May 2018

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.  I am haunted by waters.”
Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories

At times, when I come home with a picture like this, I again realize how insufficient the division of photography into genres is. Sure, the waterfall is part of a landscape – which is not shown here. And sure, the photo shows something in nature – but is that what it is about? Of course, part of the problem lies in the rather artificial boundary we draw between nature and ourselves. We don’t call street photography wildlife art even though there usually appear a lot of animal creatures (of the species Homo sapiens and Canis familiaris) in it. In a way, I think nature photography is a genre in which “things merge into one” as Maclean writes. Let me explain.

I used to fly-fish in the rapids of the river Vantaa shown above. And it was through fly-fishing that I came to photography. I remember once sitting on a rock in the middle of a river far up in the North. The fishing was low, but I really didn’t care because the river had taken over my senses. The sounds of the river filled my ears and staring at the flows and eddies put me in a kind of visual trance. This induced a strange sensation as if the river was flowing through me. And it was good just to be there. I didn’t think of careers or things to have. I didn’t think of cars and houses, better fishing rods or gear, I didn’t think of fishing at all. I needed no purpose.