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.
如果我告诉你 这是一张纯粹快乐的面孔 你会说我是疯子吗? 我不会怪你, 因为每次看到这张北极自拍, 我都会哆嗦一下。 我想要讲讲这张照片的故事,
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.
我当时在挪威的罗弗敦群岛游泳, 正好位于北极圈, 水温几乎接近冰点。 空气清冷,零下10度还伴有寒风, 我可以真切地感觉到 血液正试图从四肢和脸部抽离, 然后急速流淌着 去保护我最重要的器官。 那是我最冷的一次 但是即使我的嘴唇肿胀 眼睛下陷,脸蛋冻得通红, 我却在这里找到了意想不到的快乐。
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."
说到疼痛,心理学家 Brock Bastian 可能对它了解最深,他曾经这样写道 “疼痛是一种注意力的捷径 它使我们立即意识到周围的一切。 它用残忍地方式让我们 进入洞穿世界本质的感觉中 非常类似于冥想。“
If shivering is a form of meditation, then I would consider myself a monk. (Laughter)
如果颤抖是冥想的一种方式, 我会觉得自己是一个和尚。 (笑声)
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.
在我解释为什么之前 请问有没有人 曾经想过要在冰水里冲浪? 我很乐意让你门看看 我生活中的一天是怎么样的。
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(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.
(视频)我们期待出现更汹涌的浪, 但我们对此都没有信心。 我抖个不停。 我太冷了。
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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.
海浪摄影师,对吧? 说实话我不确定, 这是不是一个真实存在的职业名。 但显然我父母觉得它不是。 那时我19岁我告诉他们 要辞掉工作去追求这个理想中的职业; 蓝色的天空,温暖的热带沙滩 还有常年被晒得棕黄色的皮肤 对于我来说,没有比这更好的生活了。 让自己汗流浃背 在异国的旅游景点拍摄那些冲浪者。 但是有一个问题。 如你所见, 我在这些美丽的地方旅行的越久, 它们所带来满足感就越少。 我出发是为了去冒险 但是我却只得到了乏味。 它变成了Wi-Fi,电视, 美食,和稳定的手机信号 对于我来说 它们都是旅游热门景点的诱惑因素 水里水外都一样, 没过多久,我就开始感到窒息
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.
我开始渴望原野的开阔的地方 所以我出发去寻找其他人所忽视的地方 它们可能太冷,太偏远, 或者对于冲浪太过危险。 这些挑战反而激起我的兴趣。 我踏上了一场对抗平庸的个人长征, 因为我意识到一件事情, 任何的职业, 甚至是看上去风光无限 如海浪摄影师这样的职业, 都有变得单调乏味的危险。
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.
所以在我寻求打破乏味的时候 我意识到: 世界上只有三分之一的海洋是温暖的, 只是沿着赤道的那窄窄的一条儿。 所以如果要去寻找那些完美地海浪, 它们很可能会在极寒之地, 可能会在众所周知的危险海域, 而那些地方正是我所寻找的。 我第一次到达冰岛 便感觉到这就是我要寻找的地方。
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.
那里优美的自然风光让我折服, 但是更重要的是 我不敢相信我们 在世界上如此遥远、崎岖的地方 找到了完美的浪花。 有那么一次,我们去到海滩 却只发现海岸线上堆满了巨大的冰块。 它们在我们和海浪之间制造出一个屏障, 我们需要像走迷宫一样 在这些冰块中穿梭 只为冲出阻隔进入大海。 有次我们到了那里 我们把这些大冰块推开, 试图进入海浪里 这是一次不可思议的体验, 我永远也不会忘记 因为在些恶劣的环境中 我感觉像是自己无意中走到了 世界上最后的净土 在这,我找到了解与连接世界的方法。 我知道,在一个拥挤的海滩上 永远不会有这种感受
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.
我被深深地,深深地吸引了 (笑声) 那些冰水的时常涌入我的脑海, 从那时起, 我的事业就专注在 这些恶劣却让人难以忘怀的地方, 我去到了俄罗斯、挪威、 阿拉斯加、冰岛、智利 法罗群岛, 还有它们之间的许多地方。 这些地方最吸引我的原因之一 就是挑战和到达这些地方所需要的创作力 我们花几个小时、几天、 几个星期研究谷歌地图 试图去准确定位那些偏僻的 但是实际上可以到达的海滩或暗礁 一旦我们到达,交通工具也一样有创意; 摩托雪橇,六轮苏联部队军车, 还有一些超级简约的直升机。 (笑声) 另外,我真的很害怕乘坐直升机。
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.
还有一次很特别的颠簸的坐船体验 从温哥华岛海岸去偏僻的冲浪点, 最后我们只能在水上无助得观望 因为熊毁了我们的露营地。 它们吃了我们的食物, 还咬坏了帐篷 明显是想让我们知道 我们在食物链的最底层 而这里它们的地盘,不是我们的。 但是对于我来说,那次旅行 是我用那些商业性海滩 换到原生态的一纸契约。
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.
直到我旅行到挪威 -- (笑声)-- 我才真的学会去欣赏寒冷。 在这个地方 有一些世界上最大、最凶猛的暴风雪 推着巨大的海浪拍向海岸线 我们在一个又小又偏僻的峡湾上 刚刚进入北极圈里。 这里的羊比人多, 所以如果我们需要帮助根本找不到人 我当时正在水里拍摄冲浪者, 突然开始下雪了。 紧接着温度就开始下降。 我告诉我自己:你不能从水里出来。 你一路跋涉, 而这里正是你一直翘首期盼的地方: 极寒的天气和完美地海浪 即使我的手指没有知觉 按不了快门。 我还是知道我不会出去。 所以无论如何我要排除杂念, 做我所能做的。 但是这时候我感觉到 风穿过山谷,喷涌而出,击打在我身上 这场小雪很快变彻底成了暴风雪, 我开始认不清自己的方位。 我不知道我是在漂向海中 还是朝着岸边前进, 我能分清的就是隐约的海鸥的叫声 和巨浪的拍打声。
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.
我知道这片海域因为沉船 和飞机失事而臭名昭著, 而此时我正在其中漂浮, 我开始感到一点紧张。 实际上是,我已经完全吓坏了 (笑声)而且我体温已经过低 我的朋友们最终不得不 把我从水里救了出来 不知道我是不是当时有些神志不清 但是他们后来告诉我 那整个过程中我始终在微笑。
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.
现在,正是这次旅行 可能正是这个经历让我开始 认为每一张照片都是宝贵的, 因为在那些出乎意料的瞬间, 我都被迫获得了一些东西。 我意识到, 所有的这些颤抖教会我一些事情: 在生命中,快乐没有捷径 所有值得追求的东西都会让我们经受 一点点的磨难, 我摄影中所经历的那一点点磨难, 给我工作所增加的价值,对我来说 比让照片刊登在杂志上 的几张版面更有意义。 我把自己的一部分献给了这些地方, 我带走的却是 一种我一直在寻找的充实感。
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.
所以当我回顾这张照片的时候。 很容易看到冻僵的手指和冰冷的潜水衣 甚至是为了到达那里所做的努力。 但最重要的是, 我所看到的是纯粹地快乐。
Thank you so much.
谢谢大家。
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