“Hey whatcha taking pictures of?” The voice had popped off, as I peered through the viewfinder of a video camera at Donna getting into her wetsuit at the back of her van. I think that I must have jumped two feet straight up while simultaneously turning the amber light of golden hour blue with an epithet that still embarrasses me as I write this. Then the laughing started. The poor guy who had walked right up next to me stood with a perplexed look on his face, not getting it at all. I cut the camera.
I concentrate a lot when choreographing scripted motion. Donna had qualified for a business grant from the software company Intuit and needed help producing a video which was the final hurdle to acquiring the grant payment. I was the overqualified partner who does films not videos. I had grown grouchy from the moment I realized that yes, three days of my life were going into helping her with it. The poor man had just walked away as my hilarity continued unabated for far too long. (He may have thought me deranged.) I tend to take myself WAY the heck too seriously sometimes, and the guy had just made that fact obvious to me.
We wrapped our days 24 shot list (shoot ME now) and by the time my warm soft pillow swung up to meet my comatose visage, it was about midnight. The following morning saw me shooting the opening in between doing an extensive edit of Balinese imagery.
It was in the course of doing that edit when reason dawned and the fog of my crankiness abated as day blossomed. Everywhere in my files were Donna and Bali.
Bali is one of the richest, most magnificent gifts one could ever embrace, and it was one that my dear girlfriend had given to me. The remarkable Alby Falzon, whose love for, and documentation of, Indonesia, and Bali in particular, had been the siren song for an entire world to visit the place, could not get me there. But Donna had.
I was shocked by the depth of the images in my Bali file. And I had not even looked at the motion picture shot there in the mornings perusal. But gratitude washed over me as Monday expanded and I realized how lucky I was that Donna opted to include me in her life and projects. Love always finds a way. So does Donna.
My pal Tony Luna who has been keeping track of the blog wrote and asked me if I was going to option for a book from my postings? My answer was something like: what could I possibly put in a book, as I shoot such a broad universe of subjects? I think I have an idea after today.
Go to Bali, if you need perspective, love, romance, color, melody, renewal. What you bring home with you, just may change the world.
Click on any of the images for a larger view and more information. These are a glimpse of what I saw today from a file that would take many days to examine.
