I've been reading a book by Wade Davis called "One River". It's about
Harvard ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes, who, from the 1930's to the
1950's charted and documented the South American rain forests while
contributing invaluable botanical info on rubber, quinine, coca,
hallucinogens and a host of other things that we take for granted from
anesthesia to tires. Aside from being a very good read, the thing that
really sticks in my mind, and sometimes literally flashes before my eyes
inbetween sleep intervals are the images from the book that Schultes took
while traversing the greater Amazon with little more than the clothes on
his back and a primitive Rolleiflex rollfilm camera.
Earlier this month I went to see an Ansel Adams exhibit. Adams is one of my
heros, but I'll be honest, I think he might've learned a few things about
traveling light with minimalist equipment had he and Richard Evans Schultes
had occasion to converse. I think Adams was a darkroom genius. I think
Schultes lived the limitations of his equipment every day. Schultes
documentation of various indigenous peoples with nothing more than a simple
TLR camera is amazing. (He may have at times used a Graphic or various
other cameras, but I believe I'm correct that for the most part he used
very rudimentary gear, and frequently traveled by dugout canoe or other
available trans that would've greatly limited his capacity for carrying
much gear beyond the needed botanical processing equip to complete his
missions.) His images are haunting. They are what I think of in the
darkroom when I'm trying to coax prints to be their best.
I think appreciation of OM gear has many facets. One facet that gets talked
about a lot on this list is the potential depth of a total OM system
approach. Another facet, and one that's very near and dear to my
appreciation for OM gear is the idea that one can have high quality,
non-gadget laden bodies, with a few very good primes all tucked neatly into
a small, but convient fanny pack.
Still, I'm tempted to blow the dust off the Rolleicord, leave the light
meter at home and see if I can do even fractionally as well as starving and
sick explorers of yesteryear.
Mike Swaim
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