Destry's digital outpuoring

Writer Carl Muller pays tribute to his son

It is a strong part of our culture, indeed the Asian culture. Children honour and pay tribute to their parents. Allow me to stand this pyramid on its head.

Destry Muller is 19-years-old, difficult to understand which is possibly the stamp of many teenagers; a melting pot of fierce emotions, moods, stubborn independence and a dreamer of impossible dreams. Above all, Destry Muller is my son, my youngest son, and to this extraordinary complexity of youth and maturity possessed of a wry sense of humour and that unreasoned need to do what he thinks he should. He follows his own dream and startles those around him with the impressions that occupy his mind.

At the Alliance Francaise, Kandy, from February 2 to 10, Destry staged his first exhibition of digital photography. He did it his way, of course. He isn't as well-equipped as the professional photographer. No digital camera either; but he has that rare creative approach that makes tone and colour perform to order and an instinctive feel of what to blur, to tint, to highlight, to screen or sharpen. He went to Hayleys Electronics in Colombo, laid his pictures before them and told them of his plans. Fuji Film was enthusiastic - so impressed that Hayleys and Fuji Film sponsored him and at the exhibition, gave their own demonstration of digital photographic processes and techniques.

It was when his prints had been blown up to size on Fujicolor Crystal Archive paper (every print had been captured on Fujifilm Superia 100) and he brought them home for mounting that I began to realise that I did not have just a son but a complicated bundle of raw creativity. This is what he carried with him, wrapped in spangles, to the Alliance Francaise gallery on February 2. It was Kandy's first exhibition of the digital photographic art.

American pastor Terry Jones saw a sense of wonder in each picture. It bemused him too. There was Earthpen - humanity's global prison - and Destry had placed a picket fence against a fierce blue cloud-pocked sky and the fence posts stood for the lightning-freak of Nature; the divinity, the world of commerce; sex; the concrete jungle of our existence and the promise of release among the stars. Man, cabined, but soul-free.

"Destry," he said, "Father God has blessed you with a good measure of his own wonder and creativity. Misunderstanding and rejection is not alien to Him; but He is there and He is not silent." Maybe the good pastor wished for more of Destry - more shout-aloud art to remind us of our own human pilgrimage.

Renowned artist Tilak Palliyaguru was entranced. "It is a fantastic aesthetic experience," he said. "This is not just camera work. It is a rare kind of art." Coming from Tilak, this was praise indeed, for Tilak is one of Lanka's foremost artists and believes in the "inner self' in his own outpourings.

Destry did not confine himself to the digital. He would range the hills around Kandy, shoot miles of film, then have his photographs transferred on disc which he would bring home to feed into the computer. There he would sit, making each shot dance to his tune. It was not easy to satisfy him. I would hear impatient "chks" as he worked, erased, worked. Each picture, each blend of pictures, must have taken many hours.

Professor Emeritus Ashley Halpe was full of congratulations. "It is great imaginative work," he said. It was nice to know - and I'm sure, nicer for my son to know that he was being regarded not merely as my son, but as his own man. This, I tell you, is what every young person longs for: to be recognized for him - or herself. Ah, but people did come upto me and say: "You must be very proud," and I would take them around and say, "Of course I am. See, he has shown steadfastness to natural beauty too. See this - leaves on water, so many elements afloat and the roots of the trees reach down to anchor themselves...and see this: ribbon tangles - very simple. I'm sure he raided his mother's sewing box..." and people agreed that it was stunning.

Symbolism demanded attention. Why was one pair of hands, supported by another, holding the sand so gently, carefully. Did God himself feel this sense of caring when he took up the sand from which he would make man? Young hands, too - and sand as old as Time. And why is that sprig of purple flowers photographed on a bed of ice? Will all the beauty of wild nature soon be in cold storage?

My son Destry is no longer all mine. Now he belongs to Kandy too. Many came to see and go back to think and return to take away a picture for themselves. Sinhaputhra Finance Limited of Kandy has chosen one to adorn their boardroom.

My son Destry - so deserving of a father's tribute. As I said, our culture calls for our children to give honour and pay tribute to their parents. Yes, and Destry has done that too - simply by being our son, his mother's and mine.

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