| |
 |
LOCATIONS |
 |
Great Lakes
Adventure Photography
Some images in the book hold special meaning for the McGuffins, but
don’t ask them to pick a favorite. Instead, they prefer the
memories of the journey associated with certain shots.
“We were there for three days in a huge wind,” Gary describes
of an image of a flying kite in the book. “The seas were massive,
the waves were 10 or 15 feet high, and you can see that big breaking
wave on the way in to where Joanie is flying Sila’s kite. I’m
standing in waist-deep water and the wave has just come past me. Imogene
Bay is an old logging camp, and at one time, there was a community
of 400 people that lived there. Now it’s totally reverted to
wilderness. So, I look at that image and it brings back what a great
three days it was running up and down that beach—just being
there for three days without another soul around.”
Other photographs offer the opportunity to recall profound personal
moments they experienced during the expedition.
“That’s on top of a place called the Sleeping Giant,”
Gary remarks of another dramatic photograph in the book. “That’s
just over 800 feet in height. What’s really neat about this
place is the tops of the glaciers were about this high. The first
people who came to this area exploring along the bottoms of those
glaciers were walking along the tops of these cliffs. So, to stand
there and imagine looking down and watching for woolly mammoths doing
their seasonal migration, and then coming across spear points that
are literally eight inches long and four inches in height and perfectly
tooled—it’s amazing stuff to come across.
“You’re standing there looking out with an entirely different
perspective on what you’re doing, compared to somebody standing
there 10,000 years ago whose mission was to feed his family and his
tribespeople. You feel so connected when you’ve been traveling
by a traditional method—whether it’s walking or snowshoeing
or canoeing or kayaking. You have more of an affinity with the person
who left that spear point behind.
“I just don’t get compelled to pick the camera up and
try to shoot something,” Gary says. “I’m much more
interested in the experience. When you’re on a journey, it’s
a spiritual, emotional, physical, mental challenge. You’re so
connected with everything. That’s what our photography represents.
The camera came out; it went away when we finished the journey.
“That’s what adventure photography is to me as compared
to maybe landscape photography, where someone decides they want to
put a book together on a subject and they go back to it year after
year, season after season, waiting for lengths of time for the light
to be right. With this book, that’s what we saw when we were
there. We’re taking you there to the best of our ability through
these images.
“The journey is the experience,” Gary adds. “The
book and the images are just a total celebration of that journey.”
The McGuffins hope that readers will not only find the images beautiful
and compelling, but inspiring as well. They hope to create appreciation
for the environment and to help motivate positive changes in the natural
world.
“In order to get people to defend a place, they have to come
to love it,” says Gary. “I hope that even if people can’t
come to the Great Lakes Heritage Coast, if they can’t get to
these places, hopefully we’ve brought them there and stirred
a passion in them. We’re all part of this web, and our actions—no
matter how small—are felt by others.”
For more information about the Great Lakes Heritage Coast, and to
see more photographs from their journey, visit the McGuffins’
Website at www.adventurers.org.
« Previous Page | 1 | 2 | 3
|
|
