Foto Friday 21 – Moby Dick

Be Like a Rock or Be Like Water or Both

Welcome to another edition of FotoFriday, dear readers. For those of you who are new, FotoFriday happens every first Friday of the month. Only three more and FF will turn two! Time flies.

In 2016, we went to Belitung, an island on the east coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, in the Java Sea. It was a fantastic trip, and I took many images, most of them I never shared, stunning white beaches and mysterious rocky islands, giant sea stars on tiny patches of sand in the middle of the ocean, a lighthouse where you can hit your head easily (I have it on video, took me 6m14secs to get to the top)… these are but a few impressions that cross my mind.

For this FotoFriday, I picked some of the few long exposures I managed. There would have been more, but something happened on Ghost Rock Island.

Rockwhale

What happened on Ghost Rock Island? Later. First, let’s talk about what is happening at Tales from the Defrag, the newsletter. Posts have moved from Wednesday to Friday, sometimes Saturday, even. What gives?

Apologies for the delay, but August has been a challenging month, flooding in our son’s room, trying to get it fixed (probably by the end of October), insurance woes, job search, fibre down… I could go on. Suffice to say, it had a bit of an impact on my writing routine. Then again, we adapt, we compromise, we drink more coffee.

My new morning ritual is brewing a fresh cup of coffee, grinding 20g (measured) of Mandheling Toba Medium-Dark Roast beans from Sumatra (thematic link to images, check) with my new Timemore coffee grinder, measuring flow rate with my new Timemore Black Mirror scale and watching content as the ground coffee blooms while I pour water, 300g to be precise, 8-10g/s, and about three minutes later it is done.

I take a sip and start editing the images for this post, wondering whether you will like them. Whether you can see the whale? Or something else?

Rockwhale

Maybe if we zoom in closer. Maybe then you’ll see. Moby Dick. Also, those three white rocks in the background are oddly shaped and arranged… it’s nature’s way, I guess.

Moby Dick

I read Moby Dick years and years ago, and those of you who have been following my writing might have seen me referencing Bartleby, the Scrivener here and there. It’s one of my favourite short stories.

When I took these images, I thought of the book, how I had forgotten about it, trying to remember. Maybe that is the way, maybe we need to be reminded. Maybe we need to humour the future.

“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

I may have to read it again one of these days.

Also, since I took three images of that Rockwhale, I had to arrange them accordingly. Triptych time!

Rockwhale Triptych

Same image, three different perspectives. Sometimes that’s all it takes. Being able to change your perspective is hard. Oftentimes, you get stuck and even though you may see the passage, you can’t reach it.

Passage

Coming back to the writing routine and this newsletter, the passage I am looking at is the one that allows me to finish my draft of Spherean, which has been lagging. So, going forward, weekly updates will be about writing said draft. There may be the occasional flash fiction piece, but the main focus will be the novel. Posts will move from Wednesday to Friday, as a kind of EOW report, if you will. I hope you’ll find the content interesting nonetheless.

Here are some more rocks we passed on the way to the lighthouse, obligatory pano shot included.

Belitung Lighthouse Pano (iphone6s)

Outtake

When we arrived at this little rocky island near Belitung, I had planned to stay a while and do some long exposure images of the many rock formations, which did not happen since my son stepped on a broken seashell and cut his heel. Ouch. A tiny splinter, lodged deep inside the heel, had to be removed by the doctor later that day.

Ghost Rock Island

His heel has healed. Only a tiny scar remains. A memorable trip for that six-year-old, heel cut by a shell on “Ghost Rock Island”. He never complained. It must have hurt, but he was… Like a Rock, and as much as I like Bob Seger’s song, I’ll go with Bruce Lee on this one.

“Be Water, My Friend.”

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Previously on FotoFriday…