Kenilworth
New member
If you ever have the pleasure and privilege and burden of responsibility to be an explorer of virgin cave, what will be your priorities? Around here, the tradition is to hurry and get it mapped so you can slap your name on the survey, and write on the internet or in a magazine about how many feet were discovered. Of course you will include a few photos of the heroic explorers posing dramatically. Then, after the exploring is finished and you have been duly praised and envied, the much publicized new discovery is abandoned to whatever forces will have it.
It is an easy thing, and probably the least we should do, to photograph a new cave or passage thoroughly as soon as possible after the original discovery. Before surveying, before taping, before crowing and attracting a crowd, why not do your best to document the cave in photos? For a long time, the cave survey has been viewed as the definitive act of documentation, but I am not sure that it should be. It seems backward that cavers should go to great pains to create an accurate map, straining and squabbling over a couple of degrees here or there, but disregard the weightier act of documenting the cave visually. This is one of many symptoms of an apparently unhealthy conservation ethic.
Or at least it has been so in my case. For about five years I worked more or less constantly to "document" the small caves of my county. I took the care of the cave very seriously during that time, but I was stuck in that pattern of egotism that dominates American caving. I surveyed and described every known cave in the county (and many new discoveries), and drew all of the maps, but took very few photographs. The NSS offered to publish my material as a book, which was finished about a year ago. Looking at the book now, I am frankly ashamed at having created such an incomplete and self-exultant publication. It isn't really about the caves, but about our having discovered them. The primary thing missing is thorough photography. I would now gladly trade the maps that I was so proud of for some good pictures. I have begun to revisit these caves, and to try and finish a real work of documentation, but in some cases it is too late to account for what was lost during our original explorations. It becomes too late very quickly.
The contributions of The Old Ruminator to this site demonstrate the value of photography. I cannot say for sure, but I see in his photos what I would guess to be affection for the cave, and even reverence. This is in contrast with some highly skilled cave photographers who use the cave as a set to showcase themselves. I am glad that TOR does not seem to be a highly skilled cave photographer, because he is proof that any one of us are capable of doing this thing. If conservation is the protection of valuable things from unnecessary waste, then photographs are as valuable as anything we can do. They provide a point of contact between ourselves and the past, and hold us responsible for the changes we make. They are a proof that at least someone assigned enough value to beautiful or interesting or immaculate places to save them in perhaps the only sense possible. And of course they allow us to enjoy and to mourn what is lost and perhaps resolve ourselves to deeper care in the future.
It is an easy thing, and probably the least we should do, to photograph a new cave or passage thoroughly as soon as possible after the original discovery. Before surveying, before taping, before crowing and attracting a crowd, why not do your best to document the cave in photos? For a long time, the cave survey has been viewed as the definitive act of documentation, but I am not sure that it should be. It seems backward that cavers should go to great pains to create an accurate map, straining and squabbling over a couple of degrees here or there, but disregard the weightier act of documenting the cave visually. This is one of many symptoms of an apparently unhealthy conservation ethic.
Or at least it has been so in my case. For about five years I worked more or less constantly to "document" the small caves of my county. I took the care of the cave very seriously during that time, but I was stuck in that pattern of egotism that dominates American caving. I surveyed and described every known cave in the county (and many new discoveries), and drew all of the maps, but took very few photographs. The NSS offered to publish my material as a book, which was finished about a year ago. Looking at the book now, I am frankly ashamed at having created such an incomplete and self-exultant publication. It isn't really about the caves, but about our having discovered them. The primary thing missing is thorough photography. I would now gladly trade the maps that I was so proud of for some good pictures. I have begun to revisit these caves, and to try and finish a real work of documentation, but in some cases it is too late to account for what was lost during our original explorations. It becomes too late very quickly.
The contributions of The Old Ruminator to this site demonstrate the value of photography. I cannot say for sure, but I see in his photos what I would guess to be affection for the cave, and even reverence. This is in contrast with some highly skilled cave photographers who use the cave as a set to showcase themselves. I am glad that TOR does not seem to be a highly skilled cave photographer, because he is proof that any one of us are capable of doing this thing. If conservation is the protection of valuable things from unnecessary waste, then photographs are as valuable as anything we can do. They provide a point of contact between ourselves and the past, and hold us responsible for the changes we make. They are a proof that at least someone assigned enough value to beautiful or interesting or immaculate places to save them in perhaps the only sense possible. And of course they allow us to enjoy and to mourn what is lost and perhaps resolve ourselves to deeper care in the future.