Breathing Light - Issue #4 Of Life and Death and Mama Llama

Of Life and Death and Mama Llama

Atamaarie e te whaanau:

I wondered what I would write about for this week's newsletter when a surreal experience came for me. And I think I see the lesson in it—more about that near the end of this section.

I have a wonderful friend, who has some property out here in Te Anau, along with 24 llamas ( the Andean model). So this shouldn't be a problem, except he recently lost his driving licence. That means getting up here is an issue for him, especially now there is no public transport to and from Te Anau.

And llamas gotta eat.

He slid the thin end of the wedge in gently.

"Mate.. ( from now on, I will treat a sugar-coated "mate" with extreme suspicion), I am getting some bales of hay delivered to the section. Any chance you could meet the guy there and get him to place them around the paddock?"

That doesn't sound so hard, I thought to myself.

Yep. No worries.

Then.....

" O, any chance you could feed a bale or two each day until Bob ( his neighbour) gets back on August 6?

I guess so.

The wedge drove in a little deeper.

Tony the llama herder ( cue: El Condor Pasa) I began to see myself leading a pack train of llamas over the Andes while condors circled above me. Or maybe taking one down to the local supermarket and tying it to the bike rack while I went in for my groceries.

Maybe a bale or two each day, unless they need more.

Sigh.

Yesterday I went down to do my duty and pointedly ignored Alpha Llama, whom I had decided to call Dalai, and his baleful, challenging stare.

They tell me llamas can spit.

No worries. I wear spectacles.

It is OK, bro. You can keep your harem. They are not my type anyway.

I wandered grumpily around the paddock, slashing bales open with my completely ineffectual Leatherman.

Then I saw it.

One of the llamas had a head and three legs protruding from her back end.

I went into shock.

Now the wedge went all the way in!

I called a friend.

R., what the f**# do I do about this?

"O, send me a pic." he seemed untroubled. Thank God for mobile communications.

Roger, who was once a sheep farmer and fibre artist and has a passion for all things rural, especially regenerative farming, replied.

" O, that is Nature. She will eventually push it out. Go back and check on her in an hour or so. If not, we will need to get the vet."

I noted the "we".

I went back, fearing the worst. And there, somewhere out in the paddock, Mama Llama was calmly sitting, chewing grass, while a tiny head poked itself up over the parapet of the undergrowth.

Now what? I asked.

" O, pop back in the morning," Roger replied blithely," and check on them both. They should be all right overnight."

It might have been OK for him, but I am used to all my pets coming prepackaged, cleaned, weaned, and vet-checked.

I fretted that Baby Llama might not make it through the night. A cold southerly front was coming in.

Then, when I returned yesterday to deal with feeding out, there he was sitting on a manger of hay looking like Little Lord Muck, surrounded by adoring Angel Llama Mamas.

I wandered across the paddock to check on the errant bales when I saw it in a dip—the desiccating carcass of another dead llama baby .

I stood for a time in the softly falling rain, staring at a life that hadn't made it far past birth and pondered.

And it came to me that I had just been handed a big lesson.

In the middle of a pandemic, when our self-important species faces possible extinction, Life goes on. Life and Death.It always has. It always will.

I watched a passing hawk slither by looking for food. I listened to birds singing, to the soft shuffle of grass growing, to the gentle spaces between raindrops. everywhere around me was Life in one form or another.

Perhaps farmers know this better than any of us. This is because they live much closer to the cycle of LIfe.

And my admiration for farmers grew even more.

Our language defines us.

Lately, I have been pondering. Maybe I spend too much time on Twitter, but I am really starting to loathe the phrase " drop your shots", used extensively by the young ones who have decamped from Instagram. It sounds somewhat...gastric.

However, it has made me think about the language we use for the act of making photographs.

We go out "on a shoot." We" shoot" photos. We " capture" pictures/photos/images. We "take" photos. It makes us sound like big game hunters, out on a safari, or Neanderthals off to find a stray woolly mammoth for dinner.

Do we really do that? Is photography little more than an act of appropriation and consumer-ism? In an essay on her iconic book On Photography, the late Susan Sontag talks about just this thing. It is easy to find online and well worth a read (see links below).

Warning: Reading this book may mess with your head.

So, Some historical perspective.

The phrase "take" never existed in our lexicon until Kodak invented and released the box Brownie back in the late 1800s.

" You take the pictures, and we do the rest" was the advertising slogan used to promote its sales.

In the very early days of photography, there was no such thing as a photographer, only " camera operators". You didn't take a picture of someone. Instead, you " made a likeness" of them. So it wasn't an act of appropriation. It was more an act of reverence IMHO.

The word " take " seems to be peculiar to English alone. In French and German, one" makes" a photo.

Perhaps it is time to change the word we use, although I don't have an answer to what words would be better. For now.

And one last thought to make your Sunday morning coffee go cold:

We never take/make a photograph of any thing:

we only ever photograph the space between photographer and subject.

Something to ponder.

Or not.

As always, I love to hear from you. When I figure out how to do it, I will create a space here for you to comment.

And, if you are enjoying this, please share it with other photographers/friends etc.

Next week, some good news to share. Raahui is back.

Kind of.

Ngaa mihi ki a koutou

Books you really want to own

On Photography by Susan Sontag - Penguin Books New Zealand — www.penguin.co.nz

'The most original and illuminating study of the subject' New Yorker

9780870703812: The History of Photography: From 1839 to the Present - AbeBooks: 0870703811

AbeBooks.com: The History of Photography: From 1839 to the Present (9780870703812) and a great selection of similar New, Used and Collectible Books available now at great prices.