Photo Shoot: Melting Down on Cape Cod
“I’m melting” is a memorable line from "The Wizard of Oz." Late in the movie, running one hour and 52 minutes, the Wicked Witch of the West, Margaret Hamilton, uses her broom to set fire to the Scarecrow. Dorothy grabs a pail of water, hurls it at the Scarecrow and douses the witch. Lo and behold, water is her nemesis, she melts into a puddle of water.
My curious photojournalist mind always seems to stick on the vision of that scene in the aftermath of Cape snowstorms.
Our pre-Valentine’s “impact weather day” precipitation stuck around for quite a long time. Below freezing temps kept even a string of sunny weather from taking away our snowpack. I kept looking for melting imagery but was never able to find a good string of dripping icicles or a snowman tilting towards the sun.
April 1997: Snow photo burnout had set in
Back in 1997, the April Fools’ storm was legendary for its timing as much as the over a foot of snow it dumped on the Cape. The event was big weather news, and it had the photo staff going full throttle for several days. Snow photo burnout had set in for me, it was April after all.
I voiced this concern to the photo editor. His suggestion and I quote, “Go climb up a snowbank and photograph the rivulets of water melting out from the bottom.” I wasn’t sure if he was serious, or it was a coded message to buzz off and bring back a usable standalone image for the next day’s paper.
Over time, the movie scene has blended into the “rivulets” directive. I set out, cameras in hand, on winter thaw days with a long unfulfilled goal of finding a great melting photo. It is not for lack of trying but, so far, the icicles have not aligned. For inspiration on days when the cameras are working fine and the light is good but the photos aren’t, I always turn to a quote from photographer Joe McNally.
“The life of a photographer is largely about climbing over the safety rail and peering out and over, and beyond. And we keep doing it, ill-advisedly, despite the fact that there is often nothing there to see, or what is seen is disappointing, irrelevant, drab and hardly worth the effort, much less the risk to ourselves. But we keep doing it. Over and over, with no assurances of success, safety or remuneration. Because there may be a picture there. Unlikely, but possible. And that tantalizing possibility is the endless fuel that animates the photographic spirit …”
So, the search for rivulets of snow melt continues.
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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Meltdown on Cape Cod with Times photographer Steve Heaslip
