Liffey Waterfall, Tasmania for Sunday Best

 

Last Sunday, I mentioned that trip to Tasmania with Joel, some thirteen years ago, when both of us were quietly going through a dip in our lives. It was only four days, travelling across the island on the Spirit of Tasmania with Joel’s car at the time, yet somehow we managed to chase down most of the places we thought were worth photographing.

One of those places was Liffey Falls and the creek.

There was nothing particularly elaborate about that day. We sat among the forest with our rather humble sandwiches—simple food, nothing fancy—and listened to the creek running through the trees. For a while, there was no need to talk about whatever troubles we had carried with us. The forest had its own conversation: water over rocks, leaves moving gently in the breeze, and the quietness of being somewhere far away from everything.

The first photograph is Liffey Falls itself. It looks rather subdued, almost as though the waterfall is holding its breath. That year was marked by drought, and the lack of water was impossible to hide.

The second photograph is a little more complicated. Looking at it now, I can see quite clearly how much I still had to learn. The long exposure blew out the highlights in the rushing water, while the greens were rendered rather strangely by the automatic exposure compensation. It was one of those photographs that probably taught me more through its mistakes than a technically perfect image ever could.

Digital photography was still a different world then. Cameras were nowhere near as forgiving or sophisticated as they are today, and much of what we now correct almost effortlessly had to be anticipated, understood, or simply accepted.

But perhaps that is why I still like these old photographs.

They are not perfect. Neither were we, back then.

We were two friends carrying our own uncertainties through Tasmania, stopping beside waterfalls and creeks, eating simple sandwiches and taking photographs as best we knew how. Looking back thirteen years later, the technical flaws seem almost incidental.

What remains is the sound of the water, the quiet forest, and the memory of having someone beside you while life was not quite going according to plan.

Canon 5D

FE 14mm f2.8 

Linking Sunday Best