you can read about how to swim or you can get in the water and
learn how to swim. The second method is certainly more
effective. Swimmers seen above at swim practice in a
virtuous spiral of learning through doing.
We had quite the wake up call yesterday morning. We swimmers had been hearing for days that the temperatures were going to drop, snow was coming, weather would soon turn treacherous, "stock up on essentials!!!" and "drip those pipes!" But it all became real at eight o'clock yesterday morning. Oh sure, I was comfy in my down jacket, fingers wrapped around a heated steering wheel, car gliding over clear, ice free roads over all 1.5 miles from my driveway to the pool. We all tend to cut the timing for the start of practice as close as possible so there's always a mob scene in the locker room as everyone gets ready to swim. And the locker room is always a nice and toasty 78°. I didn't think much of the cold until we opened the door and scampered out, clutching our swim accessories, and headed toward the pool. The air temperature was a balmy 27° but there were 15-20 mph wind gusts blowing all manner of things around... including icy cold air. A cloud of steam billowed above the pool. And then we saw a most unusual sight. Several of the swimmers from the practice before ours were...getting out of the nice, warm, 81° pool to walk over to the deep end of the pool and dive off the diving board. Over and over again. Backlit. Steam pouring off their bodies. Heads wrapped in shrouds of white steam. Joyously cannon-balling off the diving board and daring others to join them.
The second workout swimmers are much more restrained. We just wanted the earlier crew to exit the pool so we could plunge into the nice, warm water before we lost all courage and retreated back to the locker room and then forfeited our workout and instead went searching for good coffee. Swim caps on and goggles adjusted, we forged ahead. After standing exposed to an 18° windchill the first jump into 81° water is pleasant. Warm water on the cold skin. And once you start moving with intention the only parts affected by the cold are arms extended out of the water while swimming backstroke.
The sinister, dark side of a cold morning, and the part you don't really consider when you first face the wind and the cold is just how much worse it will feel when you get out of the pool at the end of the hour. You are then toasty warm and soaking wet. The windchill had barely abated and the differential between skin temperature and the forces of nature are... bracing. Whoever the first man out of the pool is they are subject to the running joke from those of us lingering in the warm-ish water: "Hey, Steve. Turn on the showers and warm them up for us!!!" Shouted with all the earnest-ness we can summon. A bit later we're all in our cars, heaters cranking, heading for the closest coffee shop, bakery or restaurant we can find on a Sunday morning. Swim tip: Don't leave your swim gear in the trunk of your car for too long. I ruined a set of tail lights in a BMW by being lazy and leaving wet towels in the trunk for too long.... That evaporating water and chlorine can end up in expensive places.
After the swim and breakfast, and more coffee, I started paying attention to the weather. I couldn't help it because, sensing an opportunity to dramatize, all "news" coverage was about the impending "Arctic Blast", and it was everywhere. On the radio. On TV. On the web. In sky-writing in the skies above the city. Lows in the 20s (mostly overnight) and highs "barely" cresting the upper 30s (day time). And now a new feature: We might get one to three inches of snow overnight tonight. Pray for your exposed water pipes!!!
I have a close friend who grew up in Pennsylvania. He's immune to Snow Day Panic. I had coffee with him late last week and I was excited to tell him about all the crap I bought to keep my pipes safe from the icy onslaught. With his usual calm demeanor he suggested that I just take it easy and not rush to take it all too seriously. But I so wanted to share all my cold weather device discoveries. Things like automatic drippers for the outdoor faucets. They are totally mechanical and screw on to your outdoor faucets. When the water temperature drops below 37° (f) a valve opens to allow for a continuous drip. The amount of drip varies with the temperature. The lower the temps, the faster the drips.
I bought one last week and monitored its operation frequently. Convinced that it worked well I went back to the hardware store to buy more but, of course, they were completely sold out. I ordered two more online and now it's a race against time. Will I get them today, this evening, or will the delivery fail and I'll be forced to retreat from the cold weather abatement progress I've made and revert to covering the faucets all over again? And worrying through the night? I have hope. In the end that's all we can have.
I have also belatedly discovered "heat tape." Also called self heating pipe cable. It's amazing stuff. You wrap a stiff cord around an exposed or endangered pipe with a temperature sensor affixed to the coldest spot on the pipe. The other end is an electrical cable with a conventional plug which you plug into a wall socket. The sensor senses when the pipe temp. drops to 37° or below and electricity warms the portion of the cable you've cafefully wound around you pipe. When the sensor senses that the pipe has hit 50° it shuts off and waits for the next temperature drop. I rushed to buy the product in several different lengths only later realizing that I had no conveniently exposed pipes on which to use the product. Mea Culpa on that one.
But in researching "heat tape" I did find heat proof, insulated tape which I was supposed to use to cover the installed heat tape. It's pretty cool stuff and I'm sure I'll find a use for it. We stocked in mega gallons of water, enough MREs to last two people for months (and depending on the taste, maybe years....) and we also wrapped every piece of exterior vegetation we could access and wrap. Memories of the ice storm of 2022 are still freshly branded onto our brains.
Now that all the preparations are complete. Or as complete as I can make them. I am settling back down and considering the big questions that being a photographer generates. It's not enough just to have fun and be happy making photographs. Nope. Now we must, as in a form of group therapy, dig down into the very fabric of our psyches to discover not just why we photograph but also what our approach is to making said photographs. We must now discover what is our "big idea" and then dive into dissecting our personality types to unearth how we make images. Are we a careful planner or an erratic, seat of the pants artiste? We know, of course, which one we should be but.... sometimes the careful and plodding road to photographic fun is quite a bit less fun than immersing ourselves into the pure fun and joy of seeing, shooting and sharing. Be on guard if you are called upon to dissect jokes, impulses and moments of instant satori. Just as in most pursuits all you will end up with is a metaphorical dead frog in pieces and no real art work. When what you really wanted was to share an image that the universe dropped into your lap like a quick gift.
Coming from an engineering background I go along with basic groupthink as it regards repeatable results, accurate measuring, repetition while changing only one variable at a time, and much more. This is a good basis for lots of things like making paper, anodizing metal, doping wafers, grinding and polishing pistons, processing food, etc. In art, when depending on the making long run portfolios of prints for success this same mindset is valuable to assure consistency from one print to the next. But... the thing that makes art valuable to collectors, curators and the rest is... a lack of overall consistency. Little variances and imperfections. "Features" that humanize the process.
The freeform experimentation and the realization that any time a work of art depends on the consistency of human hands, and a human handling each piece, they will all be different. Maybe not glaringly different, but different enough to be discernible by not just experts but for lay people as well. There comes a point, metaphorically, when washing one's hands dozens or hundres of times a day lurches over from mindful sanitation to damaging compulsion. Wabi-Sabi was imagined and philosophized for good reason. It's part of a balance between lack of tight control and overarching perfectionism. The Japanese artists have that right.
Endless testing, experimenting, cataloging and analyzing goes a long way toward preventing the actual opportunity to go "hands on" with one's artistic tools and to go out into the world to make art. That's something I think every photo nerd and Photography Expert needs to acknowledge and deal with. One can sit all day running tests, parsing the results, trying to find ever more precise ways of measuring results but the more involved in "understanding" the theoretical or philosophical minutiae one surrenders the less time they have to spend in the real world. The corporeal world of action and reaction.
I spent seven years as a student at a good university, and then three more years on faculty, and in the process discovered that almost all theory is meaningless until you go outside and put the theory into practice. And that action informs theory. What I found in students and even in faculty is that many people find talking about or writing about the process more comfortable, more assured, than taking the risk that in undertaking the actual act of creation they might, in spite of all their "knowledge", fail to make art that satisfies them. Or more importantly to many, fail to make art that moves their careers forward. Garners accolades. Builds resumés. There is also the fear of starting something. Anything.
How many turn off keys for your home's water supply do you need to research online before you are moved to finally take action and go out to the curb with whatever tool you have to cut off the water from the main before a burst pipe makes your basement into an indoor swimming pool? At some point over researching becomes ruinous in the real world.
This is something I never need to worry about because most houses in Central Texas don't have basements at all. They are built on pier and beam or on concrete foundations. I also rarely have trouble heading out to have fun with a camera because I not incarcerated by theory which compels me to fall into an endless loop of evaluating and re-evaluating everything before I can move away from my desk.
Do you have a friend who is in love with therapy? Maybe they sought out a therapist to work out their anxiety or depression. Or their fear of vertical print washers. And even though those problems were treated and have since receded they found a certain chummy comfort in replaying bits and pieces of their past in some "journey of discovery" that keeps them in therapy? While Freudian-based therapists are happy to have patients who depend on them long term (gotta finance that sail boat...) I am more in the Jungian camp so there will be no blaming mother today. Solvable problems are solvable and once figured out we move on. Research about something as mundane as cameras is like an addiction to therapy. We spend a lot of time on it and it costs us money at very turn, and like an addiction to therapy, it rarely cures us. The real cure is action. Moving forward. Committing instead to the thrill of having positive experiences putting our creative spirits into motion. Creating the art instead of studying all the different way in which we can look at the potential to do art. Or label art. Or quantify the Art process.
Wanna teach a kid to swim? All the text books in the world are meaningless compared to getting the kid into the water and getting them to feel how swimming feels. Wanna teach a blogger how to enjoy photography? Turn off his/her computer and take him/her outside with a comfortable camera and an even more comfortable pair of shoes. If you can break him/her of their compulsion to research you might just be able to launch them into the important part of photography. The doing.
So, it's going to snow overnight. We have no snow plows but the city is putting chemicals on the overpasses and bridges. Chemicals which are supposed to tamp down the icing and make the roads at least passable. But to make it all work they have to turn off their computers, leave their offices and go out in their trucks. That's the secret of just about anything that matters. You have to show up.
Author dressed for the cold.
Child dressed for the cold. Iceland.
umbrella remembered: Vancouver.
Cold rain turning into ice is the worst.
Be prepared. But go outside and photograph.
