Defiant Freedom

I like the theme of defiant freedom. It is a self-destructive notion, and yet, at the same time it is a liberating idea. To be honest it is something I have referred to before, when talking about surfers and climbers.

On a recent trip to Lewis in the Outer Hebrides I took some photographs of some surfers on one of the island's many windswept beaches. They were pitting themselves against wind and the power of the water as it rose and fell and finally crashed in on shore. A few seconds being driven along on a board toward the sand on wind and wave power while trying to maintain balance by shifting the feet, defying physics before the inevitable fall into the ocean.

I actually love beaches, and rocks and mountains and all those sort of places where natural things like the wind and the sea and heavy rain remind us of our mortality.

A few years ago I was walking in the Dolomites when I came across some climbers scaling a huge slab of about one to two hundred feet of rock. I remember it was a scorching hot day in July and I managed to also take some photographs. For a while I sat on a rock and watched them inch their way up their ropes like spiders moving on a thread. Some waved to me, and I waved in return. Life affirming waves, and I could see they were having fun.

Both these sports have fascinated me, though I have never wanted to surf - not really my thing. I could, however, see the defiant freedom in both activities. In a way I felt they were giving two fingers to a world which would probably condemn both sports as being crazy.

It intrigues me, however, why anyone would want to participate in either. Both are, to some extent, pretty scary things to do, and in a way actually taking part would mean overcoming fears. But in managing to suppress those feelings of fear there would surely be that sense of defiant freedom.