9/5/08

Our friends James and Stephanie had mentioned that to get to Ludlowville's hidden falls that afternoon we would need water shoes and perhaps a sweater. After a short trek out of their beautiful home, we left the road and were soon climbing up fairly difficult terrain. About half a mile into the forest we reached a narrow creek ravine craggier than most others I'm familiar with in the Finger Lakes area of the state of New York. It was a gorge so deep and so heavily wooded that little sunlight reached the creek bed where there was still a lot of water running despite being almost the end of summer. We walked slowly upstream sometimes with water up to our calves, being careful to avoid slipping. James who is a geologist, enlightened us with information about the types of rock formation. After about half an hour of walking up the gorge, the stream took a sharp turn and all of the sudden we entered this extraordinary space. We could go no further now because the falls extended up vertically for about 60 meters over what you can see at the top of the picture. We would have had to be experienced climbers to climb around and over that tall wall of stone.
The reason why I photographed only the bottom of the amphitheater-like opening created by the falls, is that the light of the setting sun was illuminating so intensely the top two-thirds of this space, that I knew immediately that the camera would never capture correctly the levels of contrast between the two. I also had failed to bring a tripod so I had no other recourse than to increase the sensitivity index of the camera to be able to capture at least some of the wide tonal range of the scene with so little light. Since I could not back up without losing partial sight of the falls, I braced the camera against my body and took four or five different exposures turning my whole torso a few degrees after each one. I was very lucky with exposure and alignment and so the computer was able to seamlessly stitch all the images together to produce this wide panorama.

Don't you think that adoration is the true call and vocation of the human being? Not petulant respect for this and not for that and, certainly, not adoration of "my" true god over and against "your" false god, but rather awe-filled veneration as a state of being. This magnificent hidden place wild and utterly sacred easily evoked profound unction, a mysterious and liberating disappearance of the viewer in the act of being devoured by the seen. What contrast with most of the physical world created by human thought with all its noise, incessant acceleration and blatant artifice and vulgarity! To recuperate the sacredness of the natural world out of which we have abstracted ourselves, it is imperative that we die to the monstrous psychological and social world we've created with our fears, ambitions and conflicts. Neither the traditional religions, nor the sciences will ever be able to bridge the gap that separates the human being from the mystery that extends beyond their pie-in-the-sky beliefs and their always limited knowledge and methods. We must, one by one, venture beyond all that.

Nuestros amigos Stephanie y James nos habian dicho que para llegar esa tarde a la cascada oculta de Ludlowville necesitariamos zapatillas para vadear y quizas algo de abrigo. No lejos de su hermosa casa dejamos el asfaltado y pronto nos encontramos trepando por terreno bastante escabroso. Luego de casi un kilometro caminando a traves del bosque llegamos a una delgada quebrada mas accidentada que otras similares que he transitado en esta region de los Finger Lakes del estado de Nueva York. Era esta una quebrada tan profunda y tan arbolada que poca luz del sol alcanzaba el arroyo en el que aun corria bastante agua a pesar de que el verano estaba ya llegando a su fin. Caminamos lentamente hacia la fuente mas arriba, en ciertos puntos con el agua casi a las rodillas y tomando cuidado para no resbalar. James, que es un geologo, nos informaba sobre los diferentes tipos de formaciones rocosas. Mas o menos media hora de caminata y un brusco recodo en la trayectoria del arroyo nos puso en este extraordinario y virginal espacio. No podiamos ir mas alla porque la cascada se extendia verticlamente como por 60 metros por encima de lo que puedes ver en la parte superior de la imagen. Tendriamos que haber sido alpinistas expimentados para poder trepar alrededor y por encima de esa pared de piedra.
La razon por la cual fotografie solo el pie de la especie de anfiteatro creado por la cascada, es que la luz del sol poniente estaba iluminando la parte superior con tal intensidad, que supe instantaneamente que la camara seria incapaz de capturar correctamente el contraste con el nivel inferior. No habia traido un tripode conmigo, asi que me vi forzado tambien a incrementar el indice de sensitividad de la camara para poder de esta forma capturar por lo menos algo de la extensa tonalidad de la escena con tan poca luz. Ya que no podia retroceder lo necesario para poder fotografia toda la falda de la cascada sin perder de vista parte de ella, puse ambos codos contra el pecho para estabilizar el pulso y tome cuatro o cinco exposiciones girando el torso algunos grados luego de cada una. Por fortuna, la alineacion y la exposicion general resultaron ser lo suficientemente correctas como para poder mas tarde hilvanar todas las fotos en la computadora y producir asi esta amplia panoramica.

No crees tu que la verdadera vocacion del ser humano es la adoracion? No un petulante respeto por esto y no por esto otro y, ciertamente, no la adoracion de "mi" dios verdadero por sobre el tuyo falso, si no mas bien la veneracion asombrada como un estado de ser. Este lugar escondido y magnifico, salvaje y sagrado, facilmente evocaba una profunda uncion, una misteriosa y liberadora desaparicion del vidente en el acto de ser devorado por lo visto. Que contraste con la mayor parte del mundo fisico creado por el pensamiento humano con todo su ruido, aceleracion incesante, y vulgar artificio!
Para recuperar lo sagrado del mundo natural al cual pertenecemos como parte integral (aunque lo hayamos olvidado), es imperativo que muramos al mostruoso mundo sicologico y cultural que hemos creado con nuestros propios miedos, ambiciones y conflictos. Ni las religiones tradicionales, ni las ciencias podran jamas tender un puente entre el ser humano y el misterio que se extiende mas alla de sus siempre limitados conocimientos y fantasiosas creencias. Tenemos que aventurarnos, uno a uno, mas alla de todo aquello.

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