Sphinx Lakes - Kings Canyon

This is really hauntingly beautiful.

I like this one. Nice job. Great portfolio. Its nice to see someone use a 4x5 utilizing its full potential.

hmmm.... never thought of this scene as haunting. maybe i was too tired after backpacking up 6000 vertical feet (1/2 of it cross country) to get to these lakes. i was sure glad that the lake became mirrorlike - the fishing was excellent as well.

one time, i chucked a rock into the middle of a pond. i was greeted with the ripples washing up against the shore and they touched my boots. then the ripples reflected back into the lake. not long afterwards, the ripples that went the other way reflected against the rocks on the opposing shoreline and, although diminished greatly in magnitude, they washed up against the shore and touched my boots only to reflect back into the lake. not long after that, the surface was again like glass. suddenly, a fish jumped offering me a whole new perspective on the reflections of waves and ripples. i picked up a pinecone, twirled it between my thumb and forefinger, and then walked away realizing that i had a choice to either drop the pinecone or toss it into the pond. may it grow into a whitebark....

 

...later on that evening, while gazing up at the stars, i saw the rings from the rock that i tossed into the lake. yes, they started out as rings and ended up reflecting into a new form determined the perimiter of the lake. no design. no premeditation. no plan of attack. simply cause, effect, and the energetic ability to do so.

it's been over two years since i made any prints in the darkroom. is my spirit dead, dormant, or lost in space? sometimes, i do wonder if it's easier to just take my life. i'm good at wondering and then i wander off into the woods to take more pictures. in my closet and in my mind they rest.

 

i wish i could recite the single stanza poem i wrote for this picture. oh where oh where did i post it on yahoo.

 

oh, here is is:

 

 

the jewel is cast below the full moons shadow...

and in her wisp a trace of tranquility begs to be forgotten...

the shadow advances as the earth greets the developing sky...

and the stars diminish in magnitude.

 

 

We see life before us as we enter from where we left and we think we have to go after it with a vengence. Set it "on fire' with ourself. Make our footprints in the shore and steer the ripples of our lake. As time passes the 'shadows' of our false perceptions and errant responses grow increasingly and we sadly lose vision of the jewel. Too late, we realize that it's our 'house', us, that is on 'fire' and the water to extinguish it is out of control in all our throwing in of rocks. We slide off the shore and sink into the depths gasping and remembering that jewel that was there all along hiding just behind the mountain peaks we felt the need to conquer, hoping for the smoke to clear so we can grasp one last look at what should have been and can no longer be.

is just another day,

that i wish that i was dead,

that way,

all of the pain would vanish,

like the day that the ripples on this lake,

stood still.

i wonder, if down the road some fifty or hundred years, give or take, if mother nature will fukk mankind the same way mankind has fukked mother nature, relentlessly.

 

here i am, a hypocrit - i stand by mother nature and cheer for the hurricanes and melting glaciers to reduce mankinds population to smitherines, while at the same time, partake in the exploitation that fuels this collective rape.

 

where does the balance lie? i don't know.