Bottleneck

Anyone who holds themselves to a certain standard will eventually encounter a creative bottleneck. I am no exception.

As usual, I got up in the early hours of the morning, prepared my gear for the day’s shoot, and planned to meet up with my friends afterwards to spend some time playing in the waterfall. I tend to give myself plenty of time and room for error, so I had already arrived before the waterfall even opened.

When I thought I had managed to get there early enough to gain the advantage, I realised that there were others who were just as early. I paid little attention to them and walked all the way to the bottom of the waterfall, where I came across the bamboo shelter beneath it. To be honest, I was a little disappointed. This was no longer an untouched natural landscape, but a developed and commercialised tourist area. Worse still, there was no way to appreciate the grandeur of the waterfall from the bamboo shelter beneath it. My field of view was restricted, and so was the way I could experience and interpret the waterfall. There was simply no room for my vision to unfold.

As I was wondering whether I should leave, a staff member noticed the tripod on my backpack and suggested that I try photographing the waterfall from the opposite side. I thought it was a good suggestion, so I immediately set off and took this photograph:

At that moment, my feelings became even more complicated. Was that it? Was that good enough? Was I satisfied with this? Was this really what I was supposed to get after planning for a week, getting up early, and setting out to take photographs?

I did not believe this was the limit of what I was capable of. Yet I also did not think this was a problem that could be solved simply by adjusting the aperture, ISO, or shutter speed. Rather, it was a question of my philosophy of photography - Why do I photograph? What kind of photographic artist do I want to become? What is my worldview?

Time continued to flow like the waterfall, and the crowds grew larger and larger. One after another, people stood beneath the waterfall, in the same place, following the instructions of the same person, striking the same poses, and taking the same photograph. Perhaps, like me, they had also been drawn here by the same platform, the same website, the same photograph, or the same piece of writing.

And yet here I was, doing the same thing as everyone else while expecting a different result. It was rather absurd. So I took this photograph:

Unexpectedly, this coincidental moment bore a striking resemblance to Martin Parr’s photograph of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

At around ten o’clock, sunlight began to filter through the leaves and fall upon the waterfall. The scattered, intense light, together with the dark rocks and white water, created an interesting image:

By then, my friends had gradually arrived at the waterfall. None of us wanted to queue for ages just to take a photograph for the sake of a post in social media, so we decided to head further downstream, where far fewer people gathered.

What surprised us was that although the upper section was packed with people, the lower section was completely deserted. There was no Instagrammable hotspot here, nothing designed to attract visitors looking for the perfect photo. Instead, there was simply an ordinary stretch of river—unremarkable, yet so peaceful that it left us feeling completely at ease:

I do not know where my photographic journey will take me, just as each drop of water does not know where it will ultimately end up.