beauty is summoning...

dried flower heads, past sunset, the river valley, dec. 28, 2008.

winter asters, the river valley after sunset, december 28, 2008

My little camera (which has taken all of the pictures posted in this blog since December 31st, 2005) retires today. In three years, the shutter has clicked 12890 times, & its little parts & joints are wearying... the zoom function broke this past summer, now the screen shuts off at inopportune moments, the flash no longer flashes, and the dial at the top which allows you to switch functions doesn't always cooperate. It has travelled with me to France and Denmark, taken countless hiking trips in Kananaskis, and spent months with me in Yukon and Alaska during fieldwork, taking photos at -45 celsius, or at 3000m on a mountain in Kluane in the summertime. I've dropped it a few times, yes, gotten it wet & muddy & scratched, because it's in my bag everyday, so I can take photos of a bird or a leaf or a cloud or a pattern in the pavement on the way to the university or on a walk to wherever I am going...

I've gotten a new camera now, the newer, more sophisticated sister of this one. Hopefully she will have the same magical colour saturation tendencies & receptivity for light that made me love this one so well. & 'tis time for my dear FujiFinepix E500 to wear a golden-laureled lens-cap... Happy New Year! You have served me well.

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I've been watching Tarkovsky again lately -- Ivan's Childhood & Stalker & Mirror -- & hungrily eating with my eyes the scenes of light & errant wind playing in the grasses, & bird-wings & watery dreams & the light on weathered faces. As well, I've been reading 'Sculpting in Time', his reflections on his films and film-making process. This is one of my favourite bits (p.200):

"In the end everything can be reduced to one simple element which is all a person can count upon in his existence: the capacity to love. That element can grow within the soul to become the supreme factor which determines the meaning of a person's life. My function is to make whoever sees my films aware of his need to love and to give his love, and be aware that beauty is summoning him".

-- Andrei Tarkovsky.