LEARNING TO RIDE
Each of you reading this should know, if you don’t already, that I’m not an expert on Vespa scooters, riding or anything pertaining to the management and maintenance of machines and devices. I ride, learn and try not to be an Enthusiastic Amateur.
The other day I was riding in the remains of morning fog. On the road two hours too late to really experience the full magic of the ground hugging clouds, I wandered from one side of the Nittany Valley to the other in hopes of entering a surreal landscape.
Later, looking at the photographs of the Vespa facing a world that the fog could conjure, I thought about what I’ve learned about riding, riding in fog and other weathers and how much I want to avoid being an Enthusiastic Amateur.
That label was explained to me by an art director I had the good fortune to work with at Penn State — the late James J. McClure. He assigned that term to individuals who presented themselves as photographers because they had an expensive camera, made pictures in far flung places, and managed to make correct exposures and create images in focus. A parallel with scooter and motorcycle riders has not escaped me.
Jim went on that the Enthusiastic Amateur lacks a deeper interest or understanding of the process they were part of or the ability to integrate it into their own seeing. They don’t grow as a photographer. It remains a technical performance of steps never to be questioned or pushed to another level. Their achievement — images that are simultaneously technically proficient and almost always boring. Or predictable. Their work is an endless repetition of a familiar, comfortable set of steps.
McClure was always after, “Surprising and Delightful.”
RIDING ON POSTCARD DAYS
Sunshine on a warm day may be the conventional norm for riding a scooter or motorcycle. I certainly see more fellow riders on days like this one. Riding in fog was driven more by my photographic desires than any notions of riding or related two-wheeled adventure. Making decisions to exploring that environment made demands on my riding abilities and whether I was equipped or ready to handle the dramatic change in visibility — for me and for my fellows on the road.
McClure helped make me a better photographer by steering me away from an obsession with tools and tricks to vision and meaning. I’ve tried to carry those lessons to riding the Vespa and always remain aware of what I know, and more importantly, what I don’t know. I don’t want to be an Enthusiastic Amateur on the road. WIth photography and riding, perhaps I’m searching for surprising and delightful.
RIDING SKILLS
My own skills are adequate for transporting myself from place to place as safely as possible. I don’t ride fast, can’t do tricks and generally maintain the lowest level possible of mechancial skill and still keep the machine on the road. When I ride I consume experience and remarkably find myself more attuned to the thrum of the world and my reactions to it. For me, a scooter or motorcycle is a magnificent extension of the camera.
Riding has become a way to explore meaning in life, an opportunity to practice being open to new experiences and relish moments of enjoyment that make being alive and on the road so grand.
The Enthusiastic Amateur wouldn’t be riding on that road.
I love that phrase “Enthusiastic Amateur.” I think of my self as a “Jack of all Trades.” I know my way around a wrench but I know when I need to find someone with more skilled then my self to do harder jobs. I have had some education & by sheer volume I am lucky enough to come out with some decent pictures. I ride with enough talented riders that I am able to expand my envelope of riding skills, but I am still cautious enough to know to stay well within my limits.
As a “magnificent extension” to your camera …maybe your Vespa is a MOPOD.
Hah! Maybe.
Sounds like experience and thoughtful processing of it all are at work in your life. It always is good to have an expert around to point out bad habits. Sometimes I think about it as apprenticing. I am the riding apprentice!
I maintain a minimum two-second gap between me and whatever is in my path.
I don’t charge into corners I cannot see around.
I don’t know what label you’d pin on me.
But I’ve been riding 58 years and have never had a serious spill.
You, to me, sound like an expert at staying within your known limits.
Argue? 🙂
(Hey Steve, I take delivery of my new 500cc MP3 tomorrow, partly because of your influence!)
No argument from me about staying within limits. There have only been a couple times that I didn’t and they were pretty strong reminders to dial things back.
The MP3 is a really nice riding machine. I was especially impressed by it’s ability to handle gravel, especially in curves. Those two wheels up front give some surprising stability. Doesn’t mean it can’t fall down but more secure than one wheel up front.
Let us know how things are going with the new ride.
Steve:
Methinks meeting James McClure would have been a revelation for me. The words you printed about an “Enthusiastic Amateur” perhaps summarizes my own world of phtography as it was. Technically good images, however underlying said images was a distinct lack of good feeling created by the results. As with your employment, ;photography for me was a job to be done; something that had to be accomplished, along with the myriad other tasks my employment position allowed me to do in education.
I also have discovered somewhat recently what I may have “enjoyed” in the past was a false enjoyment. Hence disposal of my camera gear recently, it no longer served a useful purpose, for me.
Am slowly recataloguing my extensive colour slide collection, more for others to sell on eBay and still others to be donated to varous historical venues and the like here in Canada devoted to railroads.
One could say I have come full circle; in my own case. Reviewing the many images of mine there is a distnct mode of operations. Early images taken 40 years or more prior showed unusual creativity in location and recording of imagery. However later and within the last fifteeen years find image happiness for lack of a better word has disappeared, the joy of the action s no lnger evident.
I read your blog and the happiness you derive from riding youurr Vespa and know full well such will never happen for me. The infirmties of age are now my constant companon .
ONe infrequent acquaintance suggested my being is evolving from those activities I felt compelled me t od osuch as photography, sailing riding a motorcyle and various
other activities beyond work to an existence of slowing to eventually stop. Hoppefully stop is many years in the future, for all of us.
What motivates us to do the things we do is fascinating to me — creative or otherwise. I understand how one activity may drive another like riding or sailing pushing a desire to make photos. And how it can all come crashing down if one thing is removed.
Photography has been a constant companion my entire life and while I may give it a vacation from time to time it always returns. What I photograph can change but the need for that visual expression continues.
Speaking of railroads — I visited an exhibition earlier this week of the work of photographer William Rau. He photographed railroads at the end of the 19th century for the Pennsylvania Railroad and others. Fascinating look at the world then. He used BIG cameras and glass plates. 18×24 inch and larger. The exhibit was at the Southern Alleghenies Museum in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Here’s to hoping we keep on working on something at some level until we can’t!
Another provocative post, Steve.
I’m not sure where I am in relation to the “enthusiastic amateur”, in terms of either photography, or motorcycle / scooter riding… or perhaps, life in general.
For decades now, magazine covers of every ilk , have put the spurs to us in terms of our achievements . Be a better father, be a better lover, be a better runner… make more money, run faster, run longer, take award winning photos, Ride like Valentino Rossi, build a better body and on and on.
The message in this of course, is that we are never quite “good enough”
I’ve reached a point in life where I feel a gravitational pull to the adequate… where I seek out just enough additional knowledge to help me achieve what I would like to achieve at any given moment which, is often not connected to greatness.
I find myself , these days, taking increasingly more joy in the ordinary.
The irony in this , is that my life seems to be richer at every level.
Our consumer culture definitely pushes the notion of being better by using the fear that we’re not good enough the way we are. No wonder it’s so hard finding our way in life.
Adequate is perfect for so many situations but with so much information now available it can be easy to get lost in the search. Appreciating the ordinary and finding joy in it is a powerful step. I remember a comment by photographer Robert Adams where he summed up his feelings about making art — that it should help reconcile us to life. Perhaps being more connected to and accepting of the ordinary moments in which we exist is what he was talking about.
Thanks for taking the time to share your comments. They help me make sense of things as I move through the ordinary…
Thank you once again for the muse in your offerings. I am taken to conversations I have had or look forward to participating in……
Your first paragraph took me to Persig’s “Zen & the Art of…….” (should have been social dysfunction, not Motorbike maintenance….Crawford’s “Shop Class As Soulcraft” is more apt in illustrating the connection of man to machine) The exercise and satisfaction in “making small tolerances smaller” ie; twisting the wrenches, does remove the mystery and provide various other benefits.
Then we go to the opinion that of those that feel that time spent off-road sliding the rear wheel lends confidence on the pavement/ And then the argument that aggressive road riding is an exhibition of overcompensation for inner insecurities….and the spiral begins…..
……which after another pint/latte/cup-o-tea brings us to “realism v. impressionism in the world of image capture” -be it by brush stroke or fall of shutter. And then we descend the rabbit hole to art history and beyond in the transition from simply recording historical images to emotionally telling the story…..think M. Brady’s civil war offerings v. Picasso’s “Guernica” .
Again, Thanks for the ride
So many rabbit holes… so little time.
I think Anais Nin pretty much nailed it when she wrote; ” We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.
Down the rabbit hole… That can be a satisfying path, especially as one thought leads on to another and another.
I’m not equipped to discuss Pirsig. I’m still struggling to reach the end of his book after many attempts. I get a little farther each time though.
And the arguments about aggressive riding — that’s like discussing the pros and cons of helmets or religion. No minds are changed.
And the art discussions — those are endless. Even the ones that don’t think Brady’s Civil War work was documentation but really just more propaganda.
Much to think and talk about during a ride!
I am with you and your friend, Steve. A search for surprising and delightful sounds like the right path, for photography, and for life.
It’s a good and simple philosophy.