Feel like an ouzel
I learned a lot about photography from paying attention to a water ouzel. John Muir wrote about this little bird, smaller than a robin and bigger than a song sparrow, also known as a dipper. “Find a fall, or cascade, or rushing rapid, anywhere upon a clear stream, and there you will surely find its complementary Ouzel, flitting about in the spray, diving in foaming eddies, whirling like a leaf among beaten foam-bells; ever vigorous and enthusiastic . . . He is the mountain streams' own darling, the humming-bird of blooming waters, loving rocky ripple-slopes and sheets of foam as a bee loves flowers, as a lark loves sunshine and meadows.”
I sat by the side of a stream the day after a big rainfall. More than an inch of rain had fallen in a few short hours. The placid stream that had always given me gentle reflections in little pools, was roaring with surface runoff on its way from the forested hills to the lake. I was spellbound. As I looked deeper into the water, letting go of any reality of the riverbank, shoreline plants, or the deep hardwood woodlands that backed it up, I was able to frame, in my eyes, views of the water completely removed from any sense of scale. I walked into the current, to get a closer look. With this intimate perspective, pieces of tumultuous water appeared as giant waves. Memories came to mind of Hokusai’s “The Great Wave”. With this new view of the stream, I pulled out my camera and framed images free from any anchors of the bigger reality. More in line with what an ouzel might see, and definitely immersed as it would be.
My first photographs were curious experiments with different shutter speeds, all on a tripod to lock down the composition. One hand held the tripod in the water so it wouldn’t tumble way, and the other on the cable release, as I hovered over, looking into the mix of water and reflected colors with the intensity of a heron waiting for the exact moment to spear a fish. Now!
Completely immersed in this connection, a visual dance between my eyes and the water, steadying myself as water pulsed and pushed downstream, I had the thought to take the camera off the tripod, to be more fluid in following the river on its journey, to be more like an ouzel, whirling like a leaf among beaten foam-bells; ever vigorous and enthusiastic. I moved myself and the camera, creating a brush stroke of color, again pressing the shutter at what I perceived the right moment.
Before a recent flight at San Francisco’s international airport, I walked into an exhibition of Kay Sekimachi’s weavings. Her mother and grandmother, both weavers, often reminded her, “to be a good weaver, you have to feel like a thread.”
I smiled. To be a good photographer, I had learned, you have to feel like an ouzel.
🙌 Birds can be such wonderful teachers.