Slow Photography

Kidnapped in Scotland Setting out over the roads of the Isle of Skye, we went in search of the Neist lighthouse, built in 1909. For over 100 years it has withstood the powerful winds of the Minch, a strait in northwest Scotland.        The day before, we'd taken a wrong turn. It took us awhile to find the Ballachulish House Bothy. The delay worked in our favor, for there was a break in the weather, and when we finally found the correct driveway off the main road, a rainbow burst out overhead as we drove uphill past a roaring stream. Winds rocked the trees.      We parked. The owner greeted us. We moved our dry luggage into the Ballachulish guest house, a white, rectangular, 19 th century, slate roof, stone-built abode, described as a self-catering bed-and-breakfast. On the mantle above its fireplace, hardbound between red leather covers, was a complete set of Robert Louis Stevenson's novels (First American Editions, Scribner's sons). T...

Photography can get complicated. So, there are 3 simple things I try to remember about our craft. First, we must try to see the beauty of the earth each day as if we will lose our vision tomorrow. Second, we can choose to be different than we were yesterday, meaning we can change how we photograph. Third, we can take it slow, and wait until the spirit of our subject acknowledges us. When we allow a photograph its full expression, viewers will know it too.

Manually Mindful: A Lens for Slow Photography At sunrise in North Carolina on the eastern shore of the Atlantic coast, I go for a walk with a new lens. Red cardinals are singing from bare branches. Gulls shriek in a flock, flying over head. Spider webs on the ground are covered with dew. Pines and sweet gum support vines and creepers. Speechless, I a bsorb this Spring morning.    In photography, we have lenses that stabilize. There are lenses for lightning fast auto focus. There are lightweight lenses designed to shoot quickly and ask questions later.  This lens is none of these things. It is heavy. It records no aperture to the camera file. It is a soft at the edges. It is silent with no beeps.   And while it does fit on my old film Nikon and my new digital camera, it does not auto focus. No focus indicators appear in the view finder. Focusing takes extra time.  The modus operandi of this optic is the opposite of all gear ...

"How to show the picture?” she asked.   I pointed at the play button on the back of the camera. At 15, she was living in a home for orphaned kids on a Caribbean island. She quickly found the button, played back the video she'd taken of her housemates singing a popular song, and they looked on. Dressed in white t-shirts and blue shorts, the 12 kids from the Children's Home made a goodbye video for the friends that were leaving the island; a volunteer American couple who got close with the kids over several years of working at the home.  These kids were curious, and the small camera was twisted, grabbed but not dropped. The youngest was an intense three-year-old who snapped image after image while talking non-stop about what he saw: the sky, the church, the grass, the pavement. Selfies were also a popular subject matter.  These children are Black, from the Haiti and the Caribbean. I am white and about four times their age. Living in a home, coming from difficul...

Caught on Film: Jimmy Connors returns serve to Stan Smith .  Kodak has been a vital and important part of photography all my life. So, it was a thrill to learn this week's news that Kodak Alaris is bringing back T-Max Professional P-3200/TMZ film is coming back, March 2018 in 36 exposure rolls, after being discontinued 5 years ago. Film is Kodak's heritage. Tennis is my heritage, but at the other end of the racket. I started playing amateur tennis when I was 9, but the pros, including Connors, were heroes who lived on another planet, visible through the distant telescope of TV. I craved a Wilson T2000 racket so I could hit as hard as Jimmy. Now, I had the chance to cross over, and see bad boy Jimmy Connors up close. For 160 consecutive weeks, he ranked #1 in the world and when played in Denver, Colorado my senior year in high school, he was the men's singles champion of the Denver Open for the 3rd year. At the time, playing for the Manual High School tennis tea...

GETTING THERE: After sailing to Long Island, Bahamas in February 2018, we rowed our dinghy .4 miles (650 meters) east from the anchorage to a sponge fisherman's area ashore at Gray's Bight settlement, Long Island. First called Yuma by the Arawaks, and later named Fernandina by Columbus, Long Island is 180 miles southeast of Nassau.  Explore the Shrimp Hole and see the shrimp bodies reflected by the undersurface, an experience like floating in space, in this video:                 Play   Video "Exploring the Shrimp Hole, A Salty Paws Adventure" THE SHRIMP HOLE: We'd been previously to Long Island's famous Deans Blue Hole, one of the world's deepest at 663 feet. However, swimming in the shrimp hole was surreal. To get there, you can drive South from Thompson Bay. Since we were anchored, we landed a dinghy and took a short walk across the Queen's Highway and through the grounds of Saint Mary's Spanish c...

Snorkeling, I float in twelve feet of sunlit Bahamas water. The sand below is crisscrossed with past wave ridges and present wave shadows that intersect in a matrix of dancing light and dark. A single sea biscuit rests on the bottom. It seems to call down the suns rays to the sandy bottom. The biscuit is a skeleton from a black sea urchin.  Five grooves radiate from its mouth, now filled with the tiny shells of a marine creature. It looks like the center of a flower. I swim closer. A photograph blooms. In the Bahamas, a sea biscuit shell is a good marine bio indicator. It is a marker, a natural measure of any toxins in the sea. When analyzed, the shell's composition lets us infer the amount and intensity of metal contaminants like lead and cadmium that have accumulated in the ocean. Jim Austin Jimages www. shootslow.blogspot.com

Two Gods Jim Austin Jimages " When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow."   ~   Anais Nin The truths we hold as self-evident can make us strong. Yet, we can easily carry them to extremes. When our truths about our creative process emerge from darker places, they may hinder our curiosity. To open our vision to other novel vistas, we may need to let go of what we hold tight. In an old Anglican church, shadow and sunlight patterns danced on a wall around the decaying windows. Clouds floated across the sun. I wondered if the essence of this illumination could be expressed in a picture.  Watching these rays of light and shadows move across the wall, I slowed  down to steady my mind and the camera. Colors were vivid. Greens and yellows emerged from the darker hues. I noticed the broken shutter with vines growing in, as if through an eye. Mother nature came in one tendril at ...

Cowbells clanged. Drums boomed. Fancy dancers whirled and danced in ways that would be the envy of Shiva. The dancing went on all night on Bay Street in Nassau . Flash on camera stopped the action. Junkanoo is quintessentially Bahamian. The festival is an excellent opportunity to do Slow Photography, to take time with exposure and focus, because its shooting in the dark.  

Hi. I'm a photo. Got an invite for your imagination. I been 'round a long time, but I don't claim any hold on the truth. Never mind belief either, 'cause I only want you to imagine. Set your imagination on fire, and your compassion will burn brightly too. OK?  Now why do I say this? Well, there's a rumor going round. People are saying that I, as a photograph, must always tell the truth. I say, sure, in some countries, that makes sense. That land called journalism, and that nation that's called foresics, sure, my brothers need to be documents. But hey, I am an artistic girl. I am about imagination, and possibility. I'm for those folks who always want a good story more than the true details.    That's why I am a Polaroid. Just one frame. To appreciate me, you gotta use your imagination. 

I'll publish my book on Slow Photography in 2018. Here is a n excerpt from the first chapter, Winter: Winter The Sky Clock The full "Wolf Moon" over the ocean. Waves caress its light. The photograph is mute to many, but speaks to those who have sailed and inhaled the moon lit sea in winter, remindful of past sorrows and joys. It speaks to the soul in whispers, saying softly "there is only now."  Time melts away when we sail. Raising the canvas to the weather, or watching dolphin play off the bow, I rest in the present. Without sounds of traffic, and with no human sounds, life at sea becomes the timeless present. This teaches a lesson. Live by the sky clock, there is only now. Eons before the age of Egyptian, Mayan, and Indus River monuments of time we kept time differently. Long before the first Chinese water clock, we kept time with sky clocks. They let us rest in the present.  This book is about being fully present with the e...

Waves. From a Fine Art Series called NINE . The Slow Photo  movement is growing. It appeals to thinking, mindful photographers.  It's expanding because  we are growing tired of a   speed-obsessed photography culture.  When was the last time you took pure pleasure in letting go of time? Our solution lies in our thinking. Thinking deliberately with a thoughtful approach to making photographs lets us explore consciousness, in a way that can not be measured or purchased.  As camera  sensors have changed radically in their design, the way a camera  absorbs light has changed. Originally, this was a chemical process that grew from bitumen of Judea, to calotype, to Daguerreotype, to glass plate and cellulose. Only recently have we had access to digital sensors. The artful question for all our warp-speed tech   is this: are we making better images? I believe we c an practice   Slow Photography with any camera ( i...

In the winter, afternoon suj beams through the bow of a shipwreck on Cat Island, Bahamas. "A Work in Progress". A wrench on the bow exterior of the wreck.  Engine Room corrosion over several decades makes the steel turn to hues of white, brown and blue. SHIPWRECK on CAT ISLAND Slow photography is a daily practice. Part of the process is recognizing the oneness of all things, and letting go of perfection. Another aspect recognizes that increasing speed does not help us create quality. Quality arises from attention and being prepared. For example, I take a camera each time we go on a bike trip. I take only one lens. There is no need to hurry when out in the wilds. Biking along the banks of Cat Island, we saw an unexpected sight where Armbrister Creek meets the Bahama banks. Looking at the clear water, rays and baby sharks were visible, swimming in the shallows. In the mangroves, alongside the creek, calls rang out from nesting songbirds. Then, turning to th...

"Hey, ain't it good to know, you've got a friend"       ~ Carole King " Friends are the siblings God never gave us."  ~ Mencius A merlin flies over the Wakodahatchee Wetlands near Boca Raton, Florida, USA. One warm December day, three of us strolled the boardwalk of the South-Florida wetlands known for its diverse bird life. Dark grey gators, orange iguanas and pure white herons were at home in Wakodahatchee. Their bright hues drew our eyes and lenses. A banded raptor flew overhead and my friend looked it up in his bird book. It was a small, fierce raptor called a Merlin. Purple gallinule photograph Courtesy Glenn Kulbako www.kulbakophoto.com  Iguanas are arboreal, and a five foot long male iguana can climb trees as quickly and smoothly as it walks on the ground, photograph courtesy Glenn Kulbako http://www.kulbakophoto.com. Below the boardwalk, a pair of purple gallinules were feeding. They hacked away at the roots...