Something Found

Two weeks in Indonesia and I finally feel as if I’ve arrived. Or better said, I needed to leave Indonesia, at least temporarily, to find what I might have been looking for. Today, against the suggestions of most of my Timorese hosts, I went not eastward to Dili, the capital of East Timor, but northward to a small enclave of East Timor, totally surrounded by Indonesia, called Oecussi. And what a lovely choice I seem to have made. It’s not that Indonesia has not been lovely. It’s actually been beautiful with incredibly friendly people and of late even some political intrigue. But it’s not so far captured my imagination in the way that this off-the-beaten track place where I am now has in only an hour.

First, I traveled up the hill to the border in one of the strangest Jesus-mobiles I’ve ever seen, replete with stuffed animals, window painting, and mirrors galore. Each stop on the five-stop border crossing (3 in Indonesia, two in East Timor) averaged five border agents for every one crosser (I being the only one of the afternoon). Then it was an hour long motorcycle ride down the hill to the coast, to what’s known as Oecussi town. And while my butt is still sore now close to an hour later, I would do that ride again and again. It could only be described as “stunning”, both in terms of the vistas and the people that I saw along the way. Sometimes, even as a photographer, I experience beauty for which photography does no justice: it could be a sunset, 360 degree vistas, or a moment of such intense emotion. I feel in those situations, it’s not even worth trying to take a picture, as it would surely disappoint, and today was one of those times. It was also one of those occasions when making great photographs of the people I passed would have been easier than shooting fish in a barrel (didn’t I say the same thing about East Africa?), and maybe I fear that the photos I would have made would have only been good, and that wouldn’t have been good enough.

I’ve been grappling a lot with my future as a photographer. I’m realizing on this trip that I might not ever be great. For a long time, I felt as if I wasn’t in National Geographic yet because I hadn’t caught the right break, hadn’t met the right people, hadn’t come up with the right story angle. But now I’m starting to believe that I’m just not good enough, and that maybe I should look for a different line of work if I really want to be great at what I do. I’m good at what I do. I could continue to travel and do some interesting photography for years to come. But I fear/believe that I won’t ever be truly outstanding, and I think that this is one of those times when good enough is just not good enough.

Travel is a good time for reflection, and I’ve started to hatch some ideas of what I might do next, just in case this is my last trip as a professional photographer. Regardless of what comes next, I hope that this trip ends fabulously and that I have the time of my life. I’ve not up until today, but maybe this is the turning point for me, a time when I feel a bit more connected in a disconnected world. Or maybe it’s just all a mirage, and feels right for the moment, but will show a different side come morning. Life is often like that, with new people, new places, new experiences. It’s often easy for me to get seduced, to think “this is the place”, only to find something that I already know, that almost everything in life is more complex, and that falling in love is more about me than the other, regardless of the situation.


Postscript: It’s now nighttime, three hours after writing the above post, and both the stars and the frogs are just stellar. With no street lights, there’s a lot to see. Now I just need to figure out if I’d like to hop the boat to the capital tomorrow, or to wait five days for the next one. The hopeful impatient one in me says “why no boat on Saturday or Sunday?”, but alas, I must learn to move on a schedule not of my own making.