Though it may not look like it, I took this image in near darkness at a sunset BBQ. The shutter was open 30 seconds, which turns the water into an aqua pond, the waves against the shore into a misty swirl, and the clouds into a blue purple glass.
We’re in March, and the clock is finally ticking down on my time here on beautiful Saba. Cliche, but damn, time goes so fast, and there’s nowhere to hold onto to try and reign it in or slow it down. Let’s see what else remains in these final weeks for my lens, for my novel in progress, for music I compose, for great times with friends on Saba. I’ve accumulated such a wealth of images I like, I’m considering pulling together a limited run coffee table picture book. Sound interesting?
Weekly Supply Ship At Fort Bay, Saba, Dutch Caribbean
A Short Treatise On My Photographic Approach
My commitment to a new picture each day on the blog until I leave this tiny island in the Caribbean demands a degree of photographic creativity; I’ve rejected a number of pictures that look too much like direct repeats…same color palettes and/or too similar views from a particular location. Saba is five square miles of paradise, but any creative photographer like me still needs to keep an eye out for transforming even the mundane aspects of their surroundings into something new, fresh, or dramatic for a compelling image, and that can happen in a few different ways:
Macro or Micro Zooming in much closer than the level of detail the brain normally pays attention too or vice versa, zooming out for a far wider perspective than most photographs.
Geometric Perspective Much is written about having a photographic”eye”, and while some talent is undeniable, I still believe certain aspects of pleasing visual geometry can be taught or learned through the glory of digital image trial and error, myself as one example. The trick for me was learning how to flatten the 3D my brain perceives the world with into the 2D world the camera sees, then take a boatload of pictures and figure out why I did or didn’t like a particular image, which in my reptilian simplicity, was figuring out how my brain was reassembling a 2D image back into 3D perspective. A big part of that is geometry within an image frame, and how it leads your eye to construct depth.
Digital Post Processing Folks who’ve been reading my blog a long time know my philosophy on images, and opinions of images…you either like a picture or you don’t, you either hold on it and take it in longer than a few seconds, or you move on with a Ho-hum. “Did you Photoshop that?” seems to be a question that implies something about the image is false, or faked, and therefore either too good to be true or not worth looking at. But that’s at odds with images as art, which is that digital post is part of today’s creative imaging process. Leave the f-stop and technical discussions to photographers who feel that’s important stuff. In any case, digital post might be as simple as taking the clutter of colors on a photo competing for eye attention and making it black and white and shades of gray, which gets immediate oohs and ahs. Lots of creative options in the post.
3 Original Images Used For Today’s Final HDR Blog Picture
Today’s photograph takes on a mundane subject–the 60 meter 681 ton supply ship Mutty’s Pride
that arrives in Saba’s Fort Bay harbor weekly with essential food and supplies. I’ve taken a bunch of pictures of the ship over the months, but never had one that rung my bell. This time I took 3 pictures exposure bracketed for the different light…the dark mountains, the clouds, and the brightly colored ship, and combined them to create a High Dynamic Range (HDR) photo that attempts to balance the contrast that our eyes can see, but cameras can’t, then played with exposure and saturation to rebuild the true colors washed out by the intensity of the Caribbean sun. The result takes on an painting quality I like, and I hope you enjoy it as well. I won’t always yak on about process like this, but for the new and learning photogs out there, maybe this will be a helpful post. Cheers!
Michael Chammaa Summits The Whale Tail, Saba, Dutch Caribbean
Day Off, Mr. Chef? Nothing A Precarious Climb Can’t Cure
Michael Chammaa is the Lebanese born chef and proprietor of the Brigadoon restaurant, along with his wife Tricia. He also happens to be a bit of a fitness freak, a divemaster, and as readers of my blog may remember, he also knows some rather challenging off trail excursions that really put me up close and personal with Saba’s rugged volcanic terrain.
A couple days ago, I asked Michael to return with me to Great Hill and the Saba whale, in an attempt to tackle the tail, which I didn’t do on my own when I came last. One side story: the great whale tail is also the namesake for Saba’s celebrated dive sites Tent Reef, Tent Wall, and Tent Deep, as the rock, covered with red lichen, is clearly visible from the sea below, and looks like a three pointed tent (or maybe a teepee to me).
The Chef Descends Rain Slicked Rocks
It rained like crazy on our way up Paris Hill to get to the whale, and as usual, Michael had other plans as well; we popped on headlamps, climbed up some boulders and came across a cave entrance straight out of Indiana Jones, with hanging vines at its mouth, a dark cavern beyond. For the next hour, the Chef challenged my fat butt with corkscrew and cliff hanging moves and descents into the belly of the whale. The good news? It was a dry, dusty cave, no goat droppings, threatening stalactites, and no signs of insect life. (Slightly) bad news? When we had penetrated roughly 120ft (38m) in and 40 ft (12m) down into the volcanic nether regions, we came across a main cavern room that had dropped rocks on an entrance hole since the last time Michael had been there, 18 months earlier, which had me momentarily uneasy, if a few more rocks decided to drop. But it was solid in there, and we climbed our way out with no issues, and I had another unique Saba adventure under my belt. No pictures…too dusty and didn’t want to risk dropping the camera along a shelf into the darkness.
We came out and it was still raining and blowing with gusts up to 30-40mph (50-60kph). I told Michael I needed a better day to tackle the tail, and of course, he ignored me and went straight there, where I filmed his rapid 2:12 second ascent. I hope the pictures give you a scale and perspective on how intimidating this climb is up close, with its dropoffs. I’m sure it’s a pithy effort for bouldering/rock climbing specialists, but for big Hawaiian dudes, its a challenge for another drier day. But if you’re interested in seeing a quick, crazy climb, check the short video out to watch Michael use weak weed roots to climb up in his tennis shoes, up volcanic boulders shining slick with rain. Yikes. The things we do on Saba when we’re bored. D’Oh!
Sorry ’bout the missed post yesterday. I was diving all morning…two months of diving and I finally see my first green moray eel at dive site 3rd Encounter, sitting at the top of The Needle, then we spotted an even bigger green moray–a big fat boy–at Babylon. Rock the house! Saba diving is awesome. Anyhow, I came back from the dive and walked directly over to Windwardside, running around doing errands and forgot about the blog until I got back home late, then I was so tired I conked out as I was posting. Alrighty then.
Snapped this tranquil afternoon from my front yard when I got home from the dive. Byootful, eh?
Moon Sunset Over Flat Point, Saba, Dutch Caribbean
La Luna Bella
Rambling down the twists and turns of Hell’s Gate to a perfect Sunday Cove Bay BBQ hosted by Tanner (chef at Shearwater Resort) and his gal Patricia, the moon swapped roles and let the clouds be the crescent over Saba’s airport, and this delightful sunset was the brief result. It only lasted maybe 30-60 seconds before the clouds broke up and hid Mister Moon. But hey, right time, right place.
Cheers to all who’ve watched the Saba video yesterday; proved to be a most popular blogpost indeed. More to come. Au revoir ’til tomorrow!
And Now For Something Completely Different (Video)
We got a cool short video clips of Saba., including the plane takeoff from the shortest commercial runway in the world. I sure hope this works, it took 45 minutes to upload (thanks Scout’s Place) Would love reader feedback and comments on this first ever video of Saba hiking I made during a couple hikes with my brother down to Spring Bay and up Mt Scenery. Those who haven’t been here yet should get a good sense of the varied terrain and scale, while those who know and love Saba will either have fond remembrances of certain trails or get their hiking feet on and get back on the trails if they’re here 😉 Keep in mind, my brother Michael and I had a little bit o’ goofin’ around doing this video.
Sorry for the late post today, I’ve been on an all morning early hike and spent this evening trying to load this vid up.
Have fun & please comment as it suits ya. We’ll return to our regular scheduled photos in the coming days. Cheers!
The countryside around St. John’s in this expansive panorama of a Saban afternoon looks almost pastoral with the foothills below a foggy Mt Scenery, the St John’s flat, Windwardside and the island of Statia on the far horizon. Where are those sheepherders? Ah, thats Basque country I’m thinking of… Beauty like this is status quo on Saba…amazing,eh? And the clouds ALWAYS cooperate in the drama as well.
South Coast From Paris Hill, Saba, Dutch Caribbean
Hilltop Pastorale
I talked to Chef Michael from Brigadoon, and indicated I’d like to take another crack at climbing the monolithic whale tail on Paris Hill. Hoping he can come with me, as he’s done it several times before, and it’ll help me to see how before I tackle it. We’ll see. In the meantime, here’s a sample of the gorgeous south coast views of Saba from Paris Hill. I’d like to especially thank the foreground yucca for acting like a mini-sunrise accent to the picture when only minutes before, that seemingly innocent sunny plant’s serrated edges had ripped a variety of tiny holes in my calves when I came over the ridge to the summit. Flora dualism or have I finally reached a point where I’m anthropomorphizing Saba’s durable vegetation as a lame cover for poor hiking skills? I’ll leave that opinion to you, dear readers. Cheers and have a great day!
You may recall an earlier blogpost of the whale on Paris Hill, above the village of The Bottom. Today’s hike was to summit the hill and get up close and personal to said whale, but it proved to be anything but trivial. Indeed the hike up to the base of the whale was literally 12 minutes, but then it was a sheer, steep boulder scramble up sawtooth yucca and other cactus, that ended up taking an hour and a half. This rock climbing was easily comparable to the off trail route to Hot Springs (a no access trail) that Chef Michael from Brigadoon took me on a few weeks ago. Lots of route calculating as far as where my feet were going and where I was going to get handholds on the volcanic rock. In the end, it was worth it, as I snapped lots of pictures from the dramatic views up there. I managed to make it to the tail, called Tent Rock, but I just didn’t have the huevos to haul my fat butt up that sheer red face with 1400 foot dropoffs to the cliffs and bay below. Maybe another day. The yucca and cacti took a bloody chunk out of my legs on the way down; I’ll wear long pants next time I’m up here.
Clouds Billow Over The Structural Remains of Captain’s Quarters Hotel, Saba, Dutch Caribbean
Views like this, though they hold sad memories for some, inspire me to write, because the earth and sky still create magical art together every day here on Saba. The novel continues to move forward, no slower or faster than my muse will allow, and I’m ok with that. Que sera sera, amigos y amigas!
A Tangled Mind In Motion 