Disappointment is something I feel viscerally. It is a tangible quality I live with every time I do something. I have very rarely looked at something I’ve done, anything I’ve put together and been satisfied. There’s always something, somewhere in the back of my mind reminding me that I could have done better.
This much is painfully obvious as I sort through my photos.
On our first day at Maui, the four of us drove down Hana Highway. We stopped at a bend in the road and hiked a short while to catch a waterfall. What a hike. It had rained 30 minutes earlier. Our path, a poor excuse of a trail barely scratched out in the dirt, had dissolved into something barely negotiable. Exposed roots and the thin, muddy soil gave our shoes no surface to grip on. Mosquitoes devoured my flesh, and in the first 5 minutes I endured too many bites to count. As I struggled on the path with my tripod and camera, these berries caught my eye and I spent the next few minutes exploring them from different angles. Distinct lines, forms, colours and contrast – these are the building blocks of an image and I find that their simplicity frees me.
I saw the waterfall by the way. Saw it as I stood on a rocky ledge opposite it, breathing the mist-laden air as the water crashed deep, deep into the stream below. I’d never seen one that large ‘in the flesh’ before.