TOUCHSTONES

February, 2005

Photography is generally a solitary pursuit, but I enjoy company on the exploration. On this trip to Mull my good friend and fellow photographer Donald Stewart accompanied me. Donald and I spent three days around Iona and were exploring the western coast of Mull heading towards our next evening’s B&B. We passed this wonderful stonewall and section of trees. We zipped passed and about 5 minutes later, I asked Donald to turn around and head back. I wasn’t sure if there was a picture but I had been contemplating on it and had to go back and find out. The best way to describe it is this way: the pain of not making the image became greater than the pain of turning back.

We found the place and there in one of the old trees I saw a face and knew I had to make a picture. Perhaps it was the green man leading me to an image. I shot several versions all including this tree on the right. I shot it coming and going, but the first image I shot was the one I used. My subconscious mind had seen it driving by at 30 miles per hour long before it registered with my conscious mind.

That instinct to turn around and go back is one I fight with constantly. Doubts crowd in and I dismiss the urge to go back as silly or foolish. But it is a voice I have to work on listening to. It is important to trust instinct for image making. Sometimes the “gut feeling” is way ahead of cold hard logic.

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Plate 1 is also an image made on that trip around Mull. It was late in the evening and Donald and I were heading towards dinner in Tobermory. It was about dusk and a light mist was falling. On top of the hill near Dervaig was a pull off with a small parking lot for a trail through the forest. A small sign noted there were standing stones down the path. Once again the desire to see what the stones looked like was greater than the desire to stay warm and dry. We loaded up our cameras and took to the woods. After a very short walk through the trees the path suddenly opened up to a clearing with two standing and one fallen stone. The rain in the fading light gave the place a sense of magic and mystery. It was getting so dark that the image on the ground glass showed only in the clearing, leaving the edges of the frame totally dark.

We set up on opposite sides of the trail and made two exposures. I had a very wide lens on the camera and after processing the film found a ghost just on the edge of one of my negatives. Amazingly the ghost was using a Canham 5x7 view camera. The second image had no ghost and though I love the image with the spiritual Donald it didn’t fit the book so I chose the ghost-less one.

Within minutes of closing the shutter the mist changed from a gentle rain to a real down pour. As Donald said "That rain is fair stoatin doon". We finally arrived in Tobermory and sprinted into the restaurant. Fortunately they sat us next to the fire where we warmed up and dried out.

We returned to the north end of Mull the next day and spent several hours looking at and photographing those stones. The light that day was bright and direct. None of the images made that next day had that mystical, mist-tacal feeling of the night before.

Both of these images were made because I was with someone who was willing to turn around, go back and re-look at something either seen or sensed. It is important to trust “gut instincts”, to get out of the car and be willing to become uncomfortable.