The Poetry of Place: 9 November 2014 - 4:10 pm

   I've come to believe that the landscape is a story that evolves, slowly, over time.  It is shaped by occurrences that come and go.  This influence molds it's contours and the face it presents to us this day will not be the same face it will show us tomorrow.  In a way, a landscape is very much like us.

   Now that we are fully into the grey time of November, the hills surrounding Little Clemons seem to be retreating; taking a back seat to the pond.  Just a few short weeks ago those hills shouted with vibrant color and the water reflected it back.  This late afternoon visit was all about the clouds and the subtle pinks of the approaching sunset.  The air was very still...expectant and the hills softly silent.

   Then suddenly, the light, the soft colors, were gone and the sky and water became dark grey.  It was if someone, somewhere had flipped a switch and turned off the light for the night.

Photography is a calling that requires vigilance and alertness for that moment in time that only occurs once.
  - Caroline Mueller

   I nearly missed this one.  I was so transfixed by what I was seeing that I didn't raise my camera until some of the most beautiful color and light was past.  Still, what I was able to record is sufficient to translate that moment into a visual image for me.  I seem to be making fewer and fewer photographs now and spending more and more time just looking.  As the landscape retreats into itself...so do I.  It is as if we are holding a mirror up to each other.  We no longer need the shouts of vibrant color...we are content with what we have become.