Three Tall and Tanned Women Appeared at the Peak
The Professor missed a rare photo op, but he got the picture
On June 13, 2022, my old friend and correspondent Professor Highbrow wrote from his farm near Acadia National Park in Maine: “I wish you had been with me on top of Champlain Mountain early yesterday morning. From my perch I spotted a group of three people running, not jogging, up an incredibly steep part of the trail. Three tall and tanned women appeared at the peak, all wearing wrap-around sunglasses, colorful and skimpy stretch shorts and bras. Tall and incredibly lean, muscular without an ounce of fat on them, with the sea glistening below and the deep-blue sky with a few big puffy white clouds behind them, I recognized a rare photo op.”
As I read the Professor’s description a picture formed in my mind of the three tall, statuesque goddesses ascending the mountain and I wondered if it would have been possible to do justice to the key environmental elements the Professor also mentioned about the scene and still get an editorial-grade shot of the fast-moving human subjects. In the excitement of the moment I might have missed “the sea glittering below and the deep-blue sky with a few big, puffy white clouds” behind the beautiful, lean running machines. Not to worry, the Professor got the essential components in his written composition about the experience and he didn’t even have a camera.
The Professor’s email reminded me of the many times I initially perceived a scene as a significant photo op only to realize later that what I was looking at was an idea for a photograph, not the great moment in photojournalism I yearned for. As any experienced photographer will tell you, such instances are rare and often appear in the frame as gifts from the universe rather than as images created via the will of the person holding the camera. “Sometimes I arrive just when God’s ready to have someone click the shutter,” said Ansel Adams, conveying the same attitude as the great French photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson who said “A photograph is neither taken or seized by force. It offers itself up.” This seems to be true for interesting photographic ideas as well, as in Professor Highbrow’s situation. He missed the “photo op” simply because he he didn’t have a camera, but he certainly captured the idea, a big one with many possibilities. I ran a few scenarios through my mind as I contemplated the Professor’s email.
In one version I hired three spectacular New York models outfitted in the latest designer clothes and shot the scene from the door of a hovering helicopter. In another humbler rendition I tried to convey the drama of the Professor’s “idea” with three local ladies wearing their favorite Patagonia shorts and tops. In the end I settled for the picture that formed in my mind as I recalled the long romps in Acadia National Park with the Professor back in the good old days of our callow youths. In this shot the weather was ideal, the light had that wonderful diffuse quality that Cartier-Bresson loved about the light in Paris, and the sea sparkled the way it always seems to do in Maine when the conditions are right. The runners in the composition were three favorite former girlfriends, their faces wrapped in the latest, high-dollar, must-have, sexy sun glasses, laughing and reminiscing as they charged up the mountain, telling stories about how they all used to complain as they endured my obsessive, manipulative behavior in my quixotic quests for the perfect photograph.