Images. That is the photographer’s name for what we ordinary people call pictures, photographs. Most of us take pictures with a “blink box,” an ordinary camera or perhaps one of those disposable creatures with automatic focus, automatic exposure and a simple flash.
Aim your blink box at your boat. Two hours later you will have a picture of your boat, distinguishable from pictures of 556 other “Swashbuckle 31s” only by the “557” on her sail. It is a flat projection of a three-dimensional object on a two-dimensional surface. It is not your beloved SALLY. It has no motion. It lacks the grandeur of the scene, the grace with which she moves through the sea and the sky. But you will get it plasticized and carry it in your wallet until it is dingy and dog-eared to show to the quite uninterested person on the next bar stool.
One who has given serious attention to the art of photography, however, can do a lot better. He will choose the time of day when the light and the wind are right. He will be sure your sails set well, that there are no “paddy’s pennants” adrift in your rigging, no fender hanging over the side. He will get out in a small boat and have you sail by him at various angles and will take at least one full roll of film. He will develop and print the images carefully to bring out the contrasts he seeks. Then he will inspect the images critically and throw out most of them. He will show you four of the best. Whichever one you choose he will enlarge with special attention to the quality of the printing. He will frame it and bring it to you at last. You will gasp when you first look at it.
“That is my SALLY. The roll of foam under her lee bow! The way she lifts to a sea. That is indeed Ram Island Light behind her!” You will gladly pay the photographer’s bill in three figures, hang the image on the wall, thrill occasionally when you see it and gradually get used to it.
Maybe a really good painter can do even better. Take him out several times under different conditions: fog, sun, shower, a double-reefed gale. He will want to get the feel of her. Give him all the images you have of her, for he will want to get the details correct. Then turn him loose with no deadline and don’t bother him. He will come up with a painting more lifelike than even the previous image, for he will have emphasized some lights and shadows, some colors, some lines. You will not notice these, for he has done it subtly to make the portrait more real than the photographer can. You can’t call this an image; it is even more than that. It is SALLY, your boat, winning a race or feeling her way home in the fog.
But we have not yet reached the ultimate. For instance – just once instance – we got under way before sunrise to catch a fair tide. Chilly and clear was the morning with a fair westerly breeze behind us. Day was breaking slowly ahead of us, the sky lightening, turning from gray to pink ahead of us toward deep blue overhead. The sea was gray.
Suddenly, the eastern ocean flashed a deep, dark purple, the first golden crumb of the sun on a hard horizon. For an instant I was sailing on Homer’s “wine-dark sea.” The moment faded, the sun rose and it was day.
This is no image to flick from wallet to show to a bar companion, no image to hang on a wall. This is inside me, can never fade, can never be broken, can never be stolen or sold. It is part of who I am.
– Roger F. Duncan, E. Boothbay