Chaz Sin: One Writer's Sojourn Through An Odd Life
In recent days, I spoke about watching rainstorms drop massive water a few miles offshore while Saba struggles with draught conditions. Here’s the most compelling photo yet (click to make larger, if you’d like) to show you what Sabans see. We ended up getting about 15 minutes of light light sprinkle from this beastie, barely enough to cover an extra hand wash, but something is better’n nothing, unless that something is an angry honey badger.
Exceptionally clear and blue day today with a horizon that went to forever. Click the picture to enlarge it and see the oil tankers lined up waiting on oil products from Statia’s refinery on the hill that faces Saba. I thought about posting the picture of the white bull being led by hand and rope out of St. John’s Flat for slaughter, but this seemed a bit more tranquil, which is my mood.
Just got home from late night karaoke at Scout’s Place and we walked outside and celebrated the rainy wet pavement. Hard to tell if it rained very long, but it was enough to leave the streets and buildings wet…that’s a few millimeters of precious cistern water for the parched Sabans.
In part 9 of “What? Another sunrise picture, Chaz?”, I walked outside this morning, all ready to ramble down to the harbor for my morning dives, then saw these beams shooting out onto the nearby islands of Statia, St. Kitts, and Nevis. Opportunity knocked, I answered.
Clouds, clouds, everywhere, and poor ol’ Saba is still dry as a bone. At least it’s finally a little breezy up high in the villages. It’s quiet out in blog land lately….anybody out there?
It’s tantalizing and teasing to be in the middle of a draught and extreme water conservation on the island and see storms come within three miles of Saba, and drop all their water offshore. As this picture shows, it may be beautiful to look at, but that doesn’t mean we have to like it. But then again, I did snap the photo, so there’s that consolation.
Another early morning hike down to the harbor, meander along the coastline, and voila, snapped this fellow doing what his family has been doing for more than a hundred years. Came up the Dancing Place ridge to Windwardside and started collecting boxes for shipping.
With three weeks remaining, guess I’m finally winding down. On the other hand, many folks would give an arm or leg just to have three weeks away from the frenetic pace of their lives, so no melancholy me ’til I’m off the rock and in the city once more.
Just because the fallout of 1900 metric tons of sulfur ash from the perrenially active volcanic isle of Montserrat downwind of us made for one of the best sunsets many recent locals can recall, doesn’t mean I wish for that kinda thing. Sabans tell me it happens around 3-4 times a year. The whole day, Saba was hot hot hot and a bluish haze hung over the island, smelling like rotten eggs. But when night approached, I was having dinner at Scout’s Place in Windwardside and this is one of the sunset images I captured off the terrace.
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?
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:
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!
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?
A Tangled Mind In Motion 