ABSTRACT
117Having finished the last chapter the day before, loaded my camera the night before, and risen early when the light was right, I walked one day through airy woods to a spot high on a headland — “all America is behind me now” — where months before I’d conceived the idea to depict a broad, uninterrupted view of the sea. The delay between idea and act was only pardy a lack of earlier opportunity, but also, I believe, a vague and preliminary honoring of a principle I’ve since grasped more firmly. Whenever I want most to make a picture — film or paint — of a compelling scene (the more compelling require it more), the picture goes better if, for a year or more, when I revisit the scene, I forget my camera or brush. When I finally bring the needed tools and settle to the intended task, the picture then seems consistently to photograph or to paint itself. I take it that in the gap between intention and execution, out of view of the scene, freer of it, and 118having time to review and rework it, I photograph or paint the picture in the back of my head, where vision is clearer and fuller.*
