Slug Blind
My Best Photo Of Hawaii
Double Negative Dispatch Issue #110
I grew up in Hawaii and that’s where I started my love of photography. I did what most beginners do, and I spent a lot of my camera time capturing landscapes and obvious subject matter. Palm trees, mountains, and the beach. I had a 18-55 kit lens that was mostly kept at 18mm OR 55mm, nothing in-between. That’s what beginners do, they go wide or incredibly close to capture objects that catch their uneducated eye. An uneducated or unpracticed eye is caught very easily. Big stuff. Shiny stuff. Colorful stuff. Obvious stuff.
Hawaii is a very obvious place. Millions of people travel there to photograph it. But how many of those people actually capture it?
I had the benefit of living there, so I knew the place, and understood what it was to live in mundanity within paradise. Sadly, I did not have an educated eye though, so most of my photos from that time are very forgettable.
3 or so years after I left, I came back, with slightly more educated and clearer eyes. And that’s when I captured Slug.
Living on Oahu, your life will be filled with snails and slugs. Snails with huge, swirly shells. The sidewalks, rock walls, and just about every surface near grass will be covered with shiny trails and lines made by these giant mollusks. When I first moved there, my mind was blown at how big they were. No one really talks about this aspect of Hawaii. You hear talk about geckos, and maybe the wild chickens running around everywhere, but the snails are so present that you almost become blind to them.
When I came back to Hawaii for a visit, after I moved, me and my wife were walking around in Waikiki. (it was her first time there and our honeymoon) I’m pretty sure she pointed out this slug on a bench. I wouldn’t have seen it otherwise because I was slug-blind. Giant snails and slugs were just a part of life. But it was nice and backlit, so I took a picture of it with whatever digital camera I had on me at the time.
As time has gone on, I realize that this photo of a slug is my best photo of Hawaii. Memories flood in and make me feel way more emotion than any obvious landscape would. I have photos of the beach next to our old house, mountains with waterfalls, and beautiful lush green valleys and yet, they can’t stir up anything in me as much as this slug photo does.
I’ve been trying to figure out what I’m even making these days. Like, why is photography my weapon of choice? I do a lot of talking about photography in podcast or written form, but what is my actual philosophy when taking photos? I think I’ve known my philosophy but I’ve struggled to put it into words. I guess I’m just looking for drama. Emotion in non-portrait form. I’m trying to hone in on something that stokes my imagination. Maybe something that could be distilled into a poem. That’s kinda it. The bar is low, which is why I have so many different types of photographs floating around out there. Tons of patients at an orthopedic clinic a week sit under my giant canvas triptych of a big tree. People all over the world are purchasing my postcards of Polaroids, Double Exposures, Abstracts, and photos of actual garbage.
I take a ton of photos. Which is probably the only reason I ever get anything good. Maybe I go on a trip and take 400 photos. There might be 5 that I ever do anything with. After a few years of taking photos in Hawaii, only Slug rises to the top for me. It’s my childhood, my marriage (we just had our 12 year anniversary!), and a pretty fun photo of a giant slug.
It’s posed so well and so nicely lit.