JUST BE THERE
When queried how he could so consistently capture incredible photographs, renowned 1930s street photographer Arthur “Weegee” Fellig famously quipped, “f/8 and be there.” Beyond the technical lesson, I’ve always found this quote deeply impactful. Perhaps it’s because much of my career has been spent out in the world, but I believe there’s a painfully obvious and often overlooked truth buried in the simplicity of that sentiment. Being there. Being present in the moment. Paying attention to the world. But above all else, the importance of just getting yourself out there into those bewilderingly wild corners of our planet. And what better place than the ocean, and what better way than under sail?
It was an early winter morning when I snapped this photo off the coast of Petit St. Vincent in the Grenadines. The anchorage defies any attempt to re-create its swirling palette of blues, greens and whites where a tangled barrier reef butts up against the deep blue of the Caribbean Sea. I was halfway through a delicious cup of freshly pressed coffee when we saw the squall approaching. There wasn’t a rush, just a calm closing of hatches as the clouds pushed themselves upward into an imposing gray wall. As the rigging began to sing, the sunlight donned a darker shade, and before long the rain was upon us. Where turquoise water once surrounded us, a white haze of raindrops and spray on the surface took on a foggy, desaturated tone. Whitecaps were hammered smooth by the precipitation. The surrounding islands faded in the mist, leaving us in a white void with nothing but the ghosts of other masts around us to allow any sense of position. We were in the middle of a drum line as the cacophony of a million tiny raindrops collided with fiberglass, cloth, metal and water, each surface producing its own particular pitch.
As quickly as it had arrived, the worst of the weather blew past our stern, and the sun climbed magnificently from its cloudy bunker. Rainbows bloomed over the bay in a double arc, the phenomenon so close, it looked like the lower bands of light terminated inches away on our deck. Suddenly there was blue in the water again, blue in the sky, and the band of the rain now glowed on the surface of the water like a neon white belt. I paused for a moment to reflect on the beauty I’d just witnessed—from calm to violent to breathtaking. I could’ve been anywhere else in the world, doing any manner of unimportant things, but I had chosen to be here. I’d made the effort to get out there, and my reward was to delight in a singularly unique moment that nobody will ever see again. Yes, it was just a passing squall next to a postcard-perfect island, but there was depth beneath the simplicity for those of us lucky enough to be at sea, and present enough to notice. Just being there…and f/8.
There’s nothing quite like being anchored at the end of a rainbow while on a catamaran adventure in the Grenadines.