What Comes A-Floating Down the River

At the northern end of the eastern arm of our lake there begins a long stream (how long? A search didn't turn up that information), with dams and waterfalls and the remnants of 19th-century mills, called the Keuka Lake Outlet, through which Keuka Lake drains into the larger and lower Seneca Lake. The Keuka Lake Trail runs alongside. Various stretches of the Outlet are used by recreational boaters and fishermen. At the local Arts Fair a couple of months ago, I saw a picture here—a couple in a canoe paddling lazily past this spot. I saw the picture without seeing it, because I was off to the side and a couple of hundred feet away when the couple in the canoe came by. They passed by, and I couldn't get into place in time.

(View an enlargeable version of this shot here.)

Since then, I've been back to this spot twice more to to see what I might get. I worked out the vantage point I wanted for the background and put a piece of wood on the ground so I could return to it easily, set the camera the way I wanted it, and retired to a bench in the shade to wait. It's very near the public landing, so lots of watercraft stopped short of me because the people were headed back to pull the boats out of the water.

On this occasion I patiently photographed this same scene with all sorts of craft passing—multiple kayakers, a sleek speedboat, a strange one-person fishing-boat contraption with an electric trolling motor, this young paddleboarder...and a flock of geese. Strangely, everyone passing (even the geese) looked at me, except the people in the speedboat. None of them even glanced over. I waved to most of them, and spoke to a few. The geese were amazingly cooperative, arraying themselves in a single line, perfectly spaced. The thought crossed my mind that they looked too perfect, and people would think I had cloned and Photoshopped them into place!

Are they bitin' today?
Theme song for this picture: J.J. Cale's "The Old Man and Me," a song I've always loved. I used to call it the theme song of my life. The lyrics describe a situation that is lyrical, pastoral, touching, profound and profoundly ridiculous all at the same time:

The old man he catches
The fish in the morning—
He rides the river every day.
I sit on the bank and
Holler when he passes
'Hey, old man, are they bitin' today?'

I wake up in the morning,
Thinking 'bout my troubles
I go down to the water
And they pass away.
And when the old man comes
A-floating down the river
'Hey, old man, are they bitin' today?'

Now here we got a thing
That keeps on rolling.
It ain't heavy, don't take it that way.
The old man and me,
We got a good thing going—
He catches fish, and I sit all day.
He catches fish, and I sit all day.

I could write a whole post on that song.

Muddle
But which one is "the" picture? They all work, and yet none of them were exactly what I had in mind. You have to avoid being bloody-minded ("stubbornly contrary or obstructive: cantankerous") when photographing. I am willing to be patient when hunting a photograph, but I've noticed over the years that when I get too attached to the idea of the picture I think I want, often nothing good comes of that. On the other hand, I'm good at accepting serendipity when it happens, and it happens often. Sometimes I will go to a place to photograph a specific thing I saw, and try hard to get that shot, only to have to accept the fact, later, while editing, that the shot I went after just isn't much. On the other hand, when I'm out taking one shot, sometimes I happen on another scene, and that one is the good one. Photographing is like fishing—you equip yourself, position yourself, encourage good luck as much as you can, but you're still not entirely in control of what you're going to get. You have to stay open-minded pretty much every step of the way. Especially, you always have to be open to the fact that maybe what you thought would be a good picture, isn't.

So is the paddleboarder "the" picture? ...The one I should be open to? I like it. At the same time, my instincts are a bit muddled—I'm not quite certain it all comes together. Maybe this is it, or maybe there's not a picture at this spot. (The geese came close for me too!)

Time will tell
The answer, for me, almost always comes as time passes. When pictures are new, there's a residue of false enthusiasm that clings to them. But after some time goes by, usually the good ones come forward more—that is, I like them better—and the poorer ones fall away—they offer me less and less. That's when I realize that I've "forced" something that doesn't quite work.

So I'll let some time pass, and see how I like the paddleboarder. But whatever happens, I think I'm going to return to this spot at least one more time this summer, to see what happens by.

Mike

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Featured Comments from:

Aaron: "I'd love to see the geese version. I think your understandable concern about it appearing too perfect is reflective of our cultural moment. Serendipity happens. But, because it's technically possible to create a fiction that is indistinguishable from an authentic spontaneously serendipitous moment it becomes harder for all of us to trust and appreciate an image of such a moment. And because visually we've been trained with certain expectations of perfection we now have an unending stream of simulacra of serendipity. It's hard to distinguish photography from graphic arts (and nothing against graphic arts, by the way). I don't think there's an antidote to this except to find photographers who we trust to give us those moments within certain conventions of image manipulation without violating the authentic moment, perhaps image manipulation that calls appropriate attention to the moment without fictionalizing it. That's clearly an art and not a science and people will understandably disagree about what counts as appropriate manipulation."

Mike replies: First, here's the variant with geese:

Second, to your main point, very pithily (is that a word?) stated, I've long thought the same thing. People don't tend to like that argument, but the fact that photography is not as much a pure record as it used to be has dampened my enjoyment of photographs somewhat. I remember when I learned to be wary of photographs with telltales of manipulation (including excessively perfect "spontaneous serendipity"!), and also when I realized that I was becoming more reflexively wary about the truth-value of all photographs.

Kevin Crosado: "A magazine editor I used to do prepress for back in the noughties would have had me Photoshop out the paddle-boarder because they distracted from the photograph of the building...."

John Camp: "People shooting digital often shoot multiple takes of a single evolving scene. Did you, by chance, get a shot of the paddleboarder entering the scene? Or did you wait until she was in your pre-selected shot, and then take it?"

Mike replies: I only took two of her, which is too few. I generally don't take enough variants, and often, back in front of the computer, wish I had more to choose from. I suppose I'm still too attached to the old idea (or habit) of anticipating just the right moment and hitting the shutter at exactly the right moment. In this case I have one of her entering the frame, and then the one at the top of this post. I didn't take one of her in the middle of the scene because I realized she wouldn't contrast well unless she was in front of the darkest background. I took 36 shots of this scene altogether, with various watercraft, which is, by coincidence or not, just about exactly what I would have given this subject shooting 35mm film.

I have another shot that I haven't yet posted on Flickr that has a man walking through the scene. He's quite far away from the camera, and I couldn't see his expression as I was shooting. I took five variants of that one—and there's only one in which he's not looking at my camera!

Comments

[xf mj]

Love the photo. Great light!

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Seems like you're working on a nice instructional composition here, Mike. Foreground (docks, lily pads). Mid-ground (passers-by in the water). Background (the building). No, the paddle-boarder is not the subject to my eye. She's your mid-ground is your scale / human context, a prop. (My wife sometimes complains that I married her because I just needed a handy prop so often. I respond by telling her to be quiet and stand still.😁)

[Dave Levingston]

When I’m shooting outdoors I try to stay open to what nature is offering, rather than sticking to any preconceived idea I might have had. I think of it as Judo rather than Karate. Accept what is offered and bend it to your purpose. Photography outdoors is “Playing ball on running water.”

[Ken Burg]

Mike, I'm around your age and therefore we likely learned the same set of "rules" as far as composing goes. I think the paddle boarder is the stronger shot. But I agree with John Camp and would say that by the old rules it would likely be more pleasing to have her entering the frame rather than exiting it.

[ritchie thomson]

I think you should combine the two shots: photoshop out the straggler geese on the left and put the paddleboarder in their place, would that be fiction though?

[That might be a lot of fun, although it would be a composite. --Mike]

[xf mj]

Not to double-comment, but this one’s written after you added the photo with the birds. I much prefer the one with the paddle boarder because she stands (no pun intended) in contrast (sorta no pun intended) to the myriad and micro-graduated tones of grey in the rest of the scene. But maybe I’m a little suspicious that the photographer (and occasional pedant) enlisted her so as to deftly illustrate Zones II and VIII.

[Pi Manson]

I really like the paddleboarder photograph. I find it calm and elegant. I love seeing your work, it feels so far from my world.

[Håkan Andersson]

Use Photoshop to rearrange the geese in a more haphazard way. To make it look like it's not photoshopped. You have to work with (against?) the expectations of the viewer. :-)

[martyn elwell]

"The Girl on the Paddle Board"
Difference between the Entrance or the Exit of the Paddle Boarder could influence a title if one was needed or train of thought in the viewer.
ie, "where is she going" or where has she been"
does the viewer see her 'going onwards' or "coming from"
Thats why I like NO titles, let the photo speak for itself !

[Rick Popham]

"I have another shot that I haven't yet posted on Flickr that has a man walking through the scene. He's quite far away from the camera, and I couldn't see his expression as I was shooting. I took five variants of that one—and there's only one in which he's not looking at my camera!"

If he's walking on water you probably have a winner.

[Earl Dunbar]

re: comments about whether to wait or take multiple frames … I personally don’t mind missing a shot due to waiting for “The Decisive Moment”. It’s a skill (or maybe also an internal competition) that I enjoy. Yes, I miss a lot (especially as age makes moving harder) but then there are LOTS of decisive moments a world away where I’m not present anyway. Especially in Paris.

[John Cecilian]

I think about things looking photoshopped all the time. You can wait for a perfect moment but then after the fact realize that you could have photoshopped that part of the picture into the frame and who is the wiser except for your self. So especially nowadays that can be a problem I suppose. It depends on how strict you are in your finished product and where it will be displayed, if there are rules for photoshopping, or changing a photo. I have a photo of two ducks on a wall in front of the Red Mill Museum in NJ and a male and female looking at each other in pretty perfect symmetry with the Museum in the background. But I can imagine that someone could photoshop the same thing I suppose. Makes me wonder about the viewer…do you think that they care even if you do?

[John Cecilian]

Oh and if you are interested in the photo, wasn’t sure how to share it here, but here is the flicker address for it : https://www.flickr.com/photos/jcecilian/53106043547/in/dateposted-public/

[Brian]

the long line of geese on the right "bothers me". ha ha! why you may ask. because they lead my eye out of the frame and i loose interest in the pic. And yes i was asked to judge at the local photo club on a regular basis.

the young paddle boarder does not for me have the same issue because she is not so near the edge.

[Sam G.]

Following on Aaron's comment about serendipity, you might be interested in the photography of Jeremy Paige (aka, Eaten by Flowers). He's a street photographer who takes the idea of serendipitous composition to the extreme. So much so that whenever I see threads or posts about him online, the conversation usually revolves around whether or not they are staged. They couldn't possibly be real! etc. For me, the more interesting idea is whether camping at a spot for hours on end removes the genuine serendipity. If you want a person to stand in a very specific spot in order to complete your composition, is it that much different to wait of hundreds of passers by to randomly walk through rather than just ask them to stand in the right spot? In both cases, you are imposing your vision on the scene rather than letting the scene present itself to you. Dunno, but even Jeremy questions the "staged-ness" of his photos in interviews. Here's a link to a short artist spotlight type video.

https://youtu.be/7aKGNL0tMlQ

[Dave]

If the area to the left also had a backdrop of trees, that might have made a nice photo. Keep the "balcony" of the building and some buffer space to the right and take a photo of the young woman with some more "nature" ahead of her with enough of the man-made building to even out the different background objects.

In the scenario above, the dock may have intruded too much, but it may also have lead the eye to the woman on the paddle board.

(Of course, there may have been all sorts of detritus to the left of your photos.)

You should definitely re-visit that spot this summer! Just tell us that you've "gone fishing". :>)