Restless on the Road

A ride can begin without goal or expectation — just a twist of the throttle and touch of the bar fueled by desire for movement and motion, a flash of vision as the landscape sweeps by.  And before long you’re miles from home.

Sunday morning began in uncertainty for I wasn’t sure if I wanted to ride, walk with my camera or just go to church.  There are days when I feel restless yet unfocused, at least regarding a plan of action.  At sunrise I was in the garden with the dogs making photographs between requests to heave a tennis ball and recognitions of glowing portions of our naturalized landscape.

Photography is a compulsion, a condition I recognize requires periodic purging lest I become irritated by visual overstimulation.  It’s as if my eyes collect more information than my brain can manage and the camera serves as a tool too download and provide space to function.  I’ve taken part in group photo sessions where a number of camera wielders in a single location all work to “photograph” the place and later share what they saw.  Seeing that work gives you an idea of how differently people see the world.

I suffer by the visual.

The Vespa scooter and I traveled south down the valley toward Spruce Creek along winding roads and farm paths.  The combination of light and sky, field and road agitated the eye and led to a growing ride fueled by desire to see and experience nothing in particular, everything in general.  What started as no ride at all quickly turned into something I had to force to an end due to time and other commitments.

Deja vu — standing on the gravel road looking off toward the lone tree; I’ve been here many times to make a photograph of the tree from this same perspective.  I have a contact print in my office of a view made with an 8×10 Zone VI camera.  And probably a dozen images of a Vespa or motorcycle including an early one made during an Altoona trek on the LX150.

By the time I arrived at this place near Seven Stars, Pennsylvania I had stopped a dozen times to make photographs and was in a rhythm that I can’t call riding or photography — just a ritual dance with camera and scooter.  It moves in fits and starts. It’s fueled by desire for recognition, understanding and something I can’t define.

The “ride” a private experience and responsible for my reluctance to ride with others — in part embarrassed to put my compulsive behavior on display, but mostly because I’ll grow annoyed finding anyone in the way of eye and camera, scooter and road.

I made about seventy photographs during the ride and have been sifting through the experience, making notes, looking at the pictures, wondering what it was all about.  Perhaps something will come of it worth sharing.

For now, just a single image made with my iPhone and processed with Google’s Snapseed app.  A Vespa on a gravel farm road under a sky of drama.

Just the way I like it.