Once, on a walk down Austin’s popular South Congress street, I stumbled into a record store. It sat behind all the storefronts, a secret passage into a time and place where vinyl records are as revered as the phones we carry in our pockets. I didn’t even know where to start, mindlessly thumbing through each album cover, looking for something recognizable.
Somewhere in the Science section (is my nerd showing?), I found an album of humpback whale sounds. I probably giggled. I might have even considered buying it, even with the fact I didn’t even have a record player. It was all a joke until I turned the record over and read the back description. That’s when I was reminded that sometimes the truth is so much cooler than whatever fiction you could dream up.
According to the back of this album, humpback whales change their songs every year. In other words, they are perhaps the most prolific recording artists in world history. And because I’m sure not every year of humpback whale songs is recorded, I only half-kiddingly mourn the fact that their best works might never be recorded.
I have no intention of explaining just what this image means or represents – I honestly believe there’s so many ways to look at it. But a beautiful accident occurred when I combined the analog with the digital. After completing the drawing with only pencil, light green paper, and fine and standard point Sharpies, I uploaded it to Instagram and fidgeted with the filter and lighting settings. Because I took a picture of the drawing itself, the light wasn’t symmetrically balanced. With Instagram’s assistance, it led to the picture having the appearance of a nice, warm glow to it, as if a light beneath the water cast a silhouette on the humpback above it.
It’s a happy accident of the analog and digital that somehow perfectly captures the way I look at the whales beneath the surface: in warm, curious awe.
Amazing…
🙂