As all half-decent photographers will know, it is all about the light. The subject matter is therefore entirely of a secondary importance; because without the right light nothing else matters, or if it does then any resultant substandard image pretty much soon determines that it really doesn't.
Ansel Adams understood this implicitly. He would get up well before the dawn and he would lug his bulky view finder camera and other boxed paraphernalia- his immaculately prepared large-format glass plates- to the pre-located spot of choice, entirely in order to pay his own particular homage to 'the light.' Few, if any, have ever paid it better, or to greater effect.
Adams would have probably marvelled at the modern alternatives to his cumbersome 'box.' No doubt he would have wondered about the vast pool of buttons, dials and variable settings and functions, all of which are but slaves to 'the light.' Either they are a means to more easily capture 'it,' or else they are a means to taming 'it.' If all else fails, then they are a means to substituting for either a lack thereof, or else a surfeit of 'the same.' Ergo, it is all about the light!
I was reminded of as much, just last autumn, when I happened to find myself perched upon Hunstanton's clifftops at the point of sunrise. The precise blend of perfect light with which I was met was of my very particular favourite; there was a weather front of quite spectacular proportions, fast approaching from the west, yet the sun behind me had slanted in under the darkening leading edge to throw every crest, and estuarine dimple, every blade of grass, into perfect relief. I think that I have never seen a more wonderful nor a more terrible image! I learned, several weeks later, that such a phenomenon as I was witnessing had only twice before been recorded. And so, curiosity duly whetted, I thereby determined to dig further.
The cloud that had so fascinated me, that of a cumulo-stratus structuring, was unnaturally low, weighted down by the pressure of the greater and far more extensive 'front.' Entirely more conventional, this otherwise typical weather front was characteristically and decidedly blue-black in appearance, almost bruised. It was this entirely familiar 'belt' that had so perfectly captured the light. But, as I am here endeavouring to establish, 'twas the lower roll of cloud that had taken on a spectacular, an almost biblical or otherwise magical appearance!
The rising sun had so precisely positioned itself that the roll had temporarily assumed a buttery golden appearance, quite 'solid' and glistening so as to appear to be literally generating its own peculiar light. I doubt that the roll had been more than 300 feet in height, yet so low at the underside of the curve of its face that one could almost have reached up and brushed one's fingers against the polished surface, that is if one had been standing upon one of the few tethered boats in the immediate estuary. The roll of cloud was actually a tad more elevated than this, slightly fewer than 100 feet above the waters. It extended as far to the sides in either direction as the eye could see, or at least as far as mine were able to determine.
All of this of itself was wondrous enough to quite simply demand one's attention, yet there was something even more otherworldly about this image. Upon its flawless, peculiarly-glistening surface, there above the mirroring estuary, I saw, in such immaculate and astounding detail, my own projected shadow. There was time to wave and to test the image, and 'twas definitely mine, of me and of my old telescope. At first this curious shadow had delighted me, yet as the roll moved ever closer, and the image resolved itself into ever crisper focus, I could not help but feel a certain chill creeping into my bones. I know not what the cause of this uncertainty was, suffice to write that I was somewhat relieved when the roll grew so close as to seem to suddenly rise up and over my head.
Almost beyond the range of my imperfect hearing there was (I think it was) a sort of hiss, as if of sand being blown across a beach, or maybe it was more of a deep rumble, the type that may register more in the pit of one's stomach than in one's ears, rather more felt or sensed than heard- I longed to thrust my outstretched palm into the mass, but it was just too far above my head- either way, throughout the whole experience, the curious roll seemed to retain the mass or consistency of a solid shape, that of a golden cylinder, one that was, it seemed, entirely capable of uniquely generating something approximating sound.
I searched up and down the clifftops, hoping for another soul with whom to compare 'notes,' but the scene was otherwise unpopulated, and soon to be replaced by, and immersed in, a thick and drenching fog that made driving home decidedly unpleasant, extremely hazardous for the first mile or two. This, before the rain proper set in for the remainder of the morning and the better part of the afternoon.
I was later to learn that this magical light phenomenon had been 'once' before recorded in Victorian times. On this other occasion the accompanying cloud mass had proven fatal, consisting significantly of pea-souper-smog industrial-particles. That bitter veil had lain heavily upon the landscape and, before it had lifted or rather blown out, it had claimed over thee-hundred lives, almost exclusively from pulmonary complications. Of course, such a smog- rather greyer, considerably less golden- in Victorian Britain had been a frequent and an all-too-natural consequence of industrial pollution- albeit rather less prevalent upon Norfolk's rural coastline- yet, so significant was the death-toll on this occasion that it was briefly rumoured that the Black Death of the Middle Ages might have again returned to plague our shores.
More pertinent to my consequent research, the curious additional phenomenon of the strange golden light had also been detailed, and this was down, almost entirely, to the curiosity of one minor meteorological student, by the name of Delaney Kingston. Had the young man been rather more caucasian, rather less Asian, I feel certain that this valuable historical record would have been afforded far greater attention.
What young Delaney, a fortunate survivor of the culling Victorian smog, had also gone on to unearth was that of one further significant prior instance of such a golden-light phenomenon, its occurrence having also been an almost overlooked aside of book margin 'insignificance,' referring back a further millennium to the days of Viking raids upon our shores, way back in the late eighth century.
The 'pencilled' note to which Delaney Kingston alluded in his writings has, I am led to believe, long since been misplaced, but Delaney's consequent writings not only help to enlighten us regarding the instance but also manage to considerably flesh out the curious meteorological details. In his short essay, Delaney manages to draw together such diverse cross-references as the Brothers Grimm together with that of early Norse Mythology.
"Mirror mirror on the 'wall,' who in this land is fairest of all?" is an oft misquoted line from Snow White (Brothers Grimm, published in 1812). The precise wording of the original is now irretrievably buried in the mists of time, but what we do know is that the Grimm line was in turn lifted from an earlier Norse text. Further, we can be fairly certain that the now (Disney) corrupted line was gleaned from a longer Norse 'plea bargain,' a plea culminating in a worshipful prayer to the Goddess Hel herself.
"There are none more magnificent, nor more munificent than yourself, Omniscient Hel!" or some such desperately grovelling attempt to evade The Goddess's wrath, we learn, was to be a beseeching conclusion, cried into the face of the onrushing storm. The absolute terror in finding oneself teetering at the very edge of mortal existence- the ultimate abyss- was said to have been enough to have brought about an immediate termination to (all) mortal life. But, presumably a literate handful at least survived long enough to recount the tale.
It almost goes without the need to remind ourselves that in the eighth century man-created-pollution would have been almost nonexistent, deforestation would have been as of nothing, and that the reclamation of marshy landscape would have been far beyond the wit of humankind. Consequently, the marsh mists rolling in from Western Scandinavia would have been, at various times of the year, an almost daily occurrence, perhaps through unique and once-in-a-generation-juxtapositioning- to be sun-gilded, as on my autumn morn, from the east. Quite how many occurrences there were, of that imperfect timing, whereby one's own image could be captured upon the golden wave, we can only speculate, except to note that glimpses into the very mouth of Hell would surely not have been a daily occurrence, otherwise those clever Vikings would surely have started to ask a few more questions. Any consequent death toll would have been down entirely to heart-failure- quite literally scared to death!
Imagine, if you will, that desperate Viking, standing at the face of the blinding light, believed to be the literal rolling back of the edge of The Earth, Hell's golden underbelly momentarily exposed to all of those about to be crushed into nothingness under it's mighty bulk, or else cast into the void. The poor desperate soul might actually have thought that he or she could actually see their own perfect reflection- every flawed and impure thought and action captured therein- staring back at him or her from the polished underside of The Earth. "Omniscient Mirror of Hel, might my people not be pure enough of soul, spirit and deed to this once be considered worthy of salvation?" The moment of reckoning had surely arrived!
Truly Hel was one spoilt brat, more than fully prepared, as are many of today's fictitious Gods and Goddesses, to gather up both bat and ball and to thoroughly spoil the game for everybody else concerned.
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