water texture

purpose, imperfection, and other musings.

The beach is warm and crowded, people meander around lifeguard stands and flimsy pop tents and playing children to the beat of the Sunday drummers. Passing through the cacophony, I extend the strap of my camera’s soft plastic underwater housing, check that everything is in place. On, off, aperture, ISO. I twist the ND filter to cut the light by two stops. The sun is setting, but it’s still too bright. 

I have to choose, it’ll be difficult to adjust once in the water. So I decide - as it gets darker, I’ll keep my aperture wide, adjust elsewhere to compensate for the reduction of light to the camera’s sensor. Recently, I’ve been preferring underexposure - I’m blaspheming against the teachings of The Internet. “You should overexpose by almost two stops!” the Hive Mind squeals, “Bring it down in post!” Maybe, maybe not. Today, on the beach, I say: give me noisy shadows over blown out highlights. At least in darkness there is data.

A blue striped beach towel is spread parallel to the waterline. The tide is high, the beach shorter than usual. Looking toward the sun, hovering fifteen or so degrees above the horizon in a clear, yellowing sky, I stifle disappointment at the lack of clouds. My favorite sunsets require texture, refraction, diffusion - but there will be none today. I stumble into the surf camera first, take a rogue wave to the face, laugh, and move past the first sandbar into deeper water.

I’ve been promising myself I’d bring my underwater setup to a beach sunset for months. Purchased for a project almost a year ago, my little EWA Marine housing has mostly sat, neglected in my equipment closet. Like much of the gear I’ve collected, I’ve mentally categorized it as a “work” tool. Something to whip out and expertly apply to the right project, not just… because I want to. 

We exist in a world where images are currency, commodities. In the film industry, we are conditioned to assign a dollar amount to each and every frame. I’m aware that everything I make and share becomes part of my creative portfolio, by which people could evaluate my worth, compare me to others, judge the quantity of my talent. If art is a conversation, this is an incredibly disempowering position to hold. And yet, here I find myself - floating in the Gulf with a plastic-wrapped camera in my hands and no project or story in mind. Time is not money for me here, today.

The Sun takes her time in setting. The sky, open and expansive, shifts from golden to apricot to mauve. My lens captures the glimmer of waning light on the water, dipping below the waves and catching the droplets as they recede. Handheld, I wonder how steady these images will be, then decide I don’t care. It’s mesmerizing. A brown pelican soars by, inches above the water. Drums still beat in the distance, birds cry, kids laugh. My memory card fills. 

I capture no story but the account of how I spent this time, only beautiful, imperfect, purposeless images. This conversation is one I’m having with myself, for myself. If I want to make art that catalyzes, repairs, connects what needs to be catalyzed, repaired, and connected in the world, shouldn’t I be allowed to do make art that does that for me, too?

“I know the world’s a broken bone / but melt your headaches, call it home.” 

Panic! at the Disco, “Northern Downpour”

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Here’s what I made with the waves:

If you’d like to share, I’d love to see any and all of your beautiful, imperfect, “purposeless” art. Find me on Instagram @norajanelong.