TRIPphotography
the Rock. Then I’d retreat to the café to dry out and download and edit images.
I finally abandoned my leaky tent and rented a small cabin on the water’s edge in Little Harbour. It was one evening at dusk just
before the fog rolled in when, through my binoculars, I spotted an iceberg, miles out to sea on the horizon. When seconds later it had evaporated in the fog, I ques- tioned if it really was there or if seven days of eyestrain in the fog was playing tricks on me. The next morning, after a late evening of sampling the local rum with new friends, I pulled back the curtain and there it was, like a Hollywood prop sitting right there
When I asked what they thought of the boats the answers came as if in a chorus, “It’s so quiet.”
All their lives on the water had been spent with the constant drone of a labouring motor. They hadn’t experienced the quiet and solitude of kayaking or sensed the power and independence of being self-propelled.
I didn’t take a lot of photos that first day on the water, I spent more of my time soaking up the fun that these guys were having. I recalled the renowned pho- tographer Freeman Patterson saying good photography is applying the “art of seeing.” But I realized photography is equally a
I ran outside barefoot and shirtless with my camera firing away as if a thousand tonnes of ice were going to disappear in minutes.
in the harbour. And yet another miracle, the sun was shining. I ran outside barefoot and shirtless with my camera firing away as if a thousand tonnes of ice were going to disappear in minutes. A sense of urgency set in. I
drove quickly into town to look for volunteers to paddle boats. A few local “lads” enlisted and we set out toward the grounded berg.
I soon realized that the main berg was still too exposed to the open seas to approach it with inexperi- enced paddlers. However, there were plenty of house-sized chunks of iceberg drifting in the bay. What quickly became more
interesting than the ice was the joy and curiosity on the faces of the paddlers.
Men that had grown up and worked on and around the sea all their lives became excited young children discovering a new toy. I stopped shooting and simply watched as they circled the ice and spontaneously dashed off in mad sprints and chases. Looks of astonishment took hold as they realized how fast they could go under their own power.
20 // Summer 2005
process of learning the “art of connecting” with the landscape, and more importantly, the people within that landscape.
The weather changed, the seas calmed (slightly) and we got out more and more in the boats. The images that I had envisioned, that I had frantically chased for days unfolded before me. My wonder grew daily as these huge ice cas- tles dripped, broke up and changed shape. They had trav- elled thousands of kilometres from Greenland on the Labrador Current to die a slow death on the shores of Newfoundland. They formed tall pinnacles and small inner ponds, blue and green veins of ice revealing themselves. As the weeks passed I ended up getting the shots I had hoped for but I don’t need any photographs to remember that first day on the water. I still feel a certain warmth inside knowing that I had given something back to these new friends who had sheltered and adopted me for several weeks while the capelin weather blew.
Rick Matthews is a retired steelworker and photographer with some time to kill.
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