Marina Andrew: Walking in Uncertainty
I expected creative freedom to feel like a deep breath of fresh air, but it actually felt like taking a shaky, shallow, anxious gulp.
I am an exercise science major with an emphasis in physical therapy. I thrive on the quantifiable and known. Everything in my life comes down to a strict, prescribed regimen. Write like this. Measure this variable according to this standard. Don’t deviate. Ever. There is only one right way to do things. It is not enough to practice until you get it right. You must practice until you don’t get it wrong. Even my workout routines are tightly monitored with every session and every program, and every exercise designed strictly according to research established standards.
In the Lander University Honors College, we take on something called a “Breakaway” which is meant to be a challenging experience outside of our normal life at Lander. Many students pursue high level research opportunities and internships within their field. I broke out of my entire discipline. I decided to study abroad at the University of Stirling in Scotland and study landscape photography. When we were preparing our photography portfolios, our professor told us to take full creative liberty. She didn’t even include a clear rubric. I was filled with fear. What if there was some invisible standard that she would grade me against, and I failed the entire class? Kantian freedom states that the individual, in order to be free, must possess the ability to complete the tasks and goals he sets. Liberal freedom defines freedom as the ability to act without any external constraint. I already possessed Kantian freedom; I could learn and conform to the strict standards of the STEM and medical world. But liberal freedom was foreign to me. In the beginning, I felt the urge to run my every decision by my professor, to seek her approval, to google rubrics for similar projects. I realized what a total pain in the neck I was becoming, so I knew I had to back off.
I decided I was going to accept the risk that I may fail my assignments, but over time I began to get lost in the process of creating a portfolio. The more I accepted external freedom, the more adventurous I became, and the more I enjoyed my project. The University's campus was full of trails and unexpected nooks and crannies to explore, but I was always drawn to a giant hill called Dumyat. Dumyat was so large it was more of a mountain. I started venturing out with my camera and taking pictures of things that caught my eye. On one of my early explorations, I started following trails around campus trying to get a closer look at Dumyat. We were always warned not to venture onto Dumyat alone and to wait for when we could go as a group. I could see it peeking through the trees, but I could never get a clear uninterrupted shot. I stood in the middle of a long path, staring at Dumyat in the distance, and decided to set aside trying to photograph Dumyat for the time being and focus on what was right in front of me. I took a photo of the path and continued exploring.
When I returned to my flat, I reviewed the photos I had taken. The first several hundred photos were atrocious, out of focus, and oversaturated, but one photo stood out to me. It was the picture I took of the path when I was unable to shoot Dumyat. The photo gave the illusion of the trail disappearing. To me, it was captivating and ominous.
The picture that gave me the theme of my portfolio
While I loved the photo, it still left much to be desired. I took the photo in the wrong setting causing one part of the photo to be clear and in focus and everything else to be blurry. However, it gave me a clear theme for my portfolio: uncertainty. I wanted to build my project around feelings of the unknown, and I wanted to make it aesthetic. I wanted to make something that made me so afraid seem beautiful, ethereal even.
Now, if years of STEM had taught me anything, it was the importance of practice. To practice for my final portfolio, I set out into the woods onto some trails that I had never been on to simulate feelings of being lost. I started to experiment with techniques and angles. I had to find the optimum angle for capturing where the path disappeared from sight. This was different for every path. Sometimes it meant squatting. Sometimes it meant climbing. Sometimes it meant standing in the center of the trail and other times it meant getting off the trail completely. To achieve the effect that I wanted, I had to shoot in high aperture which increases your risk of blurry photos if your hands shake when taking the picture. Most photographers who shoot in high aperture use a tripod. I didn’t have a tripod, so I improvised and turned my body into the tripod. I would squat and place my elbows on my knees to stabilize the camera and prevent blurriness. Most landscape photos are taken in the “landscape” orientation, but this didn’t help me create the effect I wanted. I did something that would make my STEM professors gasp to know: I broke a rule. I shot almost all of my photos in portrait orientation.
When I was preparing to practice shooting pathways, I decided to venture out onto some relatively short trails that were walking distance from campus. The trails I intended to take were only supposed to be 45 minutes long, but they were poorly marked. I began to get turned around and my international cellular coverage was near to nothing. My feelings of being lost were not just feelings; they were reality. Meanwhile famously unpredictable Scottish weather seesawed between beautiful and raining the entire shoot. Now, I had two problems. How do I take pictures in the rain? And how do I get back to my flat? I started playing with the settings some more to adjust to the rain and adjusting the way I held the camera to prevent the rain from interfering with the pictures. Eventually, I navigated my way to a familiar vista that I had seen before and followed a combination of topography and sun orientation to make it back to the main trail. When I finally got home, I reviewed the photos, and I knew what adjustments I needed to make, and I knew where I needed to shoot next: Dumyat.
I still had not gotten the chance to get close to Dumyat, much less climb it. Locals were always talking about how challenging and treacherous the climb could be. I wanted to photograph my journey up Dumyat because it embodied the whole theme of my portfolio. All of us have a metaphorical mountain to climb in our lives, and we never know what lies ahead on the trail or at the top. Dumyat was the perfect location to shoot for my portfolio.
Finally, a day came when we had a group of people and a guide ready to climb Dumyat. I took everything I learned through experimentation into a photoshoot as I climbed Dumyat. The photos came out better than I expected. I reviewed and edited the pictures and started building the final portfolio. I was able to incorporate quotes and music into the portfolio that expressed the feelings of facing the unknown. I titled my project “Walking in Uncertainty.” I created a “work in progress portfolio,” so I could compare where I started from and how it progressed. When I looked back at the “work in progress” portfolio, I knew that without my professor giving me full creative license and without all my hours of experimentation I would not have been able to create such a good portfolio. My portfolio did exactly what I wanted. It made my fear seem beautiful.
By taking advantage of liberal freedom, I gained more Kantian freedom. I grew in my ability as a photographer, but also in my ability to tolerate uncertainty and the unknown. I still do not care for the unknown, but I know sometimes it can yield something beautiful. Isn’t that the basis of science and research? We investigate the unknown. The data that I love was once another scientist’s question, their own journey through the unknown. My breakaway not only removed me from my cozy controlled lab, but it changed my perspective on what I do inside it.
Marina Andrew is an Exercise Science major who recently studied abroad at the University of Stirling in Scotland. She will graduate from Lander in December 2024. After graduation, she is planning to attend graduate school to earn her Doctorate degree in Physical Therapy. She conducts Exercise Physiology research with the guidance of her mentor Dr. Martin Carmichael. Her photography portfolio can be found here.