Out In The Field

Thoughts from past expeditions...

Going It Alone - July 1999

As a photographer, going solo has been extremely rewarding, although not without its trials. Managing a dive bag, camera case and back pack full of film through a crowded, foreign airport requires prior endurance training and a bit of creativity. Negotiating a reasonable ride to my first night's accommodations when I don't speak the language demands confidence and savvy that I often have to fake after a long flight from home. But the rewards are great when the adventure is what I make of it. The flexibility and opportunity to interact freely with new people is extremely liberating, and enough to make the challenges of solo travel well worth the effort. I've been caught out in a squall on a tiny boat with a dive guide in Pohnpei, then voraciously devoured fresh sashimi at a table for one, while recording the adventure in the pages of my journal. Once I shared a cabin with a 74 year-old Austrian man. He sang opera in the bathroom. I was inspired by a divemaster in the Red Sea, and met one of my best friends on a boat in the Caymans. An older, wiser photographer sent me home from Galapagos with new goals for myself and my career, and I fell briefly yet hopelessly in love with a Dutch dive guide in Palau.

Solo dive travel has enriched my life, as well as my portfolio. I have spent time alone with my camera in a Yapese Village, hiking around ancient ruins in Pohnpei, and waiting out a typhoon in Kosrae. There were moments on each trip when I felt true loneliness, but these have been the times of greatest reflection for me--through the camera and through my own mind. I have great stories to share with family and friends about a crazy midnight cab ride in Palau, pushing a car through the dusty back streets of Cairo, and learning to play a bamboo flute from a beautiful boy in Quito....memories I made while taking a chance and going it alone.

Eastport, Maine and Grand Manan, Canada: Diving the Fundy Tides...

Excerpts from "Inspiration Found in the Bay of Fundy" September 10, 1999...

I am fresh from a 10 day excursion to Grand Manan Island in the Bay of Fundy. The diving is cold, dark and organic. It is a challenge to make beautiful images here. It is difficult to make an intriguing picture of a three foot lobster as fishing trawlers scream overhead, and doubts about the location of my partner linger in the corner of my mind. It's a struggle to cling to a rock with one hand, and use the other to compose and light a delicate stalked tunicate, as the strongest tide in the world threatens to drag you out to sea. And it is so disconcerting to sit in the muck at the bottom of a fishing weir, searching for a subject, when two hundred thousand pounds of captive herring school above you, eclipsing what little light there is and it suddenly becomes night at noon.

It takes ferocious passion to squeeze through the rubber seals of a dry suit, strap on a third of your weight in lead, jump into an environment that strains and challenges the senses, and produce a roll of 36 successful images. I'm still learning how to do it. But I know it is impossible unless you really Get It. Unless you are fascinated by what is elusive, secretive, hardy and adaptable. Unless you appreciate the function and health of a sea so cloudy with life-sustaining nutrients you can't see the giant basking shark five feet in front of you. He's here for the same reason. When you Get It, you really earn it, and that's when you create something special--a gritty, powerful image that tells a story about the trials of life in the sea; one that moves and affects the viewer. This is what it's all about. These are the images I want to make. (Image at Right © Richard Weafer 1998. All Rights Reserved.)

Coming Soon: Notes from the field in Galapagos and Micronesia