So if I told you that this was the face of pure joy, would you call me crazy? I wouldn't blame you, because every time I look at this Arctic selfie, I shiver just a little bit. I want to tell you a little bit about this photograph.
Ako vam kažem da je ovo izraz čiste sreće, biste li me nazvali ludim? Ne krivim vas, jer svaki put kada pogledam ovaj arktički selfie, malo protrnem. Želim vam reći nešto o ovoj fotografiji.
I was swimming around in the Lofoten Islands in Norway, just inside the Arctic Circle, and the water was hovering right at freezing. The air? A brisk -10 with windchill, and I could literally feel the blood trying to leave my hands, feet and face, and rush to protect my vital organs. It was the coldest I've ever been. But even with swollen lips, sunken eyes, and cheeks flushed red, I have found that this place right here is somewhere I can find great joy.
Plivao sam oko Lofotenskih otoka u Norveškoj, unutar arktičkog kruga, i voda se smrzavala. Zrak? Svježih -10 s vjetrom i doslovce sam mogao osjetiti kako mi krv želi napustiti ruke, noge i lice kako bi zaštitila vitalne organe. Nikada mi nije bilo hladnije. Ali čak i s naotečenim usnama, ispijenih očiju i ružičastih obraza, shvatio sam da je ovo mjesto gdje pronalazim veliku radost.
Now, when it comes to pain, psychologist Brock Bastian probably said it best when he wrote, "Pain is a kind of shortcut to mindfulness. It makes us suddenly aware of everything in the environment. It brutally draws us in to a virtual sensory awareness of the world much like meditation."
Kada se radi o boli, psiholog Brock Bastian je vjerojatno bio u pravu kada je napisao: "Bol je na neki način prečac do pozornosti. Odjednom postanemo svjesni svega u okolini. Brutalno nas uvuče u virtualno čulnu svjesnost svijeta kao i meditacija."
If shivering is a form of meditation, then I would consider myself a monk. (Laughter)
Ako je drhtanje oblik meditacije, tada se smatram redovnikom. (Smijeh)
Now, before we get into the why would anyone ever want to surf in freezing cold water? I would love to give you a little perspective on what a day in my life can look like.
Sad, prije nego krenemo s razlozima zašto bi itko želio surfati u ledeno hladnoj vodi, volio bih vam dati perspektivu kako izgleda jedan dan u mom životu.
(Music)
(Glazba)
(Video) Man: I mean, I know we were hoping for good waves, but I don't think anybody thought that was going to happen. I can't stop shaking. I am so cold.
(Video) "Znam da smo se danas nadali dobrim valovima, ali nitko nije mislio da će se ovo dogoditi. Ne mogu se prestati tresti. Tako mi je hladno."
(Music)
(Glazba)
(Applause)
(Pljesak)
Chris Burkard: So, surf photographer, right? I don't even know if it's a real job title, to be honest. My parents definitely didn't think so when I told them at 19 I was quitting my job to pursue this dream career: blue skies, warm tropical beaches, and a tan that lasts all year long. I mean, to me, this was it. Life could not get any better. Sweating it out, shooting surfers in these exotic tourist destinations. But there was just this one problem. You see, the more time I spent traveling to these exotic locations, the less gratifying it seemed to be. I set out seeking adventure, and what I was finding was only routine. It was things like wi-fi, TV, fine dining, and a constant cellular connection that to me were all the trappings of places heavily touristed in and out of the water, and it didn't take long for me to start feeling suffocated.
Znači, surferski fotograf? Ne znam je li to naziv za pravi posao, da budem iskren. Moji roditelji definitivno to nisu mislili kada sam im s 19 godine rekao da ću ostavit posao kako bi krenuo za snom: plava neba, tople tropske plaže i tamna koža tijekom cijele godine. Mislim, meni je to bilo to. Život nije mogao biti bolji. Nervoza, fotkanje surfera u egzotičnim destinacijama. Ali postojao je jedan problem. Vidite, što sam više putovao u te egzotične lokacije, manje su mi zadovoljstva donosile. Tražio sam avanturu, a nalazio samo rutinu. Wi-fi, TV, fina klopa i konstantna mobilna povezanost su meni bile klopke mjesta preplavljenih turistima, izvan i u vodi, i nije dugo trajalo da me to počne gušiti.
I began craving wild, open spaces, and so I set out to find the places others had written off as too cold, too remote, and too dangerous to surf, and that challenge intrigued me. I began this sort of personal crusade against the mundane, because if there's one thing I've realized, it's that any career, even one as seemingly glamorous as surf photography, has the danger of becoming monotonous.
Počeo sam žuditi za divljim, otvorenim prostorima i tako sam počeo tražiti mjesta koja su drugi otpisali kao previše hladne, previše daleke i previše opasne za surfanje, i taj izazov me zaintrigirao. Krenuo sam u taj osobni križarski rat protiv svakodnevice, jer ako sam išta shvatio, je da svaka karijera, čak i ona naizgled glamurozna, surferskog fotografa, može postati monotona.
So in my search to break up this monotony, I realized something: There's only about a third of the Earth's oceans that are warm, and it's really just that thin band around the equator. So if I was going to find perfect waves, it was probably going to happen somewhere cold, where the seas are notoriously rough, and that's exactly where I began to look. And it was my first trip to Iceland that I felt like I found exactly what I was looking for.
U mojoj potrazi za razbijanjem monotonije, shvatio sam da je samo jedna trećina Zemljinih oceana topla, radi se o uskom pojasu oko ekvatora. Znači, ako želim pronaći savršene valove, vjerojatno će to biti negdje gdje je hladno, gdje su mora zloglasno gruba i točno ondje sam krenuo s potragom. Na mom prvom izletu na Island sam se osjećao kao da sam pronašao točno ono što sam tražio.
I was blown away by the natural beauty of the landscape, but most importantly, I couldn't believe we were finding perfect waves in such a remote and rugged part of the world. At one point, we got to the beach only to find massive chunks of ice had piled on the shoreline. They created this barrier between us and the surf, and we had to weave through this thing like a maze just to get out into the lineup. and once we got there, we were pushing aside these ice chunks trying to get into waves. It was an incredible experience, one I'll never forget, because amidst those harsh conditions, I felt like I stumbled onto one of the last quiet places, somewhere that I found a clarity and a connection with the world I knew I would never find on a crowded beach.
Ostao sam zapanjen prirodnom ljepotom pejzaža, ali što je važnije, nisam mogao vjerovati da smo našli savršene valove u tako udaljenom i neravnom dijelu svijeta. Jednom smo na plaži pronašli ogromne gromade leda nagomilane na obali. Bile su poput prepreka između nas i surfanja, pa smo ih zaobilazili kao da smo u labirintu, samo kako bismo stali u red. Kada smo stigli tamo, gurali smo te gromade na stranu kako bismo zajahali valove. To je bilo nevjerojatno iskustvo, koje nikada neću zaboraviti, jer sam usprkos okrutnim uvjetima, osjećao kao da sam pronašao jedno od posljednjih tihih mjesta, gdje sam pronašao lucidnost i vezu sa svijetom, koju nikada ne bih našao na plaži prepunoj ljudi.
I was hooked. I was hooked. (Laughter) Cold water was constantly on my mind, and from that point on, my career focused on these types of harsh and unforgiving environments, and it took me to places like Russia, Norway, Alaska, Iceland, Chile, the Faroe Islands, and a lot of places in between. And one of my favorite things about these places was simply the challenge and the creativity it took just to get there: hours, days, weeks spent on Google Earth trying to pinpoint any remote stretch of beach or reef we could actually get to. And once we got there, the vehicles were just as creative: snowmobiles, six-wheel Soviet troop carriers, and a couple of super-sketchy helicopter flights. (Laughter) Helicopters really scare me, by the way.
I navukao sam se. Navukao sam se. (Smijeh) Hladna voda mi je stalno bila na umu i od tog trenutka, fokus moje karijere je taj tip okrutnog okoliša koji ne prašta. To me odvelo u Rusiju, Norvešku, Aljasku, Island, Čile Farske otoke i puno mjesta između. A najdraža stvar kod njih je sam izazov i kreativnost koju je bilo potrebno uložiti kako bih došao tamo, sati, dani, tjedni provedeni na Google Earthu, pokušavajući odrediti neku udaljenu plažu ili greben. I kada bismo došli tamo, prometala su bila jednako kreativna: sledovi, šesterokotačni sovjetski nosači trupa i nekoliko super-škakljivih helikopterskih letova. (Smijeh) Inače, helikopteri me straše.
There was this one particularly bumpy boat ride up the coast of Vancouver Island to this kind of remote surf spot, where we ended up watching helplessly from the water as bears ravaged our camp site. They walked off with our food and bits of our tent, clearly letting us know that we were at the bottom of the food chain and that this was their spot, not ours. But to me, that trip was a testament to the wildness I traded for those touristy beaches.
Za vrijeme jedne nezgodne vožnje brodom, uz obalu otoka Vancouver prema jednom izdvojenom mjestu za surfanje, gledali smo bespomoćno iz vode dok su nam medvjedi rasturili kamp. Odnijeli su nam hranu i komade šatora, dajući nam do znanja da smo tu mi na dnu prehrambenog lanaca i da je ovo njihovo mjesto, ne naše. Ali meni je taj izlet bio pokazatelj divljine koju sam odabrao umjesto turističkih plaža.
Now, it wasn't until I traveled to Norway -- (Laughter) -- that I really learned to appreciate the cold. So this is the place where some of the largest, the most violent storms in the world send huge waves smashing into the coastline. We were in this tiny, remote fjord, just inside the Arctic Circle. It had a greater population of sheep than people, so help if we needed it was nowhere to be found. I was in the water taking pictures of surfers, and it started to snow. And then the temperature began to drop. And I told myself, there's not a chance you're getting out of the water. You traveled all this way, and this is exactly what you've been waiting for: freezing cold conditions with perfect waves. And although I couldn't even feel my finger to push the trigger, I knew I wasn't getting out. So I just did whatever I could. I shook it off, whatever. But that was the point that I felt this wind gush through the valley and hit me, and what started as this light snowfall quickly became a full-on blizzard, and I started to lose perception of where I was. I didn't know if I was drifting out to sea or towards shore, and all I could really make out was the faint sound of seagulls and crashing waves.
E sad, sve do putovanja u Norvešku, (smijeh) nisam naučio cijeniti hladnoću. Ovo je mjesto gdje jedne od najvećih, najzlokobnijih oluja na svijetu stvaraju ogromne valove koji razaraju obaju. Bili smo u ovom sitnom, udaljenom fjordu, unutar Arktičkog kruga. Ondje je više je ovaca nego ljudi, i u slučaju da nam je bila potrebna pomoć, teško bismo je našli. Bio sam u vodi i slikao surfere, kada je počelo sniježiti. I temperatura je počela padati. I rekao sam si da nema šanse da izađem iz vode. Putovao sam sve do ovdje i ovo je točno ono što sam čekao: ledeno hladni uvjeti sa savršenim valovima. Iako nisam mogao niti osjetiti prst kako pritišće okidač, znao sam da ne izlazim van. Zato sam činio što sam mogao. Stresao sam se, bilo što. U tom trenu sam osjetio nalet vjetra u udolini kako me udara, a ono što je počelo kao lagano padanje snijega, brzo se pretvorilo u pravu mećavu, i počeo sam gubiti pojam o tome gdje sam. Nisam znao plutam li prema moru ili prema obali, a jedino sam mogao razaznati nejasan zvuk galebova i valove kako se razbijaju o obalu.
Now, I knew this place had a reputation for sinking ships and grounding planes, and while I was out there floating, I started to get a little bit nervous. Actually, I was totally freaking out -- (Laughter) -- and I was borderline hypothermic, and my friends eventually had to help me out of the water. And I don't know if it was delirium setting in or what, but they told me later I had a smile on my face the entire time.
Znao sam da ovo mjesto ima reputaciju potapanja brodova i prizemljivanja aviona, a dok sam tako plutao, postajao sam pomalo nervozan. (Smijeh) Zapravo, potpuno sam ludio, (smijeh) i bio sam na granici hipotermije(pothlađenosti), i prijatelji su me morali izvući iz vode. Ne znam jesam li bio u bunilu ili što, ali kasnije su mi rekli da sam čitavo vrijeme imao osmijeh na licu.
Now, it was this trip and probably that exact experience where I really began to feel like every photograph was precious, because all of a sudden in that moment, it was something I was forced to earn. And I realized, all this shivering had actually taught me something: In life, there are no shortcuts to joy. Anything that is worth pursuing is going to require us to suffer just a little bit, and that tiny bit of suffering that I did for my photography, it added a value to my work that was so much more meaningful to me than just trying to fill the pages of magazines. See, I gave a piece of myself in these places, and what I walked away with was a sense of fulfillment I had always been searching for.
Upravo ovo putovanje i vjerojatno sam se baš zbog ovog iskustva sam počeo osjećati koliko je svaka fotografija dragocjena, jer sam odjednom, u tome trenutku, bio prisiljen zaraditi tu fotografiju. I shvatio sam, svo to drhtenje me zapravo naučio nešto: u životu ne postoje prečaci za sreću. Sve što vrijedi slijediti zahtijevati će od vas da barem malo patite, a to malo patnje koju sam učinio za svoju fotografiju, je dalo vrijednost mome radu koja mi je imala puno više smisla od pukog punjenja stranica časopisa. Jer, vidite, dao sam dio sebe na tim mjestima, a otišao sam s osjećajem ispunjenja koji sam uvijek tražio.
So I look back at this photograph. It's easy to see frozen fingers and cold wetsuits and even the struggle that it took just to get there, but most of all, what I see is just joy.
Kada ponovno gledam ovu fotografiju, lako je vidjeti smrznute prste i hladno odijelo za ronjenje, čak i borbu kako bismo došli do tamo, ali prvenstveno vidim zadovoljstvo.
Thank you so much.
Hvala vam puno.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)