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Matinee: 'A Lens on the World'
22 April 2023
Saturday matinees long ago let us escape from the ordinary world to the island of the Swiss Family Robinson or the mutinous decks of the Bounty. Why not, we thought, escape the usual fare here with Saturday matinees of our favorite photography films?
So we're pleased to present the 497th in our series of Saturday matinees today: A Lens on the World.
In this 11:18 video by Sam Nuttmann, National Geographic photographer Kiliii Yuyan observes, "Photography is like a spell. I start working on it and then I'm bewitched."
We were too.
Yuyan takes us along on a shoot that documents the decline of the orca population off the coast of Seattle as their one food source, Chinock salmon, die off from drought and heat waves in the region.
Along the way we get a glimpse of the dedication of this environmental photographer and the importance of photography in showing rather than merely telling the world what's at stake.
"Orcas are people in whale suits," he says. But they aren't showing up in their usual feeding grounds because there's nothing on the menu. And that's a problem because it breaks the chain between orca, salmon and human.
He does his research, talks to people and gains their trust before snapping the shutter which, he says, is just "putting a period on the end of a sentence."
That, though, moves people from a general knowledge of a subject to feeling the issue, Yuyan says.
The crew he's sailing with do eventually find the orcas. There's a magic to being in the right place at the right time, he says. And we get to see the stills. And, yes, it's magic.
The magic that engenders change in the world.