January 25/The Reality

I was running errands on this particularly grey and rainy January day, listening to World Cafe with David Dye.  He was interviewing Jay Farrar (from one of my favorite bands, Son Volt) and Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie, not so much).  Anyway, they've collaborated on a new album based on the writings/life of Jack Kerouac and they played a few tracks and waxed rhapsodic about music writing, inspiration, Jack Kerouac and most importantly Big Sur.  I've visited Big Sur on several occasions so I could picture it.  And, particularly on a day like today, the conversation was evocative.  It certainly is a gorgeous place - one which can overpower with its dynamics of scale, color and texture.  When you're there, it can be hard to wrap your head around it.  It's that spectacular.  Jack Kerouac had a cabin in Big Sur in which one of the musicians, can't recall which, stayed for a few weeks to compose music for the album.  The stay was the culmination of logistical wrangling and hero-worship, and David Dye asked him to talk a bit about it...the experience of Kerouac's cabin, Big Sur, etc.  Ben or Jay paused and laughed and related as how the reality perhaps had not, could not, possibly live up to the expectation.

I thought that that was just right.  And I thought about it in relation to my photography:  it always comes down to just me and the work.  No matter where you travel or which muse is sitting on your shoulder, you still have to work out the lighting and the framing and the timing and the concept.  You have to dive in by yourself and practice your skills and work.  Sometimes, in the end you could just as well be in the grocery store as Kerouac's cabin.