Surf at a California Beach, Gallery One.Original photography and digital art by Paul A. L. Hall. (use your F-11 key for full screen view)4/14/2004 Signed prints are available in two sizes. Click on the thumbnails below. |
Well, it was about five p.m. on the seventeenth of January of this year (2004), and the sun was getting low in the sky. I was headed back from some errand and grabbed the new digital camera, veered into the public parking, decided to take a break from the almost constant obsession of late of working on this web site, and headed for the jetties on a little beach photo shoot. It was a cold winter's day -- not. About 75 degrees or so, you know, Southern California winters and all that. But I figured what the heck. With all those degrees, one of them was bound to be a Ph.D.
The areas just beyond the breakers were dotted with black specks; surfers in wet suits waiting for a good wave. One guy out there wasn't catching anything. Must've had too much vitamin C. I wasn't waiting. What do you expect, I didn't have a tray.
There was a certain zone on the jetties beyond which no one ventured, because it was wet, slippery and covered with a kind of algae. To walk on them meant certain injury. Except, well -- the secret is that a human being doesn't have to just walk around on two feet all the time. You never thought of that? You might need it sometime. As a kid, one of the things I learned to do, along with climbing trees and rooftops and coconut palms and all that, was to walk around quadruped using both feet and both hands.
The only problem is the head. The human head is heavy, that's why we're bypedenal. But if you bend your legs to equal your arm height and hold your head so your face faces the ground (let's face it!), then look up with your eyes to see the horizon with your upper peripheral vision, occasionally raising your head to get a sharper view, then you can ambulate as a quadruped. You'd be surprised how fast you can go, but be careful: the human skeleton isn't prepared for quadruped impact of a human gallop.
I used to use the quadruped ambulation to bring in carts for the mart back in the mid nineties. I tied the carts in three sections, twenty per section, linked together, and used the quadruped technique to pull all sixty into the store. With the central mass of the body closer to the ground, the load was much easier, even relaxing, to bring up the uphill grade of the parking lot and into the store itself. The only problem with it was that it looked really bizarre to the narrow minded stiffs that liked to frequent the store for of all things -- get this -- a "shopping experience". Man! Get a life. So the human quadruped ambulation technique shouldn't really be done in public.
But if you use it to get around dangerous rocky areas you'll do quite well. Having a workable alternative to just getting around on two feet can greatly enhance your safety chances in uneven terrain. For long distance or thorny surfaces, however, a walking staff is preferable and you'd be taken aback by the huge advantage afforded by the stabilizing and safety factors of the staff or "tripedunal ambulatory technique". Hey, better legs than never.
Though the nearest open space may seem advantageous to develop the human quadruped technique there are downsides to that. Best to locate a more secluded spot that isn't paved by the way, remembering that the human skeleton can be mildly damaged occasionally by overdoing it till really in shape. Surprisingly, the biggest damage is to your public relations. Those around you who see you will think you quite mad and you'll lose all standing in the community, but I say, "good riddance".
So I easily got to the end of the jetties on feet and hands, from which vantage point I could get some great photos, or "digies", as it's digital now. But there was another surprise. A bunch of sea gulls befriended me and we all sat there on the rocks. I guess they liked the way I got out there and we had a great time until I tried my sea gull whistle at which point they all took off abruptly.
The photos gave me the raw material I needed for this reality digital art series.
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