Photographing movement

Trees at the sewage lagoons


Yesterday morning was gorgeous for a drive, though wind gusted against the car. Silver waves twirled across a green field on a hillside. It's one of those things that are hard to capture in photographs, like sunlight reflected off water onto a wall or undersides of branches.

The movement of water itself is impossible to photograph. I'm forever trying to capture ripples on the Eramosa River. The static images, though beautiful, don't show rhythmic flickering the way eyes see it. Even a placid forest stream blurs into a frenzy. Bright fountains freeze.

I felt surprise on first witnessing my own peculiar mannerisms in a home video. Me walking gingerly and briskly seemed at once strange and familiar. I had always felt myself move, never seen it. Portraits often capture exceptional gestures rather than mundane. Did Dorothea Lange's famous photograph, "Migrant mother," portray the woman's characteristic pose and expression, or an unusual, fleeting mood? Either way, one can hardly interpret body language from stills. A camera can't record the way Brenna and Marian carry themselves.

Yesterday at the lagoons, strange clouds cast a silvery pall over trees and grasses where we walked. It felt like moving through an obscure art film.