Sometimes the picture you wish you had taken is more memorable than the pictures you actually take. Much as your imagination can construct a portrait of exquisite character for someone you admire from afar, a picture that should have been taken isn’t constrained by the reality of an actual photo that exposes your technical or artistic limitations.
Here I am in New Zealand, sporting my fancy new camera equipment, and I can’t shake the frustration of the pictures I could have taken – no, should have taken! -- if only I had been more aware of my surroundings and their photographic potential. After a surprisingly tolerable 13-hour flight from San Francisco to Auckland
(movies watched: Lost in Translation,
Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and, uh, Enchanted), I boarded my short connecting
flight to Christchurch. At 6:30am, the sun hadn’t yet risen on a chilly
and misty morning, but as we taxied to the runway, dawn broke, and the sky and
clouds were suffused with a sublime golden pink light that reflected off the shimmering
dew-soaked fields.
OK, I know it sounds like trashy prose from a romance novel. I probably would have stripped off my shirt and tried to rip the nearest bodice if I hadn’t been sitting next to gruff Canadian woman wearing a Fall Out Boy t-shirt (also, once I had gone topless, even the mostly elderly passengers wouldn’t have been afraid to engage in post-9/11 passenger vigilantism).
In any case, I’ve never seen light like this – not in the American Southwest, not in Patagonia, nor in the fall colors of America’s eastern seaboard. I would call the scene bucolic, but I’ve always felt that word, which invokes a combination of “bubonic” and “choleric” to be terribly mismatched to its meaning. I’ll opt instead for Arcadian (which, for a gamer, also has certain inapposite but positive connotations).
My camera, of course, was stowed beneath the seat in front of me. Which would be entirely appropriate and forgivable if I had not gone through the trouble, just ten minutes earlier, of removing it from my bag to take a completely mediocre picture of the pre-dawn light. Here is the quiz that I failed: what time of day immediately follows pre-dawn? If you need that question answered for you, maybe we can get a group discount to some Kumon tutoring.
You’ve probably gathered by now that New Zealand is beautiful, even though it’s rainy and I haven’t left Christchurch yet. The Kiwis have the most soothing accent, which reflects their genuine friendliness and hospitality. They remind me of Californians, without the disguised hardness that the state of American savagery breeds. My parents arrive tomorrow, and the next day we’re headed to Aoraki Mt. Cook.
Here's the mediocre picture:
ok a few things:
* nz really does bring out the cheesy writer in you..and one day, i'd like to hear you use some of these effusive terms and fancy words in person, aloud. i wonder if it'd sound more natural than your attempts at "ghetto."
* re: kumon -- remember agnes? her aunt/uncle own kumon, like the entire franchise. and coincidentally, their daughter jeannie was bff with my sister for all of junior high before our respective parents whisked us off to better school districts, which is how i ended up in great neck.
* i'm not even going to ask what you thought of 'enchanted' for fear of starting wwiii.
Posted by: jhs | February 24, 2009 at 08:43 AM
didn't think you still had enough happiness left in you to enjoy a good pre-dawn... say hello to the parental units for me.
Posted by: hsin | February 27, 2009 at 01:12 PM
if you haven't read "arcadia" by tom stoppard yet, you really should.
Posted by: MJL | March 07, 2009 at 05:18 PM