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.