M series range finder camera. The rest of the top side crew were amazed the fist time I hauled it out on deck to photograph.
As I've said in a previous post, being at sea on a large sailboat is like being a NYC cop, 98.5% not doing to much other than your job, the other 1.5% of the time being scarred to death. This image made with my 5x7 Linhof is a good illustration of what days at sea are like. Obviously, we were nearly becalmed; and the planet's eco-system is doing it's job, evaporating water into the atmosphere until it condenses into rain showers or little squalls providing a dramatic afternoon "late show". The wonderful thing about sailing on the ocean is how little effect you have on the biosphere, how little damage you do, you don't even leave a foot print. One of the sad things about being a thousand miles offshore is seeing all the evidence of our collective disregard as stewards of our planet: there's plastic and human manufactured crap floating everywhere. Any that's just on the surface. What will take to stop polluting our oceans? (Oh, I have an idea: each nation contributing to the ocean's pollution has to get it's dumbass politicians and environmental policy makers out on sailing ships, and go out there and pickup all the crap floating around (funded from that nation's defense budget): that would be a start.)
Offshore in Mexico
Middle to late November always leaves me thinking about being at sea. It's the season for southbound sailboat deliveries on the Atlantic coast of the US. Delivering a sailboat from, say, Montauk to Tortola ... is kind of like being a New York City cop. It's 98.5% of the time just doing your watch, fixing the mechanical problem of the moment, eating (DEFINITELY NO ALCOHOLIC DRINKING), reading, reading, more reading, cooking and bread baking (for me), writing, listening to Herb (weather guy @1500 hrs), sleeping, checking way points and keeping a weather eye on the radar and the GPS, and then .... the other 1.5% of the time can be sheer terror. There is no lonelier feeling than being at sea, especially on a sailboat less than 3o meters, out on the big bad blue, in the middle of a full blown storm: not a gale, but a rip snortin', I-want-to-make-you-puke, hear-it-in-the-stays storm. You feel very,very small and very, very alone. Over two hundred miles offshore, no one is going to fly out to rescue you; 500 miles or more offshore whatever happens, you're sticking with the boat.
The image above was from a day cruise across the bay off the coast of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on arguably the nicest, finest, power yacht I've ever been on: the Machiavelli. The occasion was a good friend's 45th birthday. His bride, my good friend, flew 26 of their closest and dearest down for his birthday celebration from NYC. And without going into details, it was a glorious day. As we crossed the bay, whales were breaching, and the weather in late January was extraordinary. The inside of the vessel smelled wonderful: it smelled of well oiled teak, salsa, Mexican chicken, fresh green salads, perhaps a little of spilled tequila that we had for lunch, and of course the sea.
I made a lot of exposures that day. A couple of them were all right. My friend who was celebrating his birthday handed me his digital camera; I'm not sure what it was, I think it was a Canon, and I loved the instantaneous aspect of it. I became a shooting fool as we returned back to where we had departed that morning. I stopped and looked over my shoulder. I saw the mist filtering the coast astern, and I picked up my Hasselblad for one last exposure. Topside, it was getting chilly as the sun set in the west. Someone buddied up next to me, and he had a large pour of Tequila in one hand for me. I smiled, actually, I laughed, tossed it back and felt the warmth swim through my belly.
I watched the light change over the coast behind me. I thought about Edward Weston sailing to Mexico from Southern California in the mid 1920's on a slow tramp steamer with his 8x10 wooden camera and his girl friend Tina Modotti. I kind of nodded at the misty coastline behind me. And then I thought about my days and nights, and sometimes, weeks at sea delivering sailboats. It always feels good to have water under my feet.
Indian Rug Washer
I made several photographic documentaries about oriental rug making in Tibet, Nepal, Pakistan and India. Producing oriental rugs is an extremely labor intensive process. For high quality rugs, the weaving alone can take over a year for one rug: usually the weaving is done in the weaver's home where the loom takes over most of the living space. After the rug is woven, there is a whole process of shearing, washing, blocking, and finishing. Each one of these steps usually takes place at a different location than where the rug was woven.
The image below was made at a rug washing location in Mirzapur, India. For most of my documentary work, I used a Hasselblad; however, I often carried a Graflex Super D with me. It's a 4x5 hand held camera. I had an old Dallmeyer Pentac speed lens mounted on it. It's kind of a one trick pony: it renders extremely soft focus images with amazing bokeh (the swirling highlights).
More examples of my work with my Super D can be viewed by clicking on the "Phatsotfocus" tab.
