Lone Paddler In Snowstorm

Truckee River, Alpine Meadows, California

Athlete: Lel Tone

Camera: Nikon F5

What makes it special: Everyone sees the world with their own eyes. Everyone, from their own unique perspective, finds things with which they connect. It doesn't matter who you are or where you're from, everyone can be captured by a moment. It doesn't matter how big or how small, there is simple truth that resonates.

The story:  "Applying my own original perspective, interpreting how I see and feel the world around me, is key to my art. When it works, the emotion translates to anyone, even if they don't share a common reference. My challenge is to instill in them the moment, to translate it to those who didn't get to experience it first-hand.

For instance, you're in a snowstorm...I maintain that, just as there is a paradigm of "mountain," there is a paradigm of "snowstorm." Anyone who has ever been in the middle of a snowstorm knows the feeling; you're unequivocally, ethereally, mystically immersed in soft, drifting, delicate texture and light, but, how do you communicate this magical lightness to someone who has never seen snow?

For years I tried in vain to capture this emotion visually. My journey as an artist, as the best of my art, is metaphoric. I am Sisyphus; the rock is my camera and the top of the hill is the emotional moment, the paradigm preserved and successfully evoked.

I realize that any reasonable interpretation of this snowfall experience exemplifies quiet softness and gentle lightness, the pure sensation of white, white snow, but, again, how do I make them feel and know "snowstorm?" Slowly but surely, through trial and error and fortuitous, painstaking experimentation, mistakes become clues. I find my way up my personal hill.

By using a strobe and modern, high-speed black & white film, cross-processed with an old-style Rodinal developer from the 60s, the artistic result is an amalgamation of a beautiful, peaceful moment with a long, sustained path of creative insight and technical exploration.

I assume the lone paddler has a journey and destination. Lone Paddler In Snowstorm is one of mine."