Most people seem to like sticks-in-the-water kinds of photographs. Either that, or such images are an infection among minimalist photographers. I'm not one of those, but I like them just the same.  The natural beauty of natural sticks adds a good deal to such work, because their forms are so elegant and complex.  Wandering along a pond side trail I'd never visited before, there was a little clearing, a bench facing the pond, and what you see here.  I sat for a long while enjoying the sounds of bull frogs, and the patter of very light drizzle on the water in front of me.  There were also several acres of lily pads in full bloom that were too far away from where I was able to place the camera to make a photograph, but they were gorgeous to look at nonetheless.  Now that I've found this local site, I'll return whenever light, atmosphere, or seasonal changes invite me. 

I feel bad that it's been nearly two months since my last post here, but my musician and teacher life has made it impossible to make photographs.  But now I will have a few weeks to myself, and this past weekend I was able to use the camera (in this case, the P67 with 55mm lens).  This is a 'graph of Round Lake in Monroe (NY) that I've photographed many times.  Every time has been different, and this was a cloudy bright early morning with not a hint of breeze, and no one on the lake.

It's hot.  It's too hot.  It's too damn hot this early in the season.  I will not complain, because it's been too damn cold and too damn snowy this past, and last winter.  I know there are places in this country and in others that maintain a fairly uniform pattern of weather that never wanders into extremes.  But, we don't live there and have to make do with what we get.  Yesterday, today, and tomorrow the mercury has, is, and will be reading near 90F, but it was only a few months ago that the snow was approaching 4 feet in depth.  So....I repeat...I will not complain.  I will just post a couple of pictures from 2008 (when the snow wasn't so deep that I couldn't hike in it) that I made with the Shen Hao.  It was tough slogging in the snow with the 4x5 backpack and a tripod, but I really enjoyed the shlepp, so here they are, two antidotes to too early summer!

The town we live closest to doesn't have enough of the charm that other nearby places do.  In the middle and latter part of the 20th century, too much was torn down and replaced by characterless, modern storefronts and shopping venues.  Nonetheless, some of the town's ancestry remains on a few streets that have preserved their late 19th century flavor. However, there is one wonderful asset that is about a mile and a quarter around, and that is the Goose Pond park.  At all hours of the day people walk or run around it on the encircling footpath.  Serious joggers in spandex and tank tops pass very conservatively dressed Chassidic men and women with their strollers. In fact,  all manner of people seem to love the place (as do I). 

In the warmer seasons, the two halves of the pond (there is a street that divides it) are aerated to help keep the mosquitoes down, and a dredger pulls copious water grass out as well.  Early this past Saturday morning I visited with the camera, and these are what I came away with.

Saturday, May 7th, was gorgeous here in the Hudson Valley, and staying home to do yard work was unthinkable (well, actually it was thinkable, but not acceptable) so off we went with cameras to the black dirt region.  I think I've photographed this particular irrigation ditch a dozen times, but it's always different.  The sunlight was creeping back across the field as the clouds moved on. 

(This was photographed with the P67 and a 55mm lens that I'm becoming very fond of, but have rarely ever used before.  I don't think wide angle is easy to use well, but I think I did so in this case.  There's always a lot to learn.)

The all too brief season of flowering trees and early leaves is upon us here in the Hudson Valley. The greening is progressing rapidly, and is discernible daily.  I'm amazed I haven't driven off the road, or into a tree for all the staring into the woods that I do going to and from work.  I've known where to find the dogwood trees below from having visited this spot in other years, but now there are a number of signs designating the area as a US Army live firing range with trespass forbidden. The gunnery is actually quite a way into the tract of land, and very far from the public road that borders it by the Hudson River, but it's off limits nonetheless.  So...of course that's where the best camera bait is located, hence I ran the very remote risk of being arrested by federal police while making these 'graphs.  It's interesting how doing that sort of thing is kind of exciting, and makes the experience all the more intense. 

I wish I had the time (and the courage) to fully photograph the black dirt region of Orange County, NY.  That would, of course, have to include documenting the migrant workers who harvest the onions and other produce that find the ancient sea bed soil so rich and nourishing.  It would also have to encompass all the seasons, and the full range of weather that blesses and besieges the land.  Still, I have made enough photographs over the years that I will always remember the look and feel of this region.  The two images below were made at the same place on the same day in mid-April.

After endless bouts with snow, sleet, ice and frigid unpleasantness the return of real-thing-spring is beyond welcome. Behind our house are twenty plus acres of  forested land that have been able to remain undeveloped because they sit atop an aquifer owned by the town.  The consequence is that we get to enjoy trees in their seasonal splendor both leafy and skeletal without another house in view.  Just now, they're leafing out, and a few entertain flowers that precede their greening.  This past Sunday, April 24th, I walked back there with the P67 and made the photograph below.  It's minimal as flowering trees go, but it's actually there, and I didn't have to trespass on anyone's land to make the image.  Eventually, we will move to north Florida, and I will deeply miss this landscape while I learn to love another.  This, and many other of my 'graphs will sustain the memories. 

It's damn difficult to make a waterfall photograph without it being a cliche.  I've been photographing this one in Harriman State Park since I moved to the Hudson Valley in the late '70's, and it's always been a joy to look at and a challenge to photograph.  Of course, just about anything in nature has been photographed countless times so trying to say something unique isn't a worthwhile enterprise.  What matters is that the image is worthwhile to the photographer, and I think these two may be to me.  Of the 20 negatives exposed using three different lenses (55, 105 and 135) and two different shutter speeds (1/15th, and 1/60th), these are the only two I'm willing to share.  I will return to this subject again many times I'm sure before we move south eventually.  It's an old friend I'll always remember it fondly, and as with any old friend, it's nice to have pictures of!

 

This post is a bit unusual in that I've made the actual print below before scanning the negative.  As traditional a photographer as I may otherwise be, scanning negatives beats the hell out of making contact sheets, and I haven't made one in years. Once a negative is scanned, it's incredibly easy to see what's possible in Photoshop so that darkroom work then becomes considerably more direct.  It's just a matter of figuring out how to make the print look like the best rendering I've created on the computer.  With experience, that translation gets easier and knowing what will and won't work and why is invaluable.  The biggest difference is viewing the image by transmitted light on the monitor rather than reflected light on the print, and that distinction would apply regardless of whether the actual paper print were made in the darkroom or the lightroom.

The scene here is by a path along the Wallkill River at New Palz (NY) in the early winter of 2008. The water is from heavy recent rain, I think, and not an overflow of the river. I have no idea why I've neither scanned, nor printed this before.  It seems like a pretty good image to me. 

It's the first full week of spring.  Obviously, that called for a snowstorm. And so it proceeded, but with paved surfaces too warm for snow to stick until the overnight when the air temperature dropped into the 20's.  It's really rare that I am available when both weather features are visually interesting, and when what I'd like to photograph is accessible.  So often a good snowfall makes all the road pullouts impossible to park on, but this time everything came together. These two photographs are the result of a really enjoyable hour in the wet, falling snow.

(I've had my Pentax 67 kit for over a decade now, and I am still delighted by the bulletproof build of that system. Getting it a bit wet didn't phase it in the least.  I know everyone admires the Hassie outfits used by many prominent artists, but I'll stick with this gear as long as it lasts. The 4x5 just wasn't up to the wetness!)

In the ongoing lookback at older negatives, I found this one from a few years ago.  It was made at a beach in Florida that, sadly to me, allows vehicle traffic.  Many photographers make pilgrimages to the western American deserts seeking the perfect composition with flawless sand and gorgeous light.  I haven't been so fortunate, but have been happy to have access from time to time to the sand dunes at our Atlantic shores.  As we will be moving to this area in several years, I'll probably not think too much of this image when I will have made innumerable and perhaps much better ones, but for now, I like it. 

It's been a while, but I finally had a chance to get out with the Pentax, and was able to trudge around the little pond at GPMSP wearing a black and less expensive version of "green wellies" (rubber boots) to slog through the slushy snow, mud, and puddles.  It's amazing how often I've visited this place, and I've made a lot of photographs here.  I didn't think I'd see anything I hadn't seen or photographed before, but I was mistaken.  The ice changed the entire image from merely reflecting the trees and bushes, to evidence of itself as a design element.  It pays to continue to look at even the most familiar, because it may reveal itself in an entirely unexpected way.

These two photographs are titled "End of Winter?" 1 and 2.  It's hard to convey how much I hope that's more than an idle wish! We, of this area, are impatient to enter spring as soon as possible.

Of late, and as described previously, I've been revisiting old negatives some of which have been printed before.  It's just amazing, though, how I see some of  these images in a very different way now than I did when I took them.  I regard cropping and recomposing my original conception as a valid and appropriate exercise. Other photographers see that as heresy...a failure of original vision, as if, in some otherworldly state of omniscience, complete perfection was imperative from the moment of exposure.  Well then, I'm guilty of that sin, but, I think it's one I shall not beat a "mea culpa" on my chest about.  Here then are a couple of photographs that I will work on in the darkroom tomorrow.  One has been posted here, I think, a long time ago in a very different way, and the other is posted for the first time.  I hope you like them. 

Once again, it snowed last night.  It was a fluffy, easy to shovel snow, but it was snow nonetheless.  And it is no longer welcome despite its fresh beauty.  It's been a hard winter for us.  We're not used to being tasked so regularly to wield the tools to clear the stuff, and if we slack off about it, the chore becomes that much more difficult as it softens and refreezes into an icier, and really intractable mess. On days like this the computer goes directly to the real estate sites that catalog what's "for sale" in the part of Florida we intend to move to eventually. "Eventually" seems waaaaay to uncertain a date at the moment. 

 So here is a photograph from 2004 of our back woods in very early spring.  It's a pleasure to look at today when this scene is white and wood.  We can hardly wait!

I've had the pleasure of revisiting older work as I've not had the time to create new.  It's really interesting how the incubation and development of one's perception of a creative artifact/image unfolds.  I like these two photographs a lot more now than when I took them, and, to be honest, I've cropped them somewhat from the 4x5 compostions of the original negatives.  It gives the lie, to me at least, that vintage work is somehow more authentic and valuable to gallerists/dealers than more considered and mature work that shows up much later.

But, that aside, these two images represent a soon to be season that is incredibly welcome to us who used to think we inhabited a temperate climate of gentle seasons,. WRONG!  Spring just can't come soon enough and to hell with the damn Punxatawny bigasss rat who may indicate otherwise!

Dear Visitor,
I'm just overwhelmed with stuff to do that makes my photographic work impossible for the time being.  So...this blog is suspended temporarily until I can free up the time to resume making new images. It's not as if I've suspended "seeing", it's just that being able to stop and photograph what I've seen isn't possible.  So, please check back in a while (or as my younger son said as a very, very young child: "in a couple of whiles") for future posts.  I will be back, but not right away.

This post is an interesting one for me.  I've not had the opportunity to do any new work for the past couple of months, and I have a huge backlog of printing to do so I'm not overly motivated to generate yet more negatives.  But, I also feel a nagging obligation to keep up with this blog at least once a month (though I'd prefer once a week), and, as I have nothing new to offer, I looked into my negative files for something old, but never before published here.

I found the image below.  What's special about it is that it was made on the very first day I used my spanking new Pentax 67 in April of 1998. I kept very few records on the negative file then, because I had not yet discovered the Sharpie pen that now annotates every filing.  I can barely make out the "4/98" that I wrote with a ballpoint pen at the time.  

The other thing that makes that day extremely memorable is that I either lost or had stolen the new 135mm lens that I had set on the ground a short distance behind me as I was using the camera, and only discovered later that day was no longer in my improvised camera pack.  It was an $800 or so loss that was a major hit at the time.  Ever since, I have always looked around at least three times for anything I may have dropped or overlooked to repack, and been hyper aware of other people near me when I'm working. 

And finally, I kinda like this photograph, Photoshopped now in emulation of my current printing style, because it is an early indication of the way I've come to "see" images, and because it's chaotic enough to emulate my life at the moment...joyous and exuberant, but tangled and knotty at the same time.  (a broad smile attends that statement!)

Getting out to photograph in this very busy time of year is difficult enough, but when I do, making a worthwhile image is still as difficult as it has always been.  But, I'm happy with the two 'graphs below.  They are of a willow tree I've come back to many times that sits at the edge of  little parking lot on Round Lake in Monroe, NY.  I've tried to interpret it in various seasons and weather, and these are yet another attempt.  Willows are the last to lose their leaves, and their vivid color when all around them are in their skeletal winter guise, is always exciting. 

I've been rereading Robert Adams wonderful little book on beauty in photography, and am again reassured that there's nothing new that matters except what is new for the artist.  That that work makes a difference in the world of art at large is irrelevant. That it makes a difference in my life is essential. 

So often when driving through Harriman State Park I'm frustrated that it's illegal (and even impossible) to stop the car to make a photograph when I come across something camera worthy .  So this post and the previous one are evidence that I was willing to hike to what I was interested in, and burn some film in a several of those places.  As I stood behind some low hanging branches of a brilliantly yellow leafed tree, I was fascinated by the delicacy of the supporting twigs, and the leaf's network of capillaries.

What interests me now is how to print this...large (10x10 or bigger), or rather small (5x5 perhaps).  There are several photographers who are making their images part of a greater presentation that is integral to the work.  In other words, the frame (either hand made to suit, or a collected antique) is more than a simple holder, and becomes an essential complement to the image.  From what I've seen, it works incredibly well sometimes, and rather poorly in other instances.  It's somewhat of an art in itself, and I intend to pursue it, and see where it leads. 

Autumn in New York is a song, and a splendid experience.  The "other" state park I often visit and have regularly photographed is Harriman SP...a large and gorgeous tract that includes a segment of the Appalachian Trail.  On Columbus Day, I spent some very pleasurable time walking a hilly, quiet road there schlepping the P67 kit and a pod.  It was both good exercise, and a rich visual feast.  Some leaves were in mid-turning, while others were in their full fall splendor.  The air was neither warm, nor crisp, but luxuriously comfortable, and dry enough that the well-earned sweat of climbing steep sections of the road evaporated quickly. 

It's always a conundrum deciding where the two dimensional, graphic scene that can actually be photographed parts from the total visceral experience that "being there" inspires.  Only a great deal of experience can inform that judgment.  I think the photographs below manage that well, but I'll assess them again later when a good deal more time has elapsed. 

Oh my!  I see it's been a while since I've posted here. If you maintain a blog, and you're halfway conscientious, you're inevitably going to feel responsible to keep it current, or suffer the ignominious guilt of regarding yourself as an irredeemable slacker.  I, therefore, confess to wanting to be conscientious while realizing that my slackfulness is worthy of considerable guilt.  Mea bloody damn culpa!  (I don't think Sister meant me to say it that way ;-)

Vacations for me have usually just been time away from work.  But, every year, if we're lucky and if only for a few days, we spend some time in a special place that's memorable.  My trip to Jacksonville this summer was enriched by several days at a hotel at the ocean...and I mean AT THE OCEAN!! ... as in fronting on the beach.  I couldn't get enough of it. I'd get up in the middle of the night and go to the slider to the deck and just stare at whatever was out there. We never closed the drape (3rd floor room made privacy possible) and never stopped staring out on the ocean when we weren't actually walking on the beach or flopping around in the water.  So, not surprisingly, here are a couple of photographs from that balcony of a morning sunrise.  I had to wait for quite a while for the camera to adapt to the warm, humid air from having spent the night in the air conditioned dryer air of our room, but that wasn't a problem. Coffee, and a magnificent view made the wait not only tolerable, but a real pleasure.

It's really nice to get back here after a couple of months hiatus.  My cello work during July consumed the entire weekday, and I was utterly disinterested in anything but prodigious laziness on the weekends.  That means that I had not exposed a single frame of film for quite a while.  But, my brief annual sojourn to Florida last week was energizing enough to finally do some work with the camera.

The Florida landscape is so enormously different than that of the Hudson Valley that I won't really begin to know what's significant from what's just novel to me until I have lived there eventually in retirement for a while.  Still, live oaks, moss, and palmettos are visually so seductive that I couldn't resist.  I may look back on these images some years from now and wonder why I bothered with what then will be a commonplace subject, but for now, I can't get enough of this stuff. 

The day job has been very stressful and time consuming of late (concerts, concerts, concerts), so there's not been much time or energy left for photography during the week.  Fortunately,  the same super early schedule that I need for work bleeds over into the weekend, which has enabled me to get up really, really early (before 5AM) to go out with the camera.  Just this past weekend I decided that it was time to revisit some familiar places with a different approach.  I almost never use wide angle lenses, but it was a revelation to do so in the two places below that I've photographed before....a lot!  I think I've been reluctant to allow so much subject onto the film because I don't usually "see" that way, but I'll think differently about it now.  For those who are interested, I used a 55mm lens on the P67.   Now I have to figure out how I can eventually acquire a similar field of view lens for the 4x5.  Hmmmmm........

I finally got out with the camera this past weekend.  I stopped on Canning Road where I have found so many pictures I really like that the place seems never to disappoint me.  It runs parallel to, and just a few yards from a section of the Wallkill River that offers endlessly interesting and different subjects, or different light on the same subjects I've photographed before.  I would have used the 4x5, but of late I've gotten so sick of dust on the film that become laborious to remove spots on the negative, that I almost always now use the P67, and did so here.  Still, the view camera would have been more satisfying to use.  It always slows me down...makes me look, and think,.and contemplate, and only then make the photograph that has ripened in my imagination.  Nonetheless, the lesson is learned and I insist to myself that there's no hurry, no need to burn meaningless, ill considered frames of film. 

I am often amused at the photographers who travel all over the world, but consistently return with the same photographs they could have made much closer to home because that's their "style".  I'm so sure I'd do exactly the same thing that I no longer feel any temptation to wander away for the sole purpose of making photographs.  Rather, I'd just love to visit the wonderful places that are currently so popular like Iceland (now with its' volcano), Antarctica, Greenland, and so on.  I'd probably look for the kind of photograph I am drawn to make, but I'd be thrilled to make it in one of those fascinating places. 

It's important to remember that "old" work isn't obsolete, nor less worthy than new work.  In fact, old work, unless it's utterly incompetent, is evidence of  one's evolving vision, and may be instinctively even better because it is a testament to that moment in which it is newly discovered.  That aside, here's a photograph I made at least four or more years ago that I've not printed nor published on this blog before.  I'm posting it because I like it...nothing more or less that that. 

There hasn't been much time for photography of late, but there's just been no way I could go on indefinitely without burning some film.  So, last week, I took myself to the part of Harriman Park that I enjoy walking in, and photographing.  Most of the images from this place have been one's I've not kept in my portfolio.  They've not passed the test of months or years as being worth keeping.  But, they've been very, very important as lessons learned.  Perhaps I go there with the unquenchable hope that I'll find the right conjunction of light, subject, mood and satisfying composition eventually...like a challenge one makes for oneself.  So...below is just such a photograph.  I've no idea whether I'll still like it a month from now, or be sorry I posted it here, but at the moment I like it.  It literally reached out to me (and that's the name of the negative scan of it: "reaching out").  It's fun to find a subject that will photograph with inherent contrast and dynamic form without having to do anything more than discover it, examine it, walk around it a lot, frame it to suit your sensibility, and make the photograph. 

Our show is now up on the walls at the Wallkill River Gallery in Montgomery, NY.  It took a lot of time to hang, but it looks really good.  There are a few more than 30 works to view...about an equal number of paintings and photographs.  All are invited to our opening on Saturday, April 10th from 5 to 7PM at the gallery.  There will be food and wine, but no dancing girls, or ritual sacrifices...sorry! ;-)   We're going to relax for a little while and get some chores done that went begging while preparing for the show, but we will be back making more artwork soon.  As rewarding as a show can be, it's really more satisfying to create the next piece. 

Here's one more photograph from this past February.  It was made after the storm that hit the week before THE STORM that clobbered us on the 26th.  There is a tiny little plot of man made land that extends maybe 25 feet or so into Walton Lake. It's fenced off, and used during warm weather by the several families that built it.  In its' season there is lush grass kept in finely manicured condition, but in winter there's not much to see except for the fence.  This image also is intended to bid a not so fond adieu to what's been a pretty nasty winter.  At least I did manage to get some photographs I like out of the season. 

The past week has been another wet one, but this time with copious rain and wind.  At least I didn't have to shovel any of it, and it did a wonderful job of melting the shoulder high snow I cleared that we were visited with just the previous week.  I don't know what's next...maybe locusts?

The nor'easter rain and wind storm was much more devastating to Westchester County where I work, than to Orange County where I live, so much so that my workplace was closed from Monday 'til today (we're back tomorrow), so I had the last two beautiful days to get out with the camera, and record some of the wonderful and unusual effects of the high water where the Wallkill River had crested many feet over it's usual high water mark.  For those for whom this was NOT a beautiful event, I'm sympathetic, but I'm also glad I could make these photographs that will last far longer than the errant flood.   The waters are receding, the fallen trees are being cleared, and we are quickly returning to whatever passes for normal around here.

The photographs below were made during this very welcome hiatus from the usual grind. 

Here's one more from last week's storm.  We live at the top of a hill that, now that I've gotten to drive around a week later to see where else got what, is clearly more heavily burdened with snow than anywhere else in this vicinity.  So many other places not that far away have returned to wintertime drab, their snowy coat melted and evaporated away, but we here on the hill still have over a foot of the stuff.  The next few days are predicted to be very mild and sunny, so I look forward to seeing dirt and grass in the near future.  Till then this post adds one more scene from behind our house that will probably look reaaaaalllly appealing sometime this summer when it's baking outside. 

We've just gone through a helluva week with snow.  It's been almost intimidating in its depth (about 3 feet) in terms of the difficulty involved in clearing enough of it to be able to use a car, or even walk up the driveway to the street.  Still, when not worrying about when the electric will come back on, or the plow will stop building a wall at the top of the driveway, it has been a really a beautiful event.  The two pictures below were made after a few hours of work trying to deal with it.  I was happy to see the snow, then, in a very different way.