documentary photography

BARBUDA

June 14, 2022 in video

Poetic video piece about the Caribbean island Barbuda.

Cover and Editorial Publications

September 10, 2020 in portrait, travel

New Cover photo and Editorial Publications in Naturally Danny Seo Fall 2020

I photographed another cover for Naturally Danny Seo Magazine this summer and it is out now! The cover was photographed in Serenbe, GA. I had to fly out from Santa Barbara, or LAX, to shoot this cover and one of the stories in the magazine. This was right when cases of Covid started to rise in Georgia. Not so comfortable but the travel experience was actually insanely easy. No lines, no waiting. Lots of space on the plane.

Cover photograph for Naturally Danny Seo Magazine by Jonas Jungblut

The portrait of Amy Feezer was photographed virtually via FaceTime. A technique I used to shoot a story for the Washington Post earlier this year which also landed me a cover. You can see more examples of Virtual Portraits in my series APART/TOGETHER.
The story on Anna Getty took me to Ojai, just about an hour’s drive from Santa Barbara. We spent the day at Anna’s house and had a good time. That was a really enjoyable shoot!
To photograph Elizabeth Stein of purely elizabeth I actually drove from Santa Barbara to Boulder, CO, a quick 20 hour drive… I stopped in Salt Lake City and made a road trip out of it which was super fun.
The Modern Farmhouse story was shot in Serenbe during the same trip we photographed the cover of the magazine. Serenbe is a small community outside of Atlanta. I have visited this charming, little gem a few times before but this time it felt like it is really growing together. There are still a lot of houses being built, a lot of them modeled after European villages (I was told the founder of Serenbe literally recreated roof lines from photographs he took of villages in Europe) and it is coming together nicely.
Finally there is a one page story about Ireland. These photos are from my first trip for the magazine when we spent a week in Ireland, stayed at castles, harvested seaweed and got sick from Oysters…

Virtual Portrait of Amy Feezor by Jonas Jungblut

National Magazine Covers

June 11, 2020 in portrait

Two National Magazine Covers at a time - I am happy!

Here are two recent covers of national magazines with my images on them. Pretty stoked, I have to say! The Washington Post Magazine cover was shot remotely, via FaceTime and other video chat applications during lock down. When I started my FaceTime portrait project I sure didn’t anticipate ending up on the cover of the Washington Post mag. Another great example of jumping off a cliff, figuring out how to fly on the way down and landing in paradise… I guess. It just shows that sticking your neck out usually leads to something. All the images for this article and my project Apart/Together, which features subjects from around the globe, were photographed while I was at home in Santa Barbara. Times are changing and technology is speeding up that change in a scary way.
The Naturally cover was photographed in Minneapolis. No idea did I have that just a few months later the city would become the epicenter of a powerful resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement.
On that note: I was always fascinated by the change that occured in the United States in the 60’s. People standing up for their rights and changing things. It was part of what made me want to immigrate here. Our current situation reminds of that time and seeing people fight for their rights in the streets as well as in the media again is inspiring!

FaceTime Portraits for the Washington Post

May 18, 2020 in portrait

I recently shot portraits for an editorial for the Washington Post Magazine via FaceTime

FaceTime Portraits for the Washington Post

A few weeks ago I was assigned by the Washington Post Magazine to photograph 19 subjects across the United Stated. The assignment was for a piece they were putting together highlighting positive stories during the Covid-19 pandemic. I photographed it all via FaceTime.

The subjects ranged from writer Margaret Atwood to Park Ranger Jessica Korgie. From comedian Russel Peters to shop owner Ifat Pridan. An amazing range of personalities and I got to meet them all in their spaces. One on one! Surreal!!! I just dropped in on them in their homes!

Given a somewhat tight deadline the biggest challenge was scheduling all the subjects. I had done over 60 FaceTime portraits prior to this assignment so I felt comfortable once the call was on but getting it all sorted was another story.

A big Thank You to Dudley Brooks at the Post for having the vision to put this together!!!

Take a look here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/lifestyle/magazine/america-resilient-coronavirus-pandemic/?itid=sf_lifestyle-magazine

FaceTime Portraits

May 04, 2020 in portrait

More Virtual Portraits photographed with FaceTime

Since my last post about my Virtual FaceTime Portraits a lot has happened on that front. At this point I have photographed 80 plus people with FaceTime photoshoots and I am still shooting almost every day. The Washington Post has assigned me with a story for which I had to photograph 17 people across the United States and I photographed a musical Quintet in the Netherlands.

What I keep telling people is that as a portrait photographer I normally move intuitively around the subject. I adjust the cameras angle and position relative to the subject subconsciously, small movements can make a big difference. All of that I now have to do with words. When photographing the violin players for the Quintet in the Netherlands I was telling them that it is sort of like them telling someone how to place the fingers on the strings of the violin to play. I would argue that my results are a little bit better than what that situation would produce but you get the idea.

Another interesting development I have watched for the past weeks is that FaceTime photoshoots are happening all over the place now. To the point where companies like Nike are trying it out. Some photographers are projecting the FaceTime call onto surfaces of all sorts and then photograph the projection, some shoot it in color, some focus on professional models, it’s all over the place.
This brings me back to what I said in an interview with aphotoeditor.com about my project. While the technical quality of these shoots is mostly pretty rough, I believe this technique will be used in the future even past the Covid lockdown. Cameras on phones will get better, 5G will improve call quality and clients will think twice about flying someone around the world when they can just send a high end Iphone to the subject and do the shoot remotely. It will be niche, I am sure but I am also sure that it will be done. Technology just has to catch up a little bit more. Nobody had a PDA in the early 2000’s, then mobile internet allowed the Iphone to do what it did.

One think FaceTime does not seem to like at this point is movement. Subjects have to be rather still for the quality to catch up and not look glitchy. But with a great connection and a newer model device I have been able to get FaceTime Portraits that look amazing on a screen. They go through some post processing, sharpening and grain mostly, and then are completely usable for screen applications. I also printed some portraits and made collages and grids which I then photographed with my DSLR and got a high res file of.

FaceTime photoshoots force the photographer to dive deep into the creativity bucket and that’s why they are great! There is almost no control over technical aspects of the camera, no exposure, focus, or any other trickery. The photographer isn’t even holding the camera. I had people stick their device in the washing machine and shoot out of it, hide behind colored plexiglass and involve their spouses to act as moving tripods. It becomes a creative exercise for both, the photographer and the subject and especially during times of Covid lockdown offer a fun escape from being stuck at home.

JUNGBLUT2019 now available

January 23, 2020 in portrait, travel

my annual journal style book JUNGBLUT2019 is now available

It is here!!! JUNGBLUT2019!!! My annual journal style magazine featuring my favorite photographs of the year.

I have been making the JUNGBLUT20xx since 2013 and it’s been fun to go through the year and select portraits, travel images and whatever else stood out that year to compile them all in this volume. This is not a portfolio, it is a journal style compilation featuring photographs from personal projects, tests, magazine publications and commercial photo shoots. It features images that may be outtakes from jobs or the hero images. It is a truly personal piece, showcasing the images that stood out to me and which I love.
It also helps to keep track of my progress over the years. At this point I can go back 5 years and see how my style has changed. From taking a portrait or landscape image to editing it and then also formatting it in the magazine. And of course it acts as sort of a catalog of my work. Selecting the best images from a year and printing them in a tangible magazine insures that they stay around.
I bring these on jobs and leave them behind, or send them in the mail but you can also just buy one from Magcloud HERE. And you can find the previous years HERE.

Latest Editorial Publication - Susanne Kaufmann

January 22, 2020 in travel, portrait

A travel/portrait editorial I shot of Susanne Kaufmann in Vorarlberg, Austria

Susanne Kaufmann at the hotel Post in Bezau photographed by Jonas Jungblut

I am based in Santa Barbara but travel for around 80% of my work. I do have roots in Berlin, where I grew up, and also in Vorarlberg, Austria, where my family is from. For the past years we have spent the summer in Austria and while a lot of it is exploration (aka shooting stock) I always sneak a little bit of assignment work in.
Last year I pitched a story about Bezau local and international brand name Susanne Kaufmann to Naturally Danny Seo Mag, a magazine I work for a lot. Danny knew about Susanne and her high-end skin care line and so I ended up shooting this story in a dreamy, tiny little town in the Austrian Alps, around the corner from where my family has lived for a very long time.
Susanne and her team couldn’t have been nicer and accommodating but the thing that really was just incredibly satisfying was the fact that I was working in my back yard for a US national publication. Not only helping to spread the word about this brand but also supporting the area in general. Being an editorial and commercial photographer means that you get to meet new people and explore new places all the time, and that is fun. When you can feature something that is close to you it’s like the icing on the cake!

Susanne Kaufmann editorial photographed by Jonas Jungblut

Portrait of Caroline Marks at the Surfranch

December 01, 2019 in portrait

Portrait and action shot of pro surfer Caroline Marks for Red Bull at the Surfranch in Lemoore, CA.

When I was at the Surfranch for Red Bull photographing portraits of Carissa Moore (see post HERE) I also shot portraits of ripper Caroline Marks. We did a few different set ups but the one below was my favorite. Dark background and natural light is hard to not make look cool. And Caroline’s blue eyes just look stunning here.

portrait of Caroline Marks at the Surfranch in Lemoore, CA

I also got a sweet little action shot of Caroline ripping it up in the water. It was amazing to watch her surf ALL DAY LONG. The amount of energy and endurance is borderline scary.

Caroline Marks surfing at the Surfranch in Lemoore, CA.

I’ll post the other athlete portraits I took that day of Jordy Smith, Kolohe Andino and Kanoa Igarashi soon. A fun day shooting portraits of some amazing athletes at the Surfranch!

You can find some of the images I shot on Red Bull’s content pool website.

Portraits at the Surfranch

October 08, 2019 in portrait, vlog

Shooting portraits of surfers for Red Rull at Kelly Slater’s Surfranch in Lemoore, CA

Following up on the last post, here is a vlog documenting the shoot I did for Red Bull at the Surfranch. I took portraits of Carissa Moore, Jordy Smith, Kolohe Andino, Caroline Marks and Kanoa Igarashi throughout the day. Check it out!

Portrait of Carissa Moore

October 03, 2019 in portrait

New portrait of 3-time world champion surfer Carissa Moore.

I have been working with Red Bull for many years and recently I had the great pleasure to go out to the Kelly Slater Surfranch in Lemoore, CA for a shoot. I surf, have for many years, so going to the Surfranch was a bucket list item to begin with, especially since I was told to bring a board since “you never know”! Red Bull hired me to photograph a few of their surfers in order to update imagery for the upcoming Freshwater Pro at the Surfranch. Stoked!

When I found out that I would be photographing Carissa Moore the stoke went to yet another level. Carissa is amazing! Given the opportunity to capture a portrait of her was a big honor. Me = happy! I also photographed a couple other of the Red Bull surfers that day, I will post some of those portraits soon.

We photographed a few different set ups all within only a few minutes. I was hired to photograph portraits but during some downtime I also went and shot some action shots of Carissa surfing. Watching that wave is a trip. It is perfect over and over and over and over again… It definitely is lacking the soul I cherish about surfing but this isn’t a critique of the Surfranch, go read opinions about it elsewhere. Bottom line, when it comes to a wave, it doesn’t get better than this.

Throughout the day Carissa and the other surfers kept going at it. At one point in the afternoon I just stared in disbelief at the pool wondering how these guys were still ripping. I would have pooped out many hours ago… I did get my answer when Carissa stepped in front of my camera a little later: She could easily put me on the floor…

A big fat THANK YOU to Red Bull for getting me out there and in front of, not only Carissa Moore but a few other amazing surfers who I will share soon. Also amazing: I was asked to shoot medium format black and white film for part of this! I don’t get that request too many times these days but it’s always a big treat to pull out the Hasselblad and shoot film!

Editorial Publication - Japan

September 01, 2019 in travel

Tearsheets from my recent editorial photographed in Japan for Naturally Danny Seo

In May of this year I traveled to Japan for Naturally Danny Seo to photograph an editorial around travel and food. I photographed portraits, landscapes, food and some industrial/ingredient images, a true travel story. Our journey started in Osaka and via Tokushima we traveled to Tokyo from where we departed (check out a vlog HERE ). We documented Wakame (seaweed) harvests, Mochi production, visited a Umeboshi (plum) farm/factory, a Miso producer and finally a Shoyu (Japanese style soy sauce) facility. This last stop left us with the most exotic experience.

You fall in, you never come out…

The Shoyu was cured in large wooden barrels measuring a diameter of about eight feet with a depth of at least ten feet. We could walk between the open barrels but they were placed tightly together so that the space between them got very narrow in the middle, less than a foot wide. At first I just thought it was fun balancing in between the barrels but then I realized that the Shoyu was too thick to swim in. If I fell in I would just sink to the bottom. And they were wide enough to where it was pretty unlikely to get a hold on the rim if you actually fell. It became clear that if you fell in, you’d never come out. It would take too long for someone to notice, know which one you fell in and then find some sort of device to pull you out. I stepped a lot more carefully…
Once I was done shooting I asked our guide about it and had my theory confirmed…

I had one amazing short little trail run in Tokushima prefacture (vlog HERE) and of course seeing Mt. Fuji from the Shinkansen at dusk was amazing (and so was seeing it from the hotel in Tokyo). The alleys in Ginza (Tokyo) at night were fantastic and the fact that they shut down the road in Ginza and converted it into a promenade on the weekend was nice to see.

Many thanks to the team and the people of Japan for making this a fantastic journey!

Natural light portrait

July 09, 2019 in portrait

Natural light portrait of artist Nikola Bartenbach in Austria.

I am currently in Austria working on a few personal projects. One of those is portraying local people and recently I photographed artist Nikola Bartenbach.

This was photographed with no light modification. He was standing in a doorway with a dark garage behind him and the light just wrapped around him like this. Finding the right light for portraits is often times easier than one would think, or maybe I have done it for long enough to where it just seems to be like that.

When you are on the road and can’t bring light modifiers or don’t have access to any being able to see the light is essential. Travel portraiture mostly relies on the right light but the same practice can be applied to a more organized portrait. Just spending a few minutes looking around the area and locating a spot that is naturally suited for a portrait can make all the difference.

Editorial publication in Naturally Danny Seo

May 29, 2019 in travel, portrait

Lots of new work in the summer issue of Naturally Danny Seo

Over the last months I photographed a piece on LePrunier, a Sacramento based brand that makes plum beauty oil, a story on GT’s Kombucha that featured GT Dave, the founder of the brand and a travel story about my very own, Santa Barbara! The Santa Barbara story featured great local spots like East Beach Tacos, Garde, Jake and Jones, Make Smith Leather, the Lark, Satellite, Bibi Ji, Lotusland, Auto Camp and the Hotel Californian. And last but not least my good, artist buddy Nelson Parrish.

Check out the tearsheets below:

Photographing 20 Strangers in Isla Vista

May 07, 2019 in portrait

Step out of your comfort zone and photograph 20 random people on the street.

I studied photography at Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara. Known for educating students on the highest level of technical skill when it comes to photography there was one (amongst others) infamous assignment that dealt with approaching a stranger in order to photograph them. This was obviously not intended to teach a technical but a communication skill. It also forced you to deal with your fears and doubts. It challenged your comfort zone. It was called 25 Strangers.
Basically you had to produce a portfolio of 25 random strangers. Build a pop-up portrait studio in a park, photograph the strangers in a bar, at the pool, the retirement home or at the law firm on the corner of your street. I don’t remember the specific rules of the assignment but I put up a white background and had each of my strangers add a word to a sentence on a small chalk board and then I photographed them with the chalk board. I called it: 25 Strangers build a sentence. Surprisingly they didn’t. The sentence was grammatically and logically just … not a sentence. No idea what went wrong there…?

Anyways. The other day I remembered this assignment and decided to revisit it. 15 years and many strangers in front of my lens, from celebrities to homeless people in the back alleys of Mumbai, later I figured I should be a lot better at this. But it still was challenging the comfort zone a little. No control over the situation and you have to talk a random stranger into taking their portrait.

So Hugo and I went into Isla Vista on a Friday morning and approached a bunch of strangers. Isla Vista is a blend of University students, homeless people and middle aged surfers. Generally a demographic open to random experiences. This worked in our favor I think. Still, it took a little time to get groovy with.

The amazing thing about doing this was people opening up and telling stories. As you can see in the video some of the strangers shared memories, vented or maybe simply wanted to chat. It was amazing to see how quickly one can dive a lot deeper into a community by simply striking up a conversation with random people on the street. And using a portrait project like this is of course the perfect ice breaker.

I do this type of thing on assignment all the time but it is different when you go into your own community and when there is no agenda or story that you need to tell. Just letting your ego go, the creative juices flow and welcoming any input with open arms. Fun!

Everest in a Stairwell

February 11, 2019 in portrait

Climbing 29,097 feet in a LA skyscraper

The idea is simple: climb 29,029′, the equivalent of Mt. Everest’s elevation, in a skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles in one day.

Obviously when one climbs the real mountain there is much less vertical elevation to deal with. But the lack of oxygen and exposure to the elements more than make up for that. Let’s just be clear from the beginning. Climbing Everest is much harder on every level.

Still the idea is enticing so a group of nine men entered a very tall building in downtown Los Angeles one morning after driving down from Santa Barbara and got ready to ascend the 55 floors via the stairwell over and over… and over and over and over again. It would take 40 ascensions to make the 29K feet of elevation gain. There was also a cut off time since the building was shutting down and the security guards who had to be in the building wanted to go home.

I was one of those nine men but I wasn’t there to reach the goal, I was there to document. To photograph the ordeal. Capturing the climbers required me to sit and wait in the stairwell for extended amounts of time and carrying my camera gear up the stairs didn’t help either. At the end of the day I did 10 ascensions and was perfectly fine with that.

One of the unforeseen challenges that started impacting climbers was motion sickness. constantly turning right in the stairwell started really messing with them. To the point of puking. Not pretty but part of the game.

Mid-day everyone had their groove going and in the early afternoon there was a scheduled break so that one of the climbers could propose to his girlfriend on top of the roof. This solid hour of break time would bite the remaining climbers (the newly engaged left after to celebrate) in the end. At 33 ascensions they ran out of time. They had climbed a respectable elevation of 24,000 feet.

The Young Man and The Island

January 20, 2019 in travel

a story about Barbuda

On the night of September 5th to 6th, 2017 Hurricane Irma made landfall on the Caribbean island of Barbuda. A category 5 hurricane, the strongest ever recorded, its destruction of Barbuda was practically complete with 97% of all structures rendered uninhabitable.

This body of work is as much a personal response as it is a document of an event. I approached this project without an agenda and the product aims not to point fingers, I just wanted to tell a story of a man visiting a place.

The day before I left for Antigua I went to the local bookstore, explained my adventure and asked if there were suggestions for books by Hemingway to take on the trip. The Old Man and the Sea walked out of the store with me that day and by the time I boarded the plane the next day I had mostly finished it. It immediately consumed me and became the inspiration for the narrative part of the project. Little did I know at that point how well my adventure was going to align, if only in my head, with the old man’s.

He had never been to The Island. He had been close. One hour and a half by motorboat close but never any closer. But he had felt an odd attraction towards it. The name of The Island had felt so exotic to him back then. The first time he was close and even more the second and third time.

Now it was destroyed. Wiped clean by winds so fast one could not experience them by sticking a hand out the window of most cars going as fast as they will go. Gusts as fast as the wind blows in a sailors worst nightmare, and faster. Wind like he had never experienced, not even close. He grew up in a city and lived by the sea now. But a sea that does not rage like the sea raged when The Island was destroyed. The only rage he had felt that could compare to the rage of the sea and the wind that day was the rage of the earth. The rage of the earth that made buildings swing and crumble, bridges collapse and brought with it death. Death in the literal sense for many people but also death in the conceptual sense for him. He had never experienced certain death before, nor after. It had changed him. He had also learned that certain death was not certain.

When he learned about the destruction of The Island he had not thought of it in a while. It came as a shock and he was deeply saddened for days. Then he learned more and saw a report about it on TV. Then the reporting stopped and the world lost interest. About 1600 people lost everything they had and the world watched and then changed the channel. The world that was likely responsible for the pain did not want to feel it. Pain and suffering were nothing new to The Island but this time The Island had nothing left to give and it’s people had to leave. There was nothing there for them anymore. Of course the sand and the rock on The Island didn’t care, nor did the shells and the water in the lagoon. They were just part of it all, have been forever. But the soul of The Island felt the pain. It felt betrayed, it felt sad, powerless. He felt like he wanted to go to The Island. But it was far away and going there wouldn’t make much sense. He was busy, his wife was even more busy. His kids needed him, who was he kidding?

But The Island didn’t let go. It kept calling. At night he would lay awake, his wife deep asleep next to him and he couldn’t stop thinking about The Island. He couldn’t really make sense of it but for weeks his mind kept going back to it.

Then he went for a run on a trail. As he was running his mind became very focused and it got stuck on The Island again. Why was it calling so strong? He ran through a dried out creek bed. He realized that he knew someone on the island next to The Island. She had just returned there and oddly the day before she left he had talked with her to learn of her departure. He was running uphill through a bunch of sage bushes now, running his hands through the dried out leaves and taking in the scent on the skin of his fingers. Maybe he could fly there on miles, stay with his friend, it would be much easier to convince himself if the trip didn’t cost much money. Twentyfour hours later his trip to the island, the one his friend lived on, was booked, he couldn’t believe it. It was impulsive and a little out of character and it also wasn’t.

For a week he arranged transportation to The Island and assembled his tools and the anticipation built. He had been looking for this. For many weeks and months he had yearned to find a project for the soul. A project that was his, a project he could dissolve in. He had produced valuable work but nothing like this. It had been nagging him, keeping him up at night but now his aim was focused. He knew what he needed to do.

On a Monday evening he kissed his family good-bye and boarded a plane to go far out, far out of comfort, far out from home. To feed his soul. To find what he was looking for. To follow the penetrating call. The sun set and the orange glow dimly shone through the airplane window when they took off. And the familiar mountains disappeared below.

On the plane next to him there was a man. A very social man and they were in conversation for the entire duration of the flight. The young man saw it as a good omen even though he did not necessarily believe in omens. But it was exactly what he was looking for. Connecting with the world. So he was happy.

The young man arrived on the other island, the one he was staying on since The Island was destroyed and nobody could stay there and he was excited but also nervous. He felt clumsy. He was hungry since he hadn’t eaten during his whole trip which had taken many hours. He also had not slept much. He felt that his interactions with people had an undertone of insecurity. Finally he got into a taxi and got more comfortable, finding his groove back.

Then he met the architect. At first the architect looked like Andy Warhol to the young man but it faded over the days. He immediately liked the architect. Over the course of the next two days the architect showed him around, and told him many stories. Some of the stories were outrageous, some sad and some funny. But all of them stemmed from experiences that make a man wise. So the young man appreciated them. And he learned that the architect was a wise man, having experienced so many stories.

Every night the young man would eat fried chicken and pre-cut watermelon and cold beer. He would sit on the patio in a comfortable chair and eat the chicken straight out of the paper bag. When he glanced up, there between some branches and many leaves, perfectly framed, was yet another island. A small one. But it had a little shack with a bar and chairs on it for people to picnic at and a small but perfect little beach of white, clay-like Caribbean sand mixed with tiny little pieces of broken down shells. The young man paused upon this view every time and the world around him would disappear for a moment. He then would take a sip of his beer from the can and continue with the chicken.

For the first two nights he slept on the couch in the living room. He could not sleep though. All the windows were open and a strong breeze cooled him but it was still too hot to be under the sheets. And without the sheets the young man was getting attacked by what seemed like an army of mosquitoes. The young man hated mosquitoes. It was because they loved him. They loved him like anything hungry loves a meal, but more. He was a tasty meal. He fought. He cursed. Half awake, half asleep. He covered himself with the sheets completely, over the head. It was too hot and he had to face the bloodsucking creatures again.

The area he stayed at made him dependent on transportation. He had to accept the fact that he was not mobile. For two days he mentally prepared for the day on the island. He spent much time looking at the sea. He watched the rain and took walks along the coastline.

The young man was a photographer and normally he would have taken many photographs and made a big effort to move around and capture scenes, people’s faces. But he was too consumed with the island and so he just observed and prepared, taking a few photographs here and there just to keep the muscle memory sharp but nothing that took away from his mental focus. He had traveled many miles and invested a lot of energy for this and he wanted to be sharp in his head and strong with his body when it came time to go to the island and photograph it.

The night before he was going to the island he slept in a proper room. On a proper bed. There were less mosquitoes and he slept good. He woke at first light and lay in bed for a few minutes collecting his thoughts. He was excited. He was nervous. He also felt like something was a little off. He knew the feeling of excitement and nervousness. It always happened before an important project was about to start. But the other feeling concerned him.

It was raining hard outside. A storm system was moving across the islands but he was prepared for that. It didn’t bother him. It wasn’t ideal but he could deal with it. He got up. His pack was assembled and ready but he was concerned with its weight and once he added his drinking water to it he realized it was too heavy. In a quick decision he shed a lot of weight by taking out his back-up camera. The one that was in a watertight bag for the case that it was raining too hard to use his main camera. This was better and he was still confident in being able to do what he came for.

At seven o’clock he was waiting outside for the taxi he had scheduled. At 7:10 he got nervous. The boat he had secured a ride out to the island on was to leave no later than 7:45. The wife of the governor of The Island had personally initiated the aid he had received which had made his trip possible. The boat captain had agreed to take him under these conditions. The car ride to the boat would take about 20 to 30 minutes and the young man had given himself almost double this time. He hated to be late. He was never late. He was known to always be early or right on time.

He reached out to the cabdriver. After a few painful minutes the cabdriver apologized and insured him that he was on his way. The bad feeling the young man had felt earlier came back. Or maybe it had been lingering. He could not miss this boat. No way. It would be disaster. He felt it. The fight. It had intensified. He was aware of the need of it. He had been seeking it out. This whole undergoing was intended to challenge him. No challenge, no real success. He wanted this fight. And it had just intensified.

The driver pulled up at 7:25, barely enough time to make the boat. A young guy. Apologetic but immature and not a man. He had no fuel in his car and had to stop to fill his tank. The clouds were dark and evil looking. The young man was getting very nervous and communicated to the kid that there was no time to waste. The kid then started driving like a madman. Passing rows of cars stuck in traffic and speeding along the narrow, pothole-lined streets like a mad kid. Rain pouring out of the dark sky.

At 7:52 they were coming down from the mountains and towards a bay and a harbor. But it was the wrong one. The kid in his immaturity had not listened to the instructions and gone to the wrong harbor. The young man was feeling afraid. This fight had picked up intensity yet again and was overwhelming him. The kid was driving even more mad now and the world was falling apart. Fear crept into the young man’s mind. Fear of losing this fight.

At 8:06 the greenery outside the window was a blur. The raindrops hit the windshield and were rapidly pushed across it by the air rushing at the flying car. The young man was holding on and the boat had left.

He had been writing text messages with the captain and had just received the final message. The message that meant that he had lost the fight. The message that rendered all his efforts useless. His body went from tense to slack.

At first he didn’t believe it. It couldn’t be. All this and a dumb kid taxi driver destroys it? That wasn’t even a fight! That was getting shot in the back! He told the kid. He looked out the window, out at the sea. It sank in very slowly. He could not believe it. It just could not be! The kid got on his phone while still driving frantically. The young man didn’t care. He couldn’t look at him. He looked out the window. He thought about what this meant. What he would do now. What would he say to the many people that had been involved in making this happen? He was not sad. He was not angry. He was numb.

After about five minutes of mental break-down he switched back into fighting mode. This was not happening!

He got back in touch with the captain. And after some back-and-forth he miraculously found another boat that would take him. They raced to yet another harbor.

The events had taken a lot of energy out of the young man. He was tired and felt weak but he knew what he had to do.

The new boat was supposed to leave at ten. He got to the dock just after nine. The boat got to the dock at 10:36. The young man feared of losing valuable time on The Island but this crew did not care about him or his needs. The girl at the dock who signed everybody in walked so slowly it looked like she did it intentionally to piss someone off. And once everyone who had come in on the boat had left it, the boat left as well. To get fuel.

When the young man finally boarded the vessel he had waited for three hours. He was really worried about how much time he would have on The Island.

There had been a few very nice islanders waiting with him who told him stories about the big storm and how they had survived. Running for shelter during the eye of the storm since the roof had blown off their house. One of them was sitting near him on the boat and she told him that her nieces two-year-old son had died when the ocean came into their house, swept him away. So much about a fight he thought to himself.

The noise on the boat was deafening. The young man was mentally exhausted. The engine was emitting a constant high-pitched, whining sound on top of its deep rumble. Outside waves were getting hit by rain and the boat was climbing the waves and then sinking into the valleys. Loud island music was blaring out of metallic sounding speakers. The whole thing was an insult to the senses. The whole boat vibrating from the impact of a large wave, the music, the events of the recent past. The young man was tired.

But then during the heaviest of downpours of rain the wind died down and the waves calmed and he looked at the sea and it looked so peaceful, so inviting. Large raindrops hitting the glassy surface in the fog. It reminded him of a time when he was surfing in these same conditions back home, with a close friend. A fantastic memory. They still spoke fondly of that time whenever it came up. Sitting in the sea with water below and above and in the middle. The glassy surface broken by large drops of rain, in the fog. Magic. It revived him. It got him excited! He was on his way. It was happening. The fight wasn’t lost!

And then the fog lifted. And he saw The Island for the first time and it was hit by the rays of the sun. And the dark clouds parted and were behind The Island and it looked incredible. Emotions overcame him and he cried a little. And out of the metallic loudspeakers came:

“I can see clearly now, the rain has gone, I can see all obstacles in my way. Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind. It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright) Sun-Shiny day...”

It overwhelmed him. He had made it. Now it would be easy. He was the first person off the boat. He only had 50 minutes to do his job. Laughable considering the amount of time he had spent to get there. But he knew what he was doing. He was a young man but he had decades of experience on him. He went. And he saw. It was overwhelming but it was what he had come all this way for.