MEMORIES of the PAST

 

A Manta Woman on the Bukhainagar River  

As 2025 comes to a rapid close, I am, like so many other people, reflecting upon the past year.  The accomplishments, disappointments, joys, and changes come foremost in my mind.

I started my travels in February with a 20 day tour of Bangladesh - definitely one of the "places less visited".  I was shocked!  Never in my wildest dreams, did I ever imagine that Bangladesh would become my favorite destination.  Yes, Bangladesh!  We are all familiar with all the reasons why Bangladesh is not on most people's bucket list of places to visit.  But, what I was shocked to experience there was the beauty and hospitality of the Bangladeshi people.

 

One group of people that I spent some time photographing were the Manta people - landless people who live on small boats in Barisal Division.  They were very friendly and had no problem being photographed.

 

I do not photograph people as "subjects".  I photograph them as participants in their own stories.  My lens seeks truth, not performance.  I wait for the moment when a person forgets the camera - not to catch them off-guard but to honor who they are when they are most themselves.

 

Later in the year, I became involved with an Internet photography community and experienced a great change in how I edited my photographs.  The group has also been very supportive and encouraging in my photography goals as well as visions.

 

With better refined techniques and skills, I revisited some of my photographs from my February tour of Bangladesh.  In a new look at the above photo, I was struck by how much it reminded me of my past.  Thirty eight years ago, I was going through a divorce.  In setting up a new home, I placed a poster that resonated with me on my bedroom.  This photo brought back memories of that time.  I did not remember the name of the painter or the name of the work of art.  Technology has also evolved and changed over that period of time, so it was easy to determine that the poster was of "The Lady of Shalott" by Waterhouse from 1888. 

"The Lady of Shalott" painting is based on the poem "The Lady of Shalott" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Tennyson’s poem was inspired by the Arthurian legend—specifically the story of Elaine of Astolat, a maiden who appears in medieval tales about King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table.

In the poem, she has been cursed to live isolated in a tower near Camelot, only able to view the world through a mirror and weave what she sees into a tapestry. When she defies the curse by looking directly out her window at Sir Lancelot, she is doomed to die. Waterhouse’s painting captures the poignant moment when the Lady leaves her tower, setting out in a boat toward Camelot, fully aware that she is embracing her fate

 

My photograph shares so many elements and symbols in common with the painting:

 

A lone figure on water, suspended between worlds — resonates with the same mythic tension that energizes Waterhouse’s Lady of Shalott:

• Isolation within openness
  Both images place a solitary figure in a vast, reflective environment. The water becomes a psychological boundary, not just a physical one.
• The threshold moment
  In the painting, the Lady is caught in the instant that she breaks the curse, sealing her fate.
  In the photograph, the Manta woman is caught in a moment of transition — not dramatic, but existential - returning from the village, a land based world, across the Bukhainagar River to her water based world of her home aboard a slightly larger boat.

        The mythic undertone
        My photograph isn’t a reenactment, but it rhymes with the painting:
        a human suspended between fate and agency, between enclosure and the world

 

 In Lady of Shalott: the water is the path to Camelot — a journey toward truth and death.

 

In my photo: the water is a space for contemplation, anonymity, and possibility. The Manta woman, by choice, fate or a curse is in a journey between our world and her world. 

 

In my photograph there is no Camelot, no curse, no rich tapestry.  The photograph is of a human being in the world - quiet humanism versus the tragic romanticism of the painting.

 

I guess that is why the photograph feels mystic to me without being theatrical. 

 

I now question creativity - "Is creativity born or is it influenced by our experiences?'  

 

If I had never seen Waterhouse's "The Lady of Shalott", would I have taken this photograph? 

 

If Waterhouse had never read Tennyson's poem, would he have created this powerful painting? 

 

If Tennyson had never experienced the Arthurian legend, would he have written his poem?

 

All questions to be contemplated and written about in a future blog. 

 

One thing that I am sure of all works can be appreciated on their own merits regardless of their provenance or inspiration.