A few days ago, gigantic waves appeared out of nowhere, caused by a storm or seaquake hundreds of miles from here. Seen from the meadow, they are heading straight towards me in climbing sets. They are limitedly photogenic, as camera one eye does not show depth.
So I stepstoned over to Cape Cowskull with my camera, because from there I can capture the waves from their flanks and this yields savage photographs. For this, though, you have to stand close to the water or else you get vague rock shapes in the foreground. Of course I can crop them out later, but then they loose pixel strength and therefore magnify-ability of what I do want to show. Meanwhile I have recognised that it's of little use to first wait five minutes to see if a closer spot is safe enough. It's cleverer to go somewhere that lends a fast getaway. But sometimes you have a dubious wave. Would it come as far as here?
The catch is, that looking through the view finder you do not see the entire wave coming. So sometimes it is a last-second decision. And when you see the water rushing up, in liquid violence, seemingly unstoppable and again closer than foreseen, then simultaneously the adrenaline surges through you, but that is only fun as long as you stay dry.
My camera can capture down to 1/8000 second. If the sun shines, so there is plenty of light, I can halt any moment and this yields miraculous photographs. The waves sometimes look frozen, sculptured, trapped in peculiar beauty.
There is a full blasting off-landish gale today and still a magnificent swell. Even at the building of the wave, the headwind blows off the crest, so the ever-sharpening upper rim becomes translucent, until it topples and an enormous shroud of spray blows up. Exquisite for photographing, sometimes showing a rainbow within.
But today there are no holes in the clouds and it does not look like brightening up, though you never know here. Now the sky is dead and grey.
It is hard to imagine that all this unbridled ferocity comes to an end in an amazing pantomime that is invisible to the naked eye. Here too, the camera freeze-frames the moment with an even more intimate result. Myth has it that free matter forms existing shapes. On these you can binge endlessly.
Sometimes I think of how things can be and let myself be led by my expectation. That can turn into terror and wipe out my wisdom. Then I mark time, tower around, let things come as they may. It's less easy than it looks to live in the here and now.
I've got no TV, radio is stopped or deformed by Slieve Elva, I only buy a newspaper when there is a CD in the supplement. I feel my senses sharpening, much like blindness begets better hearing. Thus I learn to see with two eyes before I photograph with one.