I hadn’t meant to be in that cave.
I’d been chasing light across the rocks all day… losing it, mostly. Watching clouds roll in like smug failures. My meter was lying again. My shadows were getting cocky. Every good shot had either left early or showed up drunk. I needed a moment to breathe. To sulk. To swear at my Sekonic. So I ducked into the cave, quiet, cool, vaguely sacred. Somewhere to dry my thoughts and pretend I knew what I was doing.
And that’s where I found the crab.
He didn’t scuttle. He didn’t flinch. He just sat there in the center of the cave like a sea-battered prophet with nothing left to teach. Eight legs folded beneath him. One eye twitching. Watching me. Judging me. A crustacean art critic in a cathedral of sea-smoothed stone.
I sat across from him. Me with my light meter. Him with his terrible little claws. Two creatures trying to make sense of exposure and existence.
I asked him if I could trust my meter today. He clicked once— uncertain. I took that as a no.
I asked if the film would fail me. If it would buckle in the humidity, ghost my shadows, make my highlights ache. He scuttled sideways. A slow, disapproving slide. I interpreted that as: you already know the answer, idiot.
I asked him if Portra 160 was a lie. He raised both claws like a priest at a funeral.
Fair enough.
I told him the last time I trusted my Sekonic, it said the rocks were brighter than they were. It lied. I believed it. I lost the shot. He stared. Unmoved. Possibly traumatised.
The cave dripped. The light shifted. The crab did not forgive.
I offered him a lens cloth. He declined.
We talked about contrast ratios and the emotional impact of Velvia on coastal shadows. He mentioned something about the futility of framing things that don’t want to be remembered. I told him that’s why I keep shooting. He told me that’s why I keep failing.
Fair.
By the time I left, the meter was damp, the light was wrong, and I had taken no photos. Just notes. Just a crab. Just that slow, itchy feeling that this shoot wasn’t about pictures anymore.
It was about bearing witness to whatever the ocean coughed up. Film failure, foam, clarity, crustacean wisdom, and doing my best to expose something properly. Even if it’s just myself.
I haven’t seen that crab since. Not at low tide. Not at dusk. Sometimes I wonder if he was real at all. Or just the ocean, speaking plainly for once. Not through waves or wrecks or gulls, but through one small priest with a shell full of truth and claws full of judgement.
Suggested Exposure Settings for Cave-Based Crustacean Consultation:
– ISO 400
– f/4
– Shutter: however long your doubt lasts
– Bribe the crab with seaweed or validation
- SNFN overexposed, under-advised, slightly outclicked by a crab