I have fond memories of living by the ocean. I lived close enough that the short ride never required much of a plan. It could be a quick break to stop and watch the sun set or to see what the waves were doing today. Sometimes it was just to be there and watch it happen.

You get to know your stretch, its weather, its seasons. But mostly the tides and the swells, because those are what shape that beach every day.

Last night as I was taking a break from culling a recent show, the work really made me think back to that beach and its vastly different waves.

Every day the tides would come and go. These were rarely noteworthy. They had a constant rhythm you would make plans around. They were easy and measurable.

On a long sandy stretch, the tide is mostly a change of how much beach you have. It's the current within it that really changes the ebb and flow. That current would leave a mark where the flooding had stopped. It would reveal its presence as each wave receded back into itself. You could see its fingerprints in the ripples of sand it left behind and as the debris it combed at the high line.

While tides were a known constant, even peaceful, swells were altogether something else.

You may get advance notice they were on their way, but there was no way to know what they were going to do once they appeared. They could arrive as a crescendo all at once or randomly in defiance of any plans. They would come on as a single series or as a rogue in its truest definition.

These swells could change the beach's shape drastically. Each wave adding and subtracting material at a rate that would hide and expose permanent features. Not content to merely wash up small shells, larger impossible items would be dredged up from below the shelf - proof of its power and deposited as a witness to its passage.

Even under this massive volume of water, it was the ever-present current that would decide where your beach ended up. It could move it up or down the coast, or let the sea take its place.

Thinking about the swells reminded me of shooting live event photography.

To me, it seems a natural progression from my other low light work. It has opened new challenges and possibilities for exploring scenes and energy. It's a continued chase for color in an even more unforgiving environment.

The light can be dimmer or blinding and always at random. The artists – unpredictable in their performances. It is chaos defined - which becomes its strength by design.

The room is dark except where it isn’t. Color slams in from the sides - blue, then red, then a hard white that lasts half a second. Haze turns every beam into a solid object. People move through it like they are swimming.

On stage nothing holds still. A guitar neck cuts across a face. A singer leans into a mic and the light misses them, then finds them too late. Cymbals flash. A boot hits a monitor. Feedback sits under the kick drum.

The air is hot and already used. The crowd is a second instrument. Shoulders, phones, a raised cup, someone mouthing words they will not remember tomorrow. Sound hits the chest before it hits the ear. You cannot hear speech. You can feel the floor. Nothing repeats. The good frame exists for a fifth of a second between a gel change and a head turn. Miss it and the night keeps going without you.

That is the job: stand inside the mess, wait for the one instant where the mess looks inevitable, and take the shot.

Now Breathe

On a quiet patch of earth, the chaos of that room is gone. The only movement is heat leaving the ground and a bird crossing once, then not again - trees easy in the evening breeze. These are the last notes of the setting sun.

The light does not slam. It thins. Color drains out of the sky in order: from gold to hard yellow, then copper, then a pink that does not last, into a long blue that makes edges soft. You can hear your own breathing. You can wait.

The steady even pace of a sunset into blue hour carries a quiet peace unmatched in the human experience. The cycle of our lives painted each day in a vivid new retelling - always the same yet never repeated.

The same shutter that froze a scream now waits on a horizon that will not jump. You still only get the moment once. The difference is the moment arrives slowly enough to meet it.

That tempo comes with its own bag: a spare camera body, three or four lenses for a single sunset, a tripod, tools, wipes, a duster for the glass that will sit open to the dust and wind. You plant yourself. The work is stationary, like watching a tide come in or recede. High energy, anticipation, but tranquil.

You set aperture and exposure once, find your focus, then ride the shutter as the sky cools. Three hundred, maybe even seven hundred frames. You are hunting a single image. Process it. Put it on the site. Move on with your life.

Live work strips you down to one body, one lens, and a spare card in your pocket. Nothing else.

The room will not wait for a swap. Movement is the job - sidestep the cables, find the next shot on the run, try to hold the frame while the singer lunges. Chaotic high energy.

You lock the shutter so motion stays clean, then ride aperture, meter, and hope the ISO keeps up as the lights die and recover. Two to three thousand frames per act. Then the hustle nobody paid to see - sitting in a deafening quiet, ears ringing, hunting the hundred and fifty frames that are doing work, while the next wave is already on the calendar.

You'll sleep later - maybe.

Every lesson earned in the field - when to trust the edge of exposure, which color is the subject, when to let the dark stay dark - gets spent on stage at twenty times the speed.

At the heart of each of these is the light itself. There is no lack of color in either - but the light is always ready to be the hero and the villain. It is the constant current between these worlds.

Chaos and this peace are not opposites. They are the same light at two speeds. One ocean with two volumes.

The camera does not care which.
It only has to be where the light resides.

Now go get some rest - the next wave is already on its way.


Kinny Tolbert

NoBadRays.com