Yearly Archives: 2014

Hidden Cities of World War I

Posted on by

As we lived out the horrors of our own time, we may pause to reflect back on the horror that was World War I a century ago.  All of those veterans are gone now, and it all fades into a collective consciousness barely kept alive by black and white images of wet and disgusting battlefields or the lost army of white grave markers.

But we should not forget it, even if it only emphasizes the similarity between our times and those.  So I’d like to point out a fascinating Blog today in the New York Times by Craig Allen “The Hidden Cities of World War I.” As it turns out the battle fields of “The Great War” were fought over the very ground that covers the ancient stone quarries from which the great French cathedrals were built.  And in these stones soldiers sought refuge from the hell above them. Amazing artifacts are left behind, wine bottles, live grenades, signatures in stone, and wall carvings.  And these have been wonderfully photographed by Jeffrey Gusky. These are gorgeous in the mood the set and in the way they emphasize the trick of the human eye of focusing on details.

Most amazing to me are hearts, celebrating distant sweethearts – a connection home. And as Gusky notes, ever so poignantly, there are many more of these expressions of love and tenderness than of national pride.  There is certainly a lesson in this about the most enduring of human qualities, if we will only listen to our own inner hearts.

Impressionist puddles

Posted on by
Figure 1 - Puddles in frost heaves by the Cambridge Waterworks, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Figure 1 – Puddles in frost heaves by the Cambridge Waterworks, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

I was wandering around the Cambridge Waterworks during lunch on Friday in search of photographs.  The weather was perfect, I mean perfect!  And the lake was just spectacular.  But nothing was photographically striking me.  Then I made the right move of looking down and at a deeply shaded portion of the path I can upon some very serious frost heaves in the asphalt.

For those of you who do not live in northern climes, allow me to explain.  Ice is less dense than water.  More physics blah, blah, blah … This has two effects.  First, it causes ice to float on water.  Second, it causes frost heaves, where water beneath the pavement expands on freezing during the winter and causes the road to buckle.  This in turn leads, in part, to the autoshop’s friend and cash-maker, “pot holes!”

These particular frost heaves, the result of probably man winters of freezing and thawing were huge.  As a result large puddles of water had collected between their protective dams and these were reflecting the trees and skies bathed in a glorious September light.  Have I mentioned the glory of September light before? 8<}

Well I took a few images, but really only half-heartedly. I was thinking black and white.  But  I wasn’t sure I had gotten the composition right.  When I got home, I dutifully suppressed the color and played extensively with the levels, curves, contrast, brightness, and, of course, toning.  The result is shown in Figure 1. I am not a hundred percent sure about this picture.  But I like the mystery and pictorialist (impressionist) quality of the image.  One is not quite certain what the subject is.  There is a certain element of magic in the highlights on the ground that open up an otherwise darkened place.

Arboreal shells

Posted on by
Figure 1 - Decaying Tree Bark, Fresh Ponmd Reserve, Cambridge, MA near Black's Nook. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Figure 1 – Decaying Tree Bark, Fresh Ponmd Reserve, Cambridge, MA near Black’s Nook. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

I have a couple of more photographs from the Fresh Pond that I wanted to post. I have been intrigued and puzzled by large pieces of twisted tree bark that appeared after a recent late summer storm.  They are held up like bagged trophies by other trees, arranged by artist nature.  Photographing them can be just a bit of a challenge.  First, there is the matter of choosing the right light. Second, they tend to be buried under the canopy, where light only filters in. Third, their length always presents a depth of field challenge. And fourth, photographing them in too harsh a light never quite seems right, while soft diffuse light always seems disinteresting.  Hmm!

So they offer a learning experience. And Figure 1 is an attempt at one of my favorite specimens.  It will not be here next spring, I am sure.  They are ultimately ephemeral.  I took it in August, just as summer was turning into September.

I know that everyone cannot wait for the blah de blah.  Canon T2i, EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM Lens at 35 mm (short for me), AE-Aperture Priority Mode, ISO 800, 1/250th sec at f/9.0 with no exposure compensation.

Aurora Borealis

Posted on by
Figure 1 - European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst posted this photograph taken from the International Space Station to social media on Aug. 29, 2014.

Figure 1 – European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst posted this photograph taken from the International Space Station to social media on Aug. 29, 2014.

I found myself Friday night – Saturday getting up groggily several times, staggering across the darkened bedroom, and scanning the night sky looking for the promised aurora borealis.  Never did see it.  The sky was a bit overcast. and I am told that this intermittent search was not the righty way to do.

I have seen them several times in the past, particularly from the coast of Northern Maine and it leaves an amazing impression.  It is something truly magical, a subtle array of glorious dancing color.  And even an understanding of how the rain of solar particles streams in and interacts with the Earth’s ionosphere does nothing to diminish the glory.  Indeed, for me understanding just increases the awe.  And the Northern Lights is an effect that brings back shared primordial sensations of unbridled wonder.

Well, I’d love to share with you an image that I took on Friday night.  But I have none.  I do want to mention however, that here is a case where digital photography with its increased sensitivity with reduced gain and immediate feedback offers an amazing advantage.  Still I would recommend studying up on just how to do it correctly. There is an excellent detailed resource on the web by Patrick J. Endres.

So Saturday morning I scoured the newsmedia in search of images that other people took all around the world and there are some really amazing ones.  And then there are the images like those of Figure 1 taken from the International Space Station showing a top down view of the Aurora Borealis.  This image was posted on social media on August 29th by European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst.

So I encourage you to go out and look for these iridescent curtains of light, especially if you live at a high enough or low enough latitude and where the lights of man have not obscured the glory of the Milky Way.  They never ever disappoint.

Late summer, Queen Ann’s lace, but not the Lusitania

Posted on by
Figure 1 - Queen Ann's lace at Lusitania Meadow, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Figure 1 – Queen Ann’s lace at Lusitania Meadow, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

As I have mentioned we are in the last glory days of summer. It is just over a week before the Equinox, the point when the Sun crossed the celestial equator and is midway between its highest point in the sky and its lowest, and this bathes us in a magical September light.

The hot days of July and August have browned the world just a bit. But late summer’s coolness has revived the flowers, particularly the roses. These are now displaying one last beautiful burst before winter.

All summer I have been walking at noontime at the Fresh Pond Reserve in Cambridge, watching the birds, especially the green herons at Black’s Nook and admiring the water and the wild flowers. Every path off of the pond’s perimeter takes you somewhere unique, interesting, and beautiful. Every locale slowing metamorphoses with the calendar’s progression.

I have been particularly intrigued by a place called Lusitania Field or Meadow. This is just a magnificent wildflower garden, just left, or so it would seem, to the whims of nature. But I suspect the hand of the volunteer keepers of the reserve are at work here. Tall masses of daisies, black-eyed Suzies, golden rods, and Queen Ann’s lace abound. Unlike most of the reserve this meadow is subject to an intense sunlight and as a result is a favorite spot for sitting on a bench and having lunch or pushing baby strollers. Dogs chase balls, and yesterday I watched a man submerge himself in grass and flowers retrieving a tennis ball for a grateful terrier. The man emerged covered in nettles and probably ticks.

The Queen Ann’s lace has mostly shriveled up to intricate spheres of withered plant tissue, and yesterday I was struck enough by one of these to attempt to photograph it despite the fact that I had “the wrong lens” with me, my 70 to 200mm and no monopod. This is shown in Figure 1. To my view it came out pretty well, and the shallow depth of focus gave me some lovely bokeh. I am hoping in a small way that it captures the light of September and the gentle warmth of the day. I have used a subtle sepia tone.

All summer long I have been laboring under the misbelief that Lusitania Meadow was named in memory of the souls lost on the Lusitania. You can search online the Cambridge newspapers of the day and read the scathing editorials about the brutality of the event. I imagined the sober citizens cantabrigiensis gathered solemnly back in 1915 dedicating this field to the victims and swearing to never forget. Not so, it turns out.

It seems that the word has a common origin with the name of the fated ship. Both are named after Hispania Lusitania, the ancient Iberian Roman province that included all of modern Portugal south of the Douro river and part of modern Spain. The name derives from the Lusitani or Lusitanian people who inhabited this region. There is a proud tradition in Massachusetts of Portuguese speaking peoples, starting with a wave of immigrants from Portugal who came in the nineteenth century to work in the textile mills of Massachusetts, then the capital of America’s industrial revolution, and continuing to the Brazilian of today . I should also perhaps mention the Portuguese who “secretly” fished George’s Bank for cod as early as the fifteenth century. The Portuguese in America formed societies referred to as Lusitania Social Clubs and it is believed that men from this club in the 1970’s cleared the land to use it as a soccer field.

Somehow this story does not diminish the place. History, after all, is history, and every place has its own traditions. I marvel for a while at the wildflowers and then move on.

9/11 from Space

Posted on by
Figure 1- Photograph by astronaut Frank Culbertson from the International Space Station showing the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. From NASA and in the public domain.

Figure 1- Photograph by astronaut Frank Culbertson from the International Space Station showing the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. From NASA and in the public domain.

Thursday marked the thirteenth anniversary of the 9/11 Attack on the World Trade Center.  I came upon this amazing photograph of the event taken by then NASA astronaut Frank Culbertson. Culbertson was the only American not present on the planet that September day.  He was ~ 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth in the, then under construction, International Space Station with two Russian cosmonauts. He saw the huge column of smoke streaming from Lower Manhattan, where the Twin Towers fell and captured both video and still photographs of site from space for NASA.

Culbertson recalls his call to the ground that morning to give the results of some physical exams to his flight surgeon at Mission Control Houston, Steve Hart, and was told, “Frank, we’re not having a very good day down here on Earth.”

Culbertson saw that the space station was about to pass over New England. So he grabbed his camera and positioned himself to have a clear view of New York City. Later, Culbertson was also able to see the damage to the Pentagon. Ironically, his good friend and U.S. Naval Academy classmate Charles “Chic” Burlingame was the pilot of hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 that struck the Pentagon.

“Every orbit we kept trying to see more of what was happening,” Culbertson said. “One of the most startling effects was that within about two orbits, all of the contrails that are normally crisscrossing the United States has disappeared because they had grounded all the airplanes and there was nobody else flying in U.S. airspace — except for one airplane that was leaving a contrail from the central U.S. toward Washington, and that was Air Force One headed back to D.C. with President Bush. It was a very sobering time for us.”

Photographic firsts #12 – The first mobile phone photograph

Posted on by
Figure 1 - The first publicaly shared mobile phone image. Transmitted on June 11, 1997 by Phillipe Kahn of his newborn daughter Sonya. From the Wikimediacommons and put in the public domain by Phillipe Kahn.

Figure 1 – The first publicaly shared mobile phone image. Transmitted on June 11, 1997 by Phillipe Kahn of his newborn daughter Sophie. From the Wikimedia Commons and put in the public domain by Phillipe Kahn.

It’s been a while since I posted a photographic first. But this week brought us the IPhone 6, the IPhone6 plus, and the IWatch and this got me thinking about the rapid, blink of the eye, history of both the mobile phone and the digital camera on the mobile phone.  For those of us brought up on Star Trek, it has all been wonderful, although the flip phone, which was designed to give you the feel of the Star Trek communicator had only a brief moment in the sun or some other star before we move on.  Indeed, even standard Federation of Planets communicator models evolved rapidly through the seasons of the show.  The flip communicator rapidly became integrated into the Federation medallion worn by crews.  Even the short lived “red shirts” wore them.  Oops! I am digressing again.

I found myself wondering this morning what the first mobile phone image was.  It sounded like the kind of thing that I could find with a simple Google Search, and sure enough.  On June 11, 1997, Philippe Kahn instantly transmitted what is widely believed to be the first publicly shared photographs ever.  In some sense it marks the birth of social media.  The image shown in Figure 1, fittingly is of his then newborn daughter Sophie from the maternity ward. It was shared simultaneously with a then amazing 2000 people.

Look at the picture and note its relatively low resolution.  Do a quick calculation.  It was taken a mere seventeen years ago.  The telephone was invented somewhere between 1833 and 1876 – don’t want to weigh in on a controversial issue.  Television was invented a half century later.  The current rate of innovation is truly staggering.

The thigh bone’s connected to the hip bone

Posted on by
Figure 1- Image from Mars Rover showing putative "Thigh Bone." From NASA and in the public domain.

Figure 1- Image from Mars Rover showing putative “Thigh Bone.” From NASA and in the public domain.

Well jumpin’ pareidolia! The world of UFO enthusiasts and other wanna believers was set into an internet frenzy with NASA’s release last week of an image (see Figure 1) from the Mars Rover showing what looks very much like a human thigh bone.  Well sometimes a rock is just a rock, and such is the case here. Sorry!

I want to admit that there is nothing that would excite me more than the discovery of a fossil on Mars. And while Mars Rover has conclusively shown that Mars was once dripping in water, geologists and exobiologists think it very unlikely that Mars ever harbored large creatures – the atmosphere and environment are not believed to have ever been sufficiently sustaining for evolution to progress in that direction.

On the other hand, we may continue to wonder what if – and such is the thought provoking nature of images like this.  Mars indeed has long been a refuge for seeing things, for associating natural inanimate phenomena with objects of human or even divine origin.  There were the “Canals of Mars,” the “Face on Mars, “the Mars Rat,” and now this thigh bone.

Two years ago when I launched this blog, I promised that one of the points that it would feature was the pure magic of photographs.  Well, the Martian Thigh Bone now joins the ranks of images that titillate and fire off the associative neurons of our brains.  Just as we post our selfies in pursuit of connection, just as we look at nineteenth century photographs and see connectivity, so too we look at the alien worlds that NASA brings into crystal clarity and seek something familiar, a connection with what we know that goes beyond a bit of iron rich rock lying in the sand.  We seek the magic of the image.

Other worlds of the mind

Posted on by

In the mood for other worldliness I was struck last week by this dreamy photograph by Jim Urquhart for Reuters showing a scene from this years “Burning Man Arts and Music Festival” in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada.  The art installation shown is “Pulse and Bloom.” Once  a year tens of thousands of people descend upon the desert to create an arts city o:f art, community, self expression, and self reliance. A week later they depart leaving no trace of their having been there.

As for the picture, the dusty redness of the scene and of the clouds transports you visually to another, perhaps a Martian, world.  The indistinct but looming figure in the background evokes so many science fiction movies and thus creates a certain element of for foreboding.  Where do we go next? As our own world becomes so strange and mean, we all perhaps, begin to yearn for an element of utopian other worldliness.  This image, at least, gives us that escape.