Lesson
Three Palms
The sand dune with the three palms had always been a handy background. The palms lined up from a number of angles in ways that were visually evocative, and well positioned to be silhouetted against a bright western sky. The three palms dune is on Treasure Island’s wide white beach, one of the places I photograph over and over. I have a number of such places and although Treasure Island is as beautiful as any, it’s that I grew up there that most pulls me back.
Maybe it was this connection that tugged so viscerally when I discovered that one of the three palms had died. Its trunk still stood in place, but its fronds had dried up and fallen away and a parrot was making a home in the remaining hollow.
The three palms seemed no longer much use as a compositional element, and I ignored them in subsequent visits. Then one evening a year or two later I spotted a large sailboat gliding toward the setting sun. The sailboat was too far away to fill my viewfinder, so I needed a foreground fast. The only close possibility was the dune with the three palms.
I found my set up spot just before the sun plunged into the sea and waited for the sailboat to slide the last inch or two through my viewfinder. As I focused, the dead tree seemed an irritating imperfection in an otherwise perfect scene. Only later did I see that it told the larger truth about an uncertain and unpredictable world, and for a photographer, at least, what kind of world could be better?
