Digital Collage and Photographic Metaphor...

   On my brief visit to Cape Ann, I saw and experienced quite a bit considering the fact that I was only there 27 hours and 8 of those hours I spent sleeping!  (If you didn't see the album of images on Google+, you can see it here.)

Stay Away from the Windows

   The image that pleases me the most, however, is a digital collage I made.  It is my icon of the experience.

   The people I was staying with had a beautiful contemporary home with huge expanses of glass that made the outside landscape fuse with the interior space.  Quite lovely.  But all that glass was having an unpleasant side effect.  The windows reflected the trees and sky and the birds were crashing into it.  Some were merely stunned; others succumbed to the collision.  Everyone was desperately trying to think of ways to prevent it.

   The bottom line was, for me, a metaphor for Man's relationship with Nature.  How do we live in peaceful co-existence?  How do we warn the birds to stay away from the windows?  What they are seeing is merely an illusion, a very dangerous one at that.  Human beings sometimes fall into this same trap, flying blindly into our illusions .  I felt compelled to make this digital collage of the metaphor and the experience.

   I make finding the metaphor in the landscape a major part of my work as a contemplative photographer but with the medium of digital collage, I can create them as well.  Finding new ways to think about the world around me through the lens of my camera, is always a good thing. 

 

Walking in...

   There are times, I must admit, that I would love to have one of those huge telephoto lenses.  But just thinking about the size and weight of them quickly puts that idea out of my mind.  There is certainly a need for large lenses but, for me, I prefer to just walk myself in.

   On a beach stroll this summer, I tried one of my favorite exercises.  Set yourself a destination and photograph along the way.  Horizontals, verticals, step by step.  Walk yourself into an intimate embrace of just one small part of the whole.  Don't let yourself become distracted by what surrounds you.  Stay focused.

   Now, I honestly thought I was walking into an embrace of the amazing rocks, which reminded me a lot of the ones I'd seen on Staffa this Spring, but as I walked closer and closer it was the sand that drew my eye...the "sand script".  It is what I ended up with, my final image, when we could walk no further.

   That is the advantage of letting the landscape pull you in...letting it direct your lens.  It may have something entirely different to say to you...something you may not have heard if you had stood at a distance and accessed it "remotely" with your huge lens.  Walk in...walk in...walk in.

Attending to the littlest things...

   The pond was swarming with dragonflies the day I was there this summer.  I had just begun my Poetry of Place project and I wanted to focus on the dragonflies.  Which I did.  You can see the result on the right.

   One has to sit patiently and wait when one is intent on photographing dragonflies.  They come and go so quickly...luck certainly plays a big role in the outcome.

   I was pleased with this image...the detail in the wing, the way the little fellow clung to the twig just long enough for me to make his portrait.

   I even liked the somewhat monochrome coloration.  I decided to hang out a bit more to see what else might fly my way but I changed my location and the result was wonderful.

   This time I had the soft blue of the sky reflected in the pond as a background and some green leaves and pinkish dried buds.  The light was a bit bright as well and I played this all up when I got the image home and into Photoshop.  I wanted to enhance the magical quality I felt when I made the image.

   I think this experience has made me more cognizant of paying attention to what is around oneself and, also very important, what is behind the focus of my attention.  One cannot will a dragonfly to land just where one would wish but you can place yourself in the location that offers some interest and then hope for the best!

   These two photographs are a good contrast between the two ways you can approach the landscape.  The first is with the eyes of the  inquiring Naturalist and the second is with the eyes of the playful Artist.  I wrote a series of posts awhile back about the five different ways of approaching contemplative photography and you might wish to re-read it here.

   No one way is the "right" way.  What is right is what works for the intent of the image and only you know the answer to that. You might find yourself going from one way of looking at your world to another depending on the moment and your reaction to the experience. The important thing is to remain open to different ways of seeing.

Creating Random Acts of Beauty...

The Poetry of Place - 3 October 2014

I love the work of Dewitt Jones.  I also love his message.  For every act of senseless violence in the world, use your camera to record random acts of beauty.  That has been my focus since I began my pond project in late June. 

   I think the appreciation of beauty is so important that I created a Pinterest board to pin Just Beautiful Things.  When the nightly news gets over whelming, I can go to it and just rest my soul.  Gazing at beauty is uplifting and one should try to bring it into one's live as much as possible...your daily dose of beauty along with your vitamins.  You can find beauty everywhere...it is a matter of appreciating the subtle nuances that define what is beautiful for you.

   The cell phone camera allows you to record those random moments of beauty quite spontaneously.  I did just that yesterday as I drove by the pond. Technology has allowed us to not miss a thing and in many ways, that is both a blessing and a curse as they say.  I prefer to see it as a blessing.

   Dewitt Jones is committed to finding beauty in the world around him.  In the near at hand and in the commonplace, Jones finds much beauty to record and savor.  With the foliage season here in the Northeast, when Nature fills our world with color and magic, I have had no problem creating random acts of beauty...it is an important part of my life, regardless of the season, for no other reason than it makes me feel good!

Celebrating What is Right with the World

The Poetry of Place: October 3 and 6

October 3, 2014

   Things are changing rapidly at the pond.  My two visits, just 3 days apart, brought very different results.  This solitary red leaf floating on a heavenly blue surface rippled by the breeze was like a preview of what is to come.  The leaves, not just reflected in the water, now engage the pond in a more direct way.

   The lily pads that once carpeted the water along the shores are slowly disappearing, sinking to the bottom to become food for next years growth.

October 6, 2014

   I could hear the plunk/plop sounds of the acorns dropping off the trees and the singing of chickadees filled the trees over my head.  Although the weather continues to by mild, there is a sense of urgency about it all. " Enjoy this while it lasts!" the pond seems to be saying.  It is but an interlude between two distinct ways of being.

     The oak leaves are transforming along with the red maples.  Some will fall but many stay on the branches all winter making their characteristic rattling noise in the wind.  So much of the autumn revolves around the leaves; their color changes, their descent to the earth, their rich and tantalizing smell, even the sound of crunching leaves underfoot.

   Soon the branches will be bare and stark against water and sky but for now the pond dances with color.  It is a wonderful time.  The pine trees as well are shedding some of their needles mixing with the leaves along the shore.

   A small submerged leaf stood out a bright blue amid the rusts and reds.  A trick of the light?  I didn't dwell on the science of it.  It seemed a very special gift to me, one of many I have received along the edge of the pond.

    There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir: We must rise and follow her, When from every hill of flame She calls, and calls each vagabond by name.

- William Bliss

  

Gathering Breadcrumbs in Connecticut...

  It was a whirlwind day...a kaleidoscope of diverse experience.  It was not, in many ways, a very "contemplative day".  But, as always, there is much to contemplate in the photographs, the breadcrumbs, we gather along the way. 

The Soul speaks to us through images.

- Carl Jung

   We began with a ride on a beautifully restore steam train in Essex.  I had a flash back to my first portrait, of an engineer in Fort William, Scotland back in 2005.  The billowing steam was wonderful and I decided to revert to my "monochrome mode" for his image.  I will think about why, of all the train photographs I made, this partial view with half the image obscured by steam, is my favorite image.

   We next toured the eccentric castle of actor William Gillette who portrayed Sherlock Holmes on stage for the first time in the early 20th century.  The landscape, overlooking the Connecticut River, the building itself, all were stunning but I focused on a small, stain glass window in one of the bedrooms.  In many ways, we don't choose the images, they choose us.  There is something happening within us that turns our eyes, and hence our lenses, to certain things.  

The Soul never thinks 

without a picture.

- Aristotle

   Our final stop was the Abbey at Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut.  We were there, you might say, on a mission.  (You can read about it in my photojournal entry for the day here...)  My two final breadcrumbs were gathered there.

   The first was a somewhat abstract rendition, in black and white, of the tree shadows on the side of an outbuilding on the abbey grounds.  Somehow, it seemed to compliment the photograph of the steam train I'd made earlier.  

   I think all my abstraction work at the pond recently has tuned my eyes into seeing these possibilities more clearly.  You would be rather hard pressed to know what it is you are looking at in this image.  The faint grooves in the siding are just descernable. I loved the subtle lights and darks.

   The final image is my icon for the day.  And in this case, it was actually one of the last photographs I made.  We had had an incredible day with so much to remember and think about but it was this gentle image of the two sheep bathed in the luscious late day light that will stay with me.  My friend and I plan to return to the abbey for a retreat in the months to come.  I hope to again receive permission to photograph in this lovely and contemplative landscape.   

 

   I think the day proved

to me that it isn't the number of photographs you make that matters but the quality of the experience you have in any given place.

   I love this final quote from Edward Weston that really speaks to the need for us to turn off the left brained analytical side of our self from time to time and just melt into the experience of the place.  Some places are meant to be felt rather that seen.  The abbey was one of those places for me.

To consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk.

  

Contemplative Poetry Series - William Wordsworth

  There was a time when

meadow, grove,

And stream,

The earth, and every

common sight,

To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness

of a dream.

The Poetry of Place:
Reflections from the Edge of the Pond
28 September 2014

   The pond did, indeed, seem cloaked in celestial light that day.  There was a stillness and softness to the air and I could have sat on the shore forever.  These moments come and go and the value of re-visiting a place again and again is that there is more opportunity to be present when these moments occur.

   As I sat there I wondered, just how long will this heavenly peace last?  When will the buzz of chain saws and the rumble of backhoes start?  How long will this pond remain pristine?  It makes my Poetry of Place project all the more compelling for me.  I want future generations to know that at one time the pond was like this...undefiled and a haven of peace.