Fly By

Sony DSC D-700, 1999, Bradenton Beach, Florida. In an auburn panorama, a gull follows the evening flyway as an ocean-going sailboat connects with the setting Sun. The nearly-indescribable differences in actual sizes and locations are nulled by earthbound perspective, allowing superimposition of two totally unrelated, independent entities. The dark boat's dagger skewers the star! The bird cries out distantly, beyond earshot. But - will the sun toast the boat? Could the dagger chop the Sun in half like cordwood? Will the setting Sun sink the boat? Travelling the invisible route that hundreds of other seabirds had taken a bit earlier that evening, this gull is but a dim-witted spectator to the scene. Its sole goal is to find a place to roost for the night. People gather on the beach to observe and record the drama. As they watch the boat skewer the sun, one might be thinking " Red sky at night, sailor's delight."

In reality, the Sun seems to rely on nothing. It is perpetual, hotter than a nuclear bomb, and is super massive. It's normally so bright it can etch our eyes into blindness. Scientifically, it's in charge of everything earthbound. It blisters skin in our most vicious deserts. Some use a burning glass to focus its energy to fry insects and start leaves on fire.

The sailboat, arguably, is just a mindless vessel in charge of nothing. In contrast to the Sun, the boat's tiny and frail. Visually, however, it's profile is hard cut - masculine and aggressive. Be that as it may, sailboats are next to useless without breezes born from sun-nurtured convection currents. Just to survive and function, our boat requires a planetary distance from the sun, defined as 1 Sol, that sustains vast areas of liquid water and prevents water from perpetually steaming away or freezing solid. In the boat's conception, a wise designer configured it to float on the water and cut through efficiently. A wise shipwright ensured the boat is solid, watertight, and seaworthy. Under sail, the boat is best suited to a sailor's experienced hand on the tiller, while keeping sails to the wind and eyes on the horizon. The sailor is everything to avoid the boat's un-manned tendency toward aimlessly floating about willy-nilly.

Even the shapes illustrate differences. The round, soft pillow of a Sun gently sets into the horizon, falling to rest into the mother of the word horizontal. Yet the boat, locked to the horizontal, points to the sky, the domain of the gull. The mind knows that the travel of the Sun is about to be cut short; yet, the boat may well travel on.

Yes, the photographer - arguably the almighty creator of all seen here - had a hand in this too - scurrying around, seeking out and tracking, to locate the just-right position on the beach that provided a perspective allowing this catch. The quest also involved taking sample images, along the way, to ensure optimal exposure. Yet, of 5 or so frames shot before this image, the one most dramatically appealing is this particular one - the coincidence of Sol and boat at the intersect of sky and earth. Perfect clouds wallpaper the sky. The remaining images were so far inferior, they should have been deleted. Here, we have both movement and time frozen still in the click of a fractional second.

(Photographer's note: my English professor used to say "Things, in parenthesis, are whispered." OK. Lean in close and I'll whisper. The gull was a paste-in from a different frame of this same sailboat and sunset scenario. Knowing that now cheapens the shot, eh? So, all this becomes a moral yin-yang: the emotional coalescence of the ecstasy of artistic freedom (modifying one reality to create another false reality) and the agony of dishonesty (thought it looks real, it's dishonest as a photograph.) Bear with me: if, because of its beauty, composition, etc. of this photo, this is a good yin-yang concept, then, possibly, the cut-and-paste cheating is concievably the opposite - a bad yin-yang. It follows that we have the opposing forces of good and bad yin-yangs united in the presentation of panorama below. For that possibility, I have no name.)