Having

Why switch?  Two main reasons:  1.) anyone can add comments there (if I choose to allow them), but at xanga you need to sign up for a xanga account;  and  2.) xanga is best known for blogs **~WrItn lykE diS~**>!;  blogs promoting anorexia as a lifestyle choice (it's true, but don't expect me to support it by giving you a link);  and blogs by people struggling with puberty (including some over 20. Or 30. Or...).  There are some exceptions, but, not unreasonably, I'd feel more of a sense of collegiality among bloggers like norightturn(to whom I'll turn for validation when the upcoming NZ Parliamentary election depresses me too much) and fuelfools (to whom I'll also turn for validation when the upcoming election ..., etc). Cheers, Wordgirl, Comfy and the rest of you :^) )

So, if you're not a regular visitor, have a look around here first, then head to pohanginapete at blogger.  Otherwise, you might as well go straight there.

Go to the new pohanginapete site

(that's: www.pohanginapete.blogspot.com)

 Photo and words © 2005 Pete McGregor

I realised that, sooner or later, what we think of as the "real" objects [1]—kea; twig and weir—will be gone, and the most immediate connections we'll retain with them will be their images: on walls, in albums, on monitors.  Eventually, even our memories will fade and disappear, outlived by those images.  As I mulled over the thought, I felt a kind of responsibility to the kea and the stream; in a moment of insight, I understood that often I photograph something at least partly to honour it.

Until that moment, the motivation seemed to have been unconscious, but I think it's been part of many of my photos.  Perhaps it explains in part why I feel uneasy about images that have been excessively manipulated; ironically, it might also be why some judicious manipulation can be not just acceptable, but desirable.  To manipulate an image so it conforms to popular (or, even worse, saleable) perceptions of what's attractive seldom honours the subject—by too readily destroying authenticity it says, effectively, "you're not good enough."  Conversely, a little respectful tweaking honours the subject by drawing attention to its essence.  Of course, some will argue that one person's respectful tweaking is another's excessive manipulation; some will even argue that manipulation of any sort is wrong because you can't define what honours a subject.  However, the latter would deny photographers the use of filters, of any darkroom manipulation—no dodging or burning, please; no toning; no local reduction, etc.—and, indeed, would place on shaky ground the use of highly saturated films like Fuji's Velvia or Kodak's E100VS, which certainly do not represent how most of us perceive colours [2].

However, the most important rejoinder is that we see with our minds; vision is a psychological process.  It's subjective; it's as much interpretation as perception.  What matters most is not what sort of manipulation was done, but why it was done—if the intention is honourable, the likelihood of excessive or cynical manipulation will be low.

I do accept that asking how a photo respects and honours its subject might sometimes seem irrelevant or inappropriate.  A good example might be that of photojournalists faced with acts of evil—in what sense would you want to respect or honour Robert Mugabe while his machines are razing homes and killing people in Zimbabwe?—but perhaps the intention is always important.  Why should I take this photo?  Or, having taken the photo when the situation precluded even momentary deliberation, how should I share the image (if at all)?  Maybe, in those hard situations, what we respect are those affected by the acts, and what we honour is truth.  Maybe, too, this is one way to recognise the difference between a photojournalist and a paparazzo.  And, in conclusion, I said earlier that often I photograph something at least partly to honour it; I can say also that sometimes I don't photograph something for that same reason.

After two weeks' helping with research on dolphins and seabirds in the relative isolation of the Marlborough Sounds I returned to Nelson, then Palmerston North and at last to the Pohangina Valley to find that little had changed—except me.  On my way home I stopped at the Countdown in Palmerston North, where I walked the aisles and found it an effort to think about things like "where's the jam?" or "what sort of bread should I buy?" and "do I have any spuds at home?"  The worst was the moment of mild terror when I whipped out my credit card and realised that after a fortnight of not spending anything, I couldn't recall my PIN number.  Fortunately, years of habit kicked in, and the lapse of memory proved only momentary.  But the odd feeling persisted.  I felt strangely dislocated, as if I were jet lagged.  Actually, it was more likely to have been car lag, but you'll get the idea.  My own kitchen seemed slightly unfamiliar—instead of automatically opening the cutlery drawer I had to pause to remember where it was.  I picked up the jug to make a brew and began filling it through the spout instead of opening the top; I powered up the computer and looked in horror at the password prompt.

By the afternoon of the next day, the dislocation or lag had relocated or caught up.  Perhaps it was because I'd become absorbed in trying to work out why I couldn't transfer 4 CDs' worth of photos to the hard drive, and after deciding that the DVD drive was knackered, I'd hurriedly taken it in to be replaced.  Picking up a couple of photos from the framing shop helped, too.  The assistant brought them out and put them on the counter. 
   "Is this yours?" she asked, pointing to the photo of Te Awaoteatua Stream.
   "Yes," I said.
   "It's gorgeous," she said, thereby replacing any remaining sense of dislocation in my head with an excess of egotism.  She began wrapping the photo, presumably so I could enjoy unwrapping it when I got home.
   "Are you an environmentalist?" she asked. How do you respond to a question like that?

So, what caused that odd sense of being somewhere else, of being simultaneously at French Pass and Pohangina, and maybe other places as well?  The main reason, I think, is because I learned so much and it takes time to assimilate that new knowledge; during the assimilation your brain has not only to process the new knowledge but it must deal with what's happening now—decisions about jam, bread and potatoes; stuffed computers and whether you like the tag "environmentalist".  Eventually, you grow.  I know so much more now—"know" in the broad, vague sense.  I know what it's like to sit in a gently swaying boat on a fluid, reflective sea, listening through hydrophones to the life and sounds beneath me.  I know what it's like to race over chaotic water, the sea boiling up and pouring outwards, mounded up by immense subsurface pressure; to speed past and stare into a deep, empty hole surrounded by whirling, sucking sea—the stuff of nightmares.  Water as smooth as oil meeting foaming, churning water in a distinct line and disappearing the way continents slide under and over each other: the two contrasting surfaces at different levels.  I know what king shags [1] look like; a tiny bit about how they act; how wary and apprehensive they are; the fact that there are only about 500 still surviving and they're found nowhere but in the Marlborough Sounds.  I know the colour of light reflected from the ocean as pastel orange and pink fades from the clouds at dusk; the way the headlands stretch and taper until finally there's nothing but sea, sky, clouds...  The silhouettes of small, upright islands on the horizon, almost as distant as memories of things that might have been...

This is knowledge you can't articulate, only describe.  Inadequately.  To ask what these things mean is to miss not just the point, but the plane of knowledge, the sphere of understanding; what you utter, when you see these things, is no more than an expression of emotion—and it needs to be no more than that.

But the most profound response is silence.

...

Looking down from Clayface Point, we watched a pied shag [2] struggle with and finally swallow a leatherjacket.  Afterwards, it ruffled the sea through its feathers, shaking a spray of sparkling drops before taking flight. Earlier, we'd watched hundreds of fluttering shearwaters [3] fishing with the dusky dolphins [4], interspersed with white-fronted terns.  Gannets [5] cruised and circled Admiralty Bay; occasionally one would jink, partly fold its wings and plummet into the ocean.  For a long time afterwards you could see the column of foaming bubbles, white in the grey-blue sea.  Cloud shadows drifted across brown, chiaroscuroed hills; the shadow of the wind moved across the water as fast-moving, wrinkled shapes on an otherwise shining sea.  If there were no dolphins here, what would this place feel like?  If there were no dolphins, what would this world be?  Can you miss what you've never known?  I think you can.  But I also wonder—perhaps, you can't truly know what you've never missed.

At last I have a day to relax, to do whatever I feel like doing—or, more accurately, to do nothing and do it deliberately.  It’s been over a month since I’ve had that sort of freedom.  At the beginning of May I started a contract job, editing science manuscripts.  It’s a busy time of year for the major science organisations in New Zealand, because the end of June is the end of the financial and reporting year; there’s a flood of contract reports, journal papers and other written “outputs” to be edited as researchers rush to meet 30 June deadlines.  I know what it’s like for them—I was in that position for many years.  Too many?  I’m not prepared to say that, but I know that, unlike those days, the last month has been hugely satisfying and enjoyable.  Frustrating, too—sometimes, nearly driven to despair by the impenetrability of particular manuscripts or the reluctance of some authors to call a piece of apparatus designed for extracting approximate volumes of biophysical substrate a spade, I found myself wandering the corridor, taking deep breaths and visualising a gentle breeze rippling over snowgrass near a happy little mountain stream...  However, many papers were written well; most were interesting; some were unquestionably exciting.  I’d been given an insight into what was going on in the organisation—not the administrivia that torments most of the staff, but the truly important things the administrivia is supposed to support; the work that allows science to claim that it really does improve our condition, and our prospects; work that will help conserve a world worth living in.  Work, for example, that means your great-grandchildren might be able to explore a wetland or a lowland forest remnant close to home.  That's where the satisfaction came in, for me—the realisation that by putting a little polish on those papers; by making them just a little more readable, I could help get the message across.

Of course, with the steady flow of work, and some significant other editing contracts, I ended up working nights and weekends as well.  I still managed to meet friends at City Rock for a couple of hours' climbing, a pint at the Celtic, a few films and a few other social events, but I haven't set foot in the Ruahine for quite a while, and rather than maintaining a reasonable level of fitness, I only got enough exercise to slow the rate at which I was losing it.  Even the sporadic walks down the road and up No. 3 Line were fairly gentle, mostly because I became distracted by the land; by the chitter of finches scattering from roadside grasses, the sound of water rushing over stones, the curl of a dry, dead grass leaf, the last light through leafless trees, or a pugnacious piwakawaka (yes, that's him/her. Click on the photo to get a larger view).  Perhaps my brain needed the rest from all that editing, and instead enjoyed paying attention to things that can't be articulated.

Now, the day's relaxation is almost over.  I have to get myself organised for the next fortnight's work—something entirely different from poring over someone else's writing; a world away from a computer screen.

For the next two weeks, I'm working with dolphins.

 Photos and words © 2005 Pete McGregor

.  Perhaps, he speculates, academics use phrases like "universalist mythic constructs" because they have to be complex; they must speak in a language others simply won't understand.  As he puts it, "To enter this unique circle of brain-heavy men and women, all must learn its secret language lest interlopers manage to sneak through the door".  Finally, he opts for plain snobbishness as the most plausible reason and concludes with a call for rebellion: that students who hear the phrase "hermeneutic possibilities" or suchlike should "...walk out of class, shouting Winston Churchill’s famous retort: 'This is English up with which I will not put'".

All good stuff. It's a clever and entertaining article, if you're not the sort of academic who speaks of "fundamental dialogic immediacy" and "prosocial tendencies".  But, I have reservations about this sort of diatribe.

First, the people who use "academic" language are still people.  They're human beings, and Fisk's essay abounds with sarcasm which will wound not just those who use that language for the reasons he assumes, but others who use it with the best of intentions.  Moreover, some (perhaps many) who use "academic language" use it because they truly believe this is how you should write for academic publications; some (perhaps many) believe it's necessary to write like that because you'll be ignored if you don't (they may well be right).  For those reasons, some have worked hard to learn how to write like that.  Should you pillory these people, even if you detest their orotund language?  And, even if it only hurts the people who deliberately use that language for the sorts of reasons Fisk suggests, who has the right to decide that those people "should" be hurt?  By all means, attack the ideas (or better, discuss them), but focus on the problem, not the person.

Sadly, this approach seems to prevail among bloggers (it's not ubiquitous, because I try to avoid it).  Blogging seems now to have adopted the attitude, "This is my blog so I have the freedom to say what I like".  Yes, you can, but I get the strong impression that much of what's said is not opinion: it's invective; it's not argument: it's confrontation.  Sure, blow off steam to your mates over a beer, but blogs are public (even if no one other than your mates reads them)—spray vitriol and it's always possible that you'll burn someone.  Maybe badly.  It might also be constructive to consider Oscar Wilde's comment that, "Public opinion exists only where there are no ideas".

Secondly, clarity is not always a virtue.  Yes, there's a time and a place for it—and to be fair to Fisk, the time is most of the time and the place should often be within academia—but sometimes, clarity can limit understanding.  Sometimes, ambiguity conveys additional meaning; sometimes it illustrates or emphasises an assertion.  A degree of uncertainty about the meaning of a statement can be a better stimulus for thinking than a crisp, clear, boring assertion—you begin to wonder about the nuances of meaning, and maybe you might even come up with an idea of your own.  If clarity is always a virtue, why do we not employ translators to turn poems into plain, understandable language?  Poetry is a quality, not a form: many "poems" lack poetry, and much prose is poetry.

Moreover, the sort of language Fisk describes is not always impenetrable.  I've read academic language that uses phrases like "disjunctive dissidence" yet remains transparent; in that particular example, the writing had a subtle poetry that drew me in and encouraged me to think and wonder, to speculate about the subject.  More recently, I edited a manuscript about clay polymers—a subject about which I knew nothing, and which, in terms of being arcane and potentially recondite is right up there with string theory and cricket.  Nevertheless, I finished with a feeling that, on a certain level, I'd actually understood the paper; the technical terms meant something because of how they were used and how the sentences linked to create an easily followed, logical paper.  This impressed on me that opaqueness is not necessarily a function of vocabulary; it's more often a function of the structure of sentences, how information is located in the sentences and the flow of reasoning that links them.  While that point is missed by many users of the academic language Fisk rails against, so does he.

[The photos are details from Te Awaoteatua Stream—one literal translation might be "The River of God".  I walked down there yesterday evening, between showers, before the rain set in... climbed the small section of wooden fence, down into the paddock of steers.  Light from the grey, cloud-crumpled sky filtered through the fractal silhouettes of poplar branches; a lone leaf dangled, waiting for the wind.  I'd hoped for a wild sky, for evening colours reflected in long pools, but the light had no energy; it lay listless over everything, too weak even to cast shadows. Still, you find what you're open to...]

 Photos and words © 2005 Pete McGregor