"Neighbors" Essay: Marko at Tiger Top, Chitwin National Park, Nepal

A short interview with Marko Nichols-Marey whom I discovered living in the jungles of the lowlands of Nepal. He works at Tiger Top, an elephant refuge and national park. Marko, 22, is from New York. Marko came to Nepal after deciding that working for his father was not going to work out. His story is compelling for anyone interested in setting out for new territory, anyone interested in travel, in seeking.

Fly by in Nepal

As best I can recall I have flown over around or by: The Great Pyramids, The Alps (piercing the clouds for as far as I could see), the Grand Canyon, The Straight of Magellan (actually discovered and charted by Admiral Hong Bao of the great Chinese treasure fleet one hundred and two years before Magellan), New York at night, a brilliant protozoa except for the black vacuous rectangle of Central Park (anchored by a stick pin of light at Wollman Park). And now Mt. Everest, via the 10:30 flight on Buddha Air out of Kathmandu. According to the Buddha Air web site over 150,000 passengers have been treated to this sight, far more than the approximately three thousand who have summitted, of which about nine percent perished on the descent. To my knowledge no one has died taking the Buddha Air flight past the mountain, at least not expired while experiencing the flight, to be more precise. Fortunately we were not given tee-shirts or bumper stickers proclaiming, This Body Flew Past Everest. Obviously this marketing idea has slipped past the folks at Buddha Air. I suspect this will be rectified as soon as the current world economic meltdown is staunched.

Film vs Digital

The question goes: which is better, film or digital? As an old philosophy professor of mine used to say, "Define your terms." I will talk about how I think about film and digital below, but for purposes of my own test, my terms are simply visual. Is one different in a better way than the other? So here I have pasted two images. Granted they are low resolution in this blog, but they serve a quick visual comparison. One was shot with my Leica MP using Kodak Tri-X at 100 speed. The other was shot with my Leica M8 digital camera, captured as a raw file, extracted in Aperture and converted to black and white using Nik Software's Silver Efex Pro. One cool thing about Silver Efex is that it has selectable film profiles. So in this case, I selected Kodak Tri-X 100. I believe the results speak for themselves. I can so no difference in the shots. Even in full resolution, which I used for my comparison, I cannot tell the difference. The top shot, by the way, is digital.

I recently shot two projects. You can see them on my web page under "Essay." The results are visually very similar, to the point above. The hardware feels the same, both digital and film cameras are Leica M cameras. But the flow is, for me, different. While shooting film, I am more contemplative. I work harder. I don't know if it is the preciousness of film, the expense, the mechanical aspect of advancing the film or what that makes me more mindful when I have a film camera in my hand. Perhaps it is knowing that I can't immediately check to see if I got the shot. Rather, I have to do everything I can to get it without knowing if I succeeded or not. I like shooting film. I like too developing it. There is magic to pouring a chemical into and then removing film from the tub and seeing frames. But there the fun stops. It stops because I no longer have a wet darkroom. Once developed my film process becomes a digital hybrid. I batch scan the film then create digital contact sheets and from there select, edit and full scan the images I wish to use. It is an onerous and time consuming process.

Digitally, I can sit anywhere I wish, not having to be tethered to my scanner and download and edit. I am good to go, easily and without the hours invested. But digitally I get lazy. I shoot too much. I tend to forget my photographic eye and depend on my camera to get the shot, thinking that I can take three or more shots and find what I want amongst them.

Given my druthers, I'd have my film camera with me all the time. But it makes no sense really, at least not for larger projects and certainly not for assignments. Particularly when the end result, as seen above, is indistinguishable.

The Americans

I am just back from the Robert Frank exhibit at the National Gallery of Art (Looking In: Robert Frank's, The Americans)and ache to do something of consequence. Is that not the definition of inspiration? There is nothing I can say about The Americans that will be fresh and of any importance. Beside, there is nothing I want to say really. Sometimes a thing is best talked about. Sometimes not.
__________________

John Updike died a week or so ago. I am struck by this comment from Adam Gopink in the current The New Yorker:

"Updike’s great subject was the American attempt to fill the gap
left by faith with the materials produced by mass culture."

I think about mass culture a great deal these days, in particular these days when mass culture is melting and consumerism is melting, along with confidence and arrogance and self-defining destiny. The great sucking sound foretold by Ross Perot is not the loss of jobs to overseas labor, but rather the drain plug being pulled in the basin of American hubris. What an interesting time to be an observer. And a painful time. Everything interesting has an element of pain associated with it, it seems. If not for the participant, then for the observer.

Five weeks and counting

I ventured down to DC this past week to see how things are shaping up for the big event, now five weeks away. I parked on Capital Hill and took the short stroll past the Library of Congress over to the capital. It was unseasonably warm, in the sixties, and I sweat through my shirt, under my jacket. There were a few tourists milling around. One asked me directions to the new--six hundred million dollar--Capital Visitors Center. I couldn’t help her. I’d been looking for it too, to no avail. (It’s on the east side and underground, almost all 580,00 square feet of it, so as not to detract from the Olmsted grand plan of the Capital.)
As I came across the lawn (roped off with sprinklers sprinkling, getting it ready for a party of four million), I saw a group of young people dancing, or performing, or something on the west front. They were singing a mantra of lyrics, Jesus is my savior, Jesus is my friend, over and over. They were Asian. There were two guitarists and a drummer and a man, who looked as if he were in charge, standing under a naked tree, arms crossed, watching them and occasionally flashing a hand signal. Three capital policemen stood close by. They seemed to be enjoying a sort of special bliss there in front of the construction fence. They expressions conveyed as much.
Behind them bleachers were going up. They looked nice, wood, and appeared to be constructed by carpenters. They seemed substantial and much nicer than my old high school bleachers but not as nice as box seats at a Ravens game. The workers seemed ernest enough, suitable for such an estimable event. Overall, I was surprised by the seeming permanence of the construction, as if it weren’t going to all come down after the inauguration. I looked around. I checked the lamp posts for banners. Nothing. I turned around and gazed down the Mall to the Washington Monument and tried to envision it full of people, like it occasionally has been in history. But today it was empty, despite the balmy weather, empty but for the sounds of construction and young Asians praising the Lord.

Sept 24, 2008
Thursday

I mentioned earlier in the week the strike. The problem is, I think, a conflict between health care workers (i.e. nurses and technicians) who are on the public payroll, and those in the private sector. The government, like all governments infused with infinite wisdom, made a decision that has backfired. They, the government, decided to allow private sector practitioners to come to public facilities, like our hospital, to train and study. The hospital is a limited resource and those now working in it see this as an invasion of their turf. And I can’t say as I blame them. So like workers everywhere who are PO’ed they strike (or is it struck?)
When we arrived at the hospital on Monday, there were, say, two dozen nurses and technicians milling about at the front doors. Today, four days later, I’d guess at least twice that. Further, they had a look of steely resolve in their eyes. And of course there was media. And we all know that when media shows up and people get on television, well, that changes everything. And it did.

September 25
Friday

We had no patients this morning. The OR was empty. The halls were empty. There were doctors aplenty, however. But how much coffee can a doctor drink, really? By the afternoon there was a slight break-through and our interns had found enough sympathetic ears to come to our aid, ever so limited, but help out nonetheless with a patient. Tomorrow looks dicey at best. So, I have bailed and will be heading home a day early. Doctor Brody, like the professional he is, is staying the course, one more day in the hope that he can help the interns, patients and doctors at the hospital. I suspect he will find some way of imparting his experience, strike or no strike, one more day.

Sept 23, Wednesday

I am a photographer. I volunteered to come to Honduras to document the work Dr.
Brody and Physicians For Peace does here. He and I were sitting at a table yesterday,
in between operations, when a young medical student approached us. We were
dressed in scrubs. Dr. Brody looked like a physician--and I guess I did too. The medical
student shook my hand and asked me what my speciality was. I smiled coyly,
“photography,” I said. She laughed good heartedly. “No really,” she insisted, “Whatʼs
your speciality.” “Really,” I replied, “photography.” I showed her my card and pointed to
Dr. Brody who was watching with a grin. I pointed. “Heʼs the talent at the table.” The
point of the story for me was her eagerness. She wanted to learn, a desire I see in
abundance.
**************
I mentioned earlier that Dr. Brodyʼs method is Socratic. Here are a few of his questions
to the staff here at the hospital:
“If that were your girlfriend, how would you treat that injury?” (To a young--male--intern.)
“How are you going to feed him?” (About a patient who had a major face reconstruction
yesterday, including lips.)
“Do you notice what heʼs doing.”
“Once this heals, whatʼs the problem going to be?”
“How are you going to deal with this?”
And what I gather to be his two favorite questions:
“Whatʼs your plan?”
“What are you going to do?”
**************************
We visited the burn unit this morning during rounds. It was difficult. An adolescent sat in the hall, his legs burned, completely despondent, tearing up, staring at his legs. A woman burned in a club lay still on a bed, struggling to live. Two members of her party have already died. A man dosed in gasoline by a gang and set afire seems resigned to his pain. I struggle to compose a photograph that will not be something other than reflective of utter hopelessness. Then I see Dr. Brody talking to a patient. He reaches over and touches the manʼs hand. Therein lay hope, compassion and the human connection.