Oregon Path

In 1989 I was working on my first three videotapes,
      all to be illustrated with photography from nature.
There came a time when I realized I didn’t have enough images.
I needed photographs that communicated more feeling.
I needed scenes other than my flat Indiana landscapes.
So I flew to Portland, Oregon, rented a car,
      and spent ten days exploring the coastline south into northern California.
My guidebook told me there was a shoreline in southern Oregon
      I shouldn’t miss.
So I found the spot, parked my car,
      and began the half-mile walk down to the ocean.
The path wound through a rather dense woods,
      made more dense by a moving fog.
I was anxious to get to the ocean and the place
      I was supposed to photograph,
           but I kept finding one image after another among those trees,
                  so I kept stopping, and photographing.
It was only when I was back in Indiana and sorting through my images
      that I realized how significant that forest walk had been
            for me and my camera.
Many of those images found their way into the three presentations
      and my first book.
And the special beach that was my final destination?
Those pictures, though well composed and correctly exposed,
      were never used.
The Taoist proverb applied that day: “The journey is the reward.”