Rippling Blues

It is Saturday evening. It is late already and after this long and exciting day I’m asking my self: What could you tell about the quintessence of your experiences and does your picture visualize that and how? So I’m not going to write down a short diary, nor am I going to illustrate the photo which in fact was - Thankyou - chosen by Willemien as the only one Blipworthy.

In fact almost every picture I made today during the storm could be deleted. The sandstorm over the beaches made it - at least for me as for most diehards I met - impossible to walk down to the seaside. I couldn’t hold my pocket camera without shaking and had to protect it from the heavy sand blows. Staying longer than a couple of minutes down there made you into a complete Sandman, grinding deep into the bone marrow, vision blurred by a veil of salt&sand, eyes painfully hurt by sandgrains. Even on the Promenade it appeared difficult to keep staying upright.

And here we come to this central experience. While my pictures were blown away, I kept “firmly” grounded. I did not lose my deep balance. But, wasn’t that a very easy piece of cake, you will say. You just had a fun morning and afternoon along the Dutch coast. You exagerate in speaking about storms. But how would you react and behave if you really had to endure severe weather conditions: snowstorms, floodings, draught, firestorms, tsunamis and tornado’s...uh?

That’s no more Saturday afternoon fun. But here we are seriously at risk of losing property, last shelter, health or even life. How would you stay in balance, keep firmly grounded, then? Would you as survivor offer some real sacrifice to help the victims of real disaster? Would you continue making pictures among all those fellow beings suffering?

Of course I don’t know how I would react under such serious conditions. You may have seen what the great professional photographers can do before they are recognized by World Press Photo. But that is what they do. And what I did today under very different circumstances, and sowhat, in my own utterly amateurish and unsignificant way, is simply this:

from a relatively safe distant position, high between the last dunes, I saw this rolling on and on of the waves, battling against the coast and I felt their steady power in blue. I felt impressed by these Rippling Blues of the foaming waves after waves after waves. I’m trying to look straight into the Elementary, make one step forward, exposing my self to the Eternal Rippling Blues.