Author Archives: David

Sleepy Saturday

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Figure 1 - Sleepy Saturday. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Figure 1 – Sleepy Saturday. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Regular readers of this blog know that I am not fond of posting cute cuddly animal pictures. Still a great privilege of life is being able to share it with feline friends. Today I wanted to capture the exquisite joy of a sleepy Saturday morning, when the room is filled with sunlight, when you are very sleepy, and when your best friends in the whole world are snuggled up with you in bed.

My particular furry friend is more tolerant of the IPhone than my Canon. The Canon is not to be trusted. It tends to flash in your face – ever so annoying to sensitive cat eyes. After all blinking faster than the flash takes up a lot of energy.

Unstuck in time

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In his classic psychological drama of time travel “Slaughter House Five,” Kurt Vonnegut describes his protagonist Billy Pilgrim as being “unstuck in time.” This would suggest that we are tethered to what physicists refer to as our “world line,” the path in space and time that we travel. For us time is an arrow and we move ever forward. For Billy Pilgrim, well, not so much. “All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.”

You may have heard yesterday that a US military surveillance blimp became untethered in Maryland and drifted a couple of hundred miles across rural Pennsylvania. Yes unstuck, unthethered, but certainly not in time. Well a photograph taken yesterday by Jimmy May of Bloomberg Press Enterprise via the AP tells, or at least suggests, a different pilgrimage for the blimp.  He captured it hanging over an Amish horse drawn carriage in Millville, PA. The Amish strive for a peaceful timelessness and here it was certainly broken by an apparent anachronism.

“It is just an illusion here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone, it is gone forever.”

Kurt Vonnegut, “Slaughter House Five,” 1969

Faces of the old country

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Figure 1 - Augustu Sherman Guadeloupean woman. In the public domain in the United States.

Figure 1 – Augustus Sherman Guadeloupean woman. In the public domain in the United States because of its age and that it was taken by an employee of the federal government..

A friend and reader has brought to my attention a remarkable article in The Washington Post showing the faces of “the old country.” It has been estimated that approximately 40% of the population of the United States can trace its ancestry back to the 12 million people who entered  America through Ellis Island in New York Harbor. It raises the old cliche that we are a nation of immigrants. But the true story is much more than one of numbers, As rich as America has been in natural resources, its greatest asset has been, and continues to be, it immigrants. These people came and come to the United States to build a future and their future is the future of the country.

These photos were taken by Augustus Sherman, who was both an amateur photographer and the chief registry clerk on Ellis Island from 1892 until 1925. He photographed people coming through in their native costumes, while they were the greenest of “green horns.” The photographs were published in National Geographic in 1907 and for many years they hung in the federal Immigration Service headquarters in Manhattan. They are now archived in the the New York Public Library.

There are several points to be made about the images themselves. There was a certain seriousness to the picture process, or was it fear of rejection. The pride of the sitters rings through. And in composite they are a definitive monument to America’s diversity.It is hard to pick a favorite among these images. But I have chosen as Figure 1 this stunningly expressive photograph of a beautiful Guadeloupean woman in native dress. All of the elements are there: pride and just a hint of a smile

Photographs of imaginary places

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Figure 1 - Don Quixote in his Study, 1857, by Julia Margaret Cameron and in the public domain in the United States because of its age.

Figure 1 – Don Quixote in his Study, 1857, by Julia Margaret Cameron and in the public domain in the United States because of its age.

There is a prologue to the musical “Man of La Mancha” and then Cervantes grabs us with the words:

“May I set the stage? I shall impersonate a man.
Come, enter into my imagination and see him!“

And there he is in Figure 1. There is Don Quixote in his study as Imagined by Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) in her 1857 photograph.

So fast forward, for several weeks I had been anticipating last Monday’s release of the movie “Jurassic World.”  It became available for rental and on Saturday I found time to watch it. The movie begins with images of the imaginary theme park Jurassic World and at about the moment of the attack of the pterodactyls I became struck by how real the images seemed. See for instance the mosasaurus eating a pterodactyl and like me forget everything that you know about these soaring reptiles and their precarious flight.  These scenes seemed, indeed were, photographs of what previously existed only in the mind. That is the beauty of modern digital photograph and its cousin digital video.

From the very beginning the word photograph carried with it a sense of authenticity. Of course that was misplaced, but it was there. And the very roots of photography in classic art meant that early photographers sought to imitate painting and so photographed the religious, the mythic, and the literary. Julia Margaret Cameron was a major practitioner of this art and her legacy is followed by the magic mysticism of modern day photographers like Beth Moon.

Recently I have been struck by what is called “Fantasy Photography,” which is not to be confused with boudoir photography. In fantasy photography the photographed person is integrated seamlessly into an other world, and you cannot quite be sure if you are really looking at a portrait reworked or a totally manufactured and created person and scene. It marvelously extends the possibilities and stretches the limits of the photograph.  There is a wonderful series of fantasy photographs by photographer Annie Leibovitz where she transforms celebrities into well known Disney Characters. And one of my favorites is Kristy Mitchell’s “Wonderland.” This typifies the marvelous transcendence of the genre into the magical, into the mythic. We seem to be looking at photograph of Mallory’s  “Nimue, the Lady of the Lake.” It conjures up Edward Burnes-Jones’ The Beguiling of Merlin (1872-1877). You may recognize his model, Jane Morris, from a previous blog. But as beautiful as the painting is, Ms. Mitchell’s  image is so much more. It is a photograph, and photographs have an implied truth. It is as if the photographer transcended reality and entered the realm of Mallory’s mind.

Women’s day off

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I think it highly significant that today is the fortieth anniversary of the day (October 24, 1975), when the women of Iceland staged a massive twenty-four hour strike called “Women’s Day Off, to demonstrate pay inequities (wait that sounds familiar) and to prove just how essential they were for the economy of the country. Only five years later Vigdís Finnbogadóttir became Iceland’s and Europe’s first female president.  According to Vigdis that day was the first step for women’s emancipation in Iceland: “It completely paralyzed the country and opened the eyes of many men.”

It is believed that 90 % of Icelandic women participated in the strike. Many just left their homes early in the morning leaving their husbands and children to fend for themselves.  The tales of quiet desperation are profound. Banks, factories, schools, nurseries, and many shops were forced to close. For the men of Iceland it was a baptism of fire, which led to the other name that the day goes by “the Long Friday.” There are some wonderful black and white news photographs in the Iceland’s Women’s History Archive of that day, including this one showing the 25,000 women (~20% of Icelands 1975 female population) gathered in solidarity in Reykjavik on that day.

As is always the key point with such events, they highlight two significant points: first, is how much remains to be accomplished, and second is the size of the shoulders upon which we stand.

 

 

Autumn mushrooms

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Figure 1 - Oyster mushrooms along Fresh Pond, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Figure 1 – Oyster mushrooms along Fresh Pond, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Fall in eastern Massachusetts is, I think, just past peak.  It seems like a room in disarray. The ducks have begun their migrations. The ring-necks are starting to gather on the pond. I am waiting patiently for the hoodies and tonight on my drive home I saw several V formations of ducks in flight against the dusk.

But there is another pleasure to be witnessed, and that is the explosion of mushrooms brought on by the dampness and cooler days. This is being played out just beneath our feet and easily missed for the vividness of the trees. Yesterday I spotted the cluster of Figure 1. Mushrooms spend perhaps a day in the splendor of fungal youthfulness. These I believe are oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus), although I emphasize that no one should make any eating decisions based on my very limited botanical knowledge.

There is something gorgeous and fresh about them. The image certainly demanded black and white with a subtle tone. But it took a lot of playing with curves, brightness, and contrast to capture the luminescence of the moment.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 140 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/500th sec at f/9.0 with -1 exposure compensation.

CBRE Urban Photography of the Year Awards

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The CBRE Urban Photography of the Year Awards for 2015 have been announced and these are some truly wonderful photographs. First about CBRE, because I think it quite notable. CBRE is a leading global real estate services and investment firm. In creating the CBRE Urban Photographer of the Year competition, their aim is to enhance our understanding of the “built environment” on a global scale by seeing urban areas through different eyes. And for every entry in the Urban Photographer of the Year competition, CBRE makes a donation to leading children’s development charity, Plan International.This I think is significant, because 53 % of the world’s population live in urban environments and this is expected to climb to 70% by 2050. So to seeing people as they live and work in our cities is a defining and uniquely human perspective.

There are several stunning images among this year’s winners. I would particularly note the grand prize winner Oscar Rialubin’s black and white portrait of a watchmaker in Qatar entitled ‘Xyclops.’ Really this is everything that a black and white portrait should be – dramatic lighting, vivid sharpness, and compelling pathos. And second is the winner of the European, Middle Eastern, and African Award, Armen Dolukhanyan’s touching photograph entitled ‘Couple Policemen,’ which catches an intimate moment between a Ukrainian policeman and police woman.  This is truly the decisive moment.

 

Tone-on-tone: folded

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Figure1 - tone-on-tone, folded paper. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Figure1 – tone-on-tone, folded paper. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Figure 1 shows one of my absolute favorite black and white subjects a tone-on-tone, and favorite among favorites the tone is white. The image is composed strictly of light and shadows. This is an IPhone image of a huge satiny white paper background to a store window display. Of course, the rotation that I chose, what is vertical, what is horizontal is not the same as the original. The folds seemed to demand something different. As always the trick is not overdoing the contrast, not defeating its tonality and turning into a black and white caricature.  Here also there was the problem of reflections in the window glass. I minimized these by shouting at a slight angle and those that remained a treated by bleaching out the midtones until they faded into the highlights and then softened the highlights to match the surrounding greys. Other than that there is very little dodging and burning here. I set the levels to equalize the histograph and gave it a pleasing gamma – nothing else. I am pleased with the final results.

Monogamy?

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Figure 1 - Mallard pair, female and male, (Rhinus platyrhincus) Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015;

Figure 1 – Mallard pair, female and male, (Anas platyrhyncos) Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015;

The other day I came upon this pair of mallards in the Pond.  The male was standing on a rock and periodically dunked his head in the water. The females was swimming nearby. I had stopped to chat with one of the dog walkers, when I noticed that they were now standing “lovingly” together. And I just had to take the image of Figure 1.

“Lovingly” together? I had to wonder. We all fall victim, well maybe that’s too strong. We all love the cute cuddly animal images that abound on the internet, and I cannot tell you how many times this passed summer I’ve seen fraught-filled ducks with their chicks down a storm drain and humans jumping to their aid. All very sweet and all reminiscent of Robert McCloskey’s “Make Way for Ducklings,” which did after-all take place in Boston.

So I started wondering whether ducks do mate for life, and whether the highly anthropomorphic vision of Mr. and Mrs. Mallard raising Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack and Quack has any reality. As it turns out the story is complicated. And I am not sure that I have really sorted it all out, but in terms of the mating for life scenario that seems not so much. The drakes appear to wander off when the female’s attention falls from him to her brood. How’s that for anthropomorphic. Also the hens often pick new mates the following season. And then there’s the groups of drakes gang-raping hens. Perhaps anthropomorphic, but not happily so. We are left in the end with the point made by Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park that animals do what they are programmed to do. They aren’t evil; they’re just coded.

There have been precious few duck or goose chicks on Fresh Pond this past summer. This I suspect is largely due to the wildlife management process of addling, where the eggs are rendered infertile by coating them with corn oil.  This kills the eggs but the ducks don’t realize it and immediately produce a new set. So I guess that my image that my picture shows Mr. and Mrs. Mallard as empty-nesters looking out reflectively at the Pond as winter approaches (I can just see the pipe in Mr. Mallard mouth) is pure fantasy, still a lovely one.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 200 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE mode 1/800th sec at f/9.0 with no exposure compensation.