A dead robin

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Figure 1 - Winter 2015 # 1, Sapling and squirrel trail on Little Fresh Pond, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Figure 1 – Winter 2015 # 1, Sapling and squirrel trail on Little Fresh Pond, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Temps in the 30’s F yesterday; so it was time to clamp on my crampons and venture out into the wilderness of the Fresh Pond Reserve. Everything was absolutely gorgeous. It was enough to restore my faith in the glories of winter.

I happened upon a dead and frozen robin. I am not one to photograph dead and decaying things, this despite the Rembrandt tradition where a side of beef alludes to the crucifixion. It was a personal tragedy for that poor bird the night before, and I can empathize with that and the continuity of the natural world. So I took no photographs of it. I’ll leave that art form to others.

For the natural world winter is a testing ground, a major obstacle to be survived, an evolutionary challenge. Still when you survey the landscape you realize that first there is the pure beauty of the physical phenomena of cold, ice, and wind. You might as well be on a lifeless alien world. But, second you realize that it is a world alive. The signs of life are what challenges or contrasts with the desolation.

These are the thoughts that went into my first photograph of the afternoon. There was a little sapling struggling to survive on the shore of what is called “Little Fresh” pond. And winding away from this diminutive tree is a trail, made I suspect by a grey squirrel hopping through the snow. The squirrels are always busy in winter. Their lives are not like those of “Chip and Dale.” There is the constant searching for food, and food is essential to maintain body temperature against the snow. Again, I can empathize and, as a result, I do not begrudge these guys for relentlessly helping themselves to sunflower seeds from my bird feeder. They have to eat too!

But back to the photograph (Figure 1). As always underexpose by a stop. I love the simple geometric contrasts of snow patterns. I did this as a black and white. At the end I converted it to color again and tinted with a cold tone. Cold tone is not my usual choice. But it is appropriate for snow. Indeed I could have stayed in color mode from all the get go.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 70 mm, ISO 400, Aperture Priority – AE mode, 1/640th sec at f/16.0 with +1 exposure compensation.

Iwo Jima

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Remarkably Monday was the seventieth anniversary of the taking of what is widely viewed as the most famous and iconic World War II photograph, the raising of the American Flag on Iwo Jima.  The image was taken on February 23, 1945 by war photographer Joe Rosenthal.  It carries with it the story that it was posed. Thom Patterson for CNN has set the record straight on this.  As it turns out a first flag was raised, but then it was decided that a larger one should replace it so that it could be seen by fighters below.  It was this second flag-raising that Rosenthal photographed – a rare second chance in the world of missed phot opportunities.  As Patterson aptly points out this image “went viral” by 1945 standards and raised the hopes of a nation that the war might eventually end.

For us, it is the ultimate meme of Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation.” And as all good meme images it takes on a much greater life and much deeper meaning.  It signifies ultimate sacrifice and supreme bravery.  But most significantly it signifies the selfless gift of one generation at one moment in time tosubsequent generations.

It was exactly what Thomas Paine was talking about nearly two centuries earlier (1775-1783):

“These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” 

Back to the Future – Adventures in time travel

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I have spoken in the past about photography as a kind of time travel. Yes, you can look and at some strange level interact with people from the nineteenth century, and that is a wonderful experience. But perhaps more intimate is to look at an old picture of yourself, this because you associate with the picture. You might even remember the picture being taken. And the strangest aspect is that the person in the picture with the strange hairstyle, or in my case with hair itself, it is you, yet it is not quite you. Phew! What does it all mean?

In the literature and Gedankenexperiments about time travel, there is the paradox. How can you go back and interact with yourself, if you don’t remember having done it, and also don’t you risk changing events and therefore undoing (that is obliterating yourself). In the philosophy of science, the kind of late night conversations with wine especially, there are ways around this paradox – especially ways involving parallel universes and what are referred to as world lines in space and time. Doesn’t that some profound and cool.

Photographer Irina Werning has explored time travel of this kind with a twist. In her “Back to the Future” and “Back to the Future 2 2011” series. What she has done is taken a snapshot of an individual, typically 20 years old, and paired it with a reenactment of the scene. The results are both delightful and magical. I really love it. It is a kind of every man and every woman version of Nicholas Nixons now forty years of photographs of “The Brown Sisters.” Here there are just two images, one before one after. It is an exploration of both change and immutability. And some of the images subtly seem to ring to profounder issues, like coming of age (Carli 1990 & 2011 Buenos Aires) and major world events (Cristoph 1990 and 2011 at the Berlin Wall). I am amazed at the availability of some of the image props and details and how much likeness prevails. I think, this a really wonderful series and much to be applauded.

The glories of black and white photography

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A weaker man would post about the cute and cuddly red pandas frolicking in the snow at the Cincinnati zoo. But I will not yield to temptation. What I want to talk about today is the “Your Photographs” feature on the BBC, which this week is highlighting some gorgeous black and white photographs from its readers. This is a place to go to see two things: first how much great photographic talent there is around among amateurs, and second how black and white photography, always my personal favorite, is alive, well, and flourishing.

The second point, the enduring appeal of black and white photography, is at some level surprising at others not. From a technological stand point it represents a transitional technology, and you might have expected a complete adoption of color photography. But it stayed around as sole photographic form for so long that it became a recognized art form. Indeed, an on the other hand, the same is true in drawing. Black and white drawings, charcoals, pen and inks, and engraving are still all very appealing. And every once in a while some cinematographer will still produce a black and white film, because “the subject matter demands it.”  Whatever that means! As a jaded ex-New Yorker, I always assumed that it meant that the artist was too cheap to spring for the color film.

Never-the-less, the BBC series shows the magnificence of the art and the glorious appeal of deep black and brilliant whites and really everything in between. Like thick cream, it’s almost tactile! When I photograph, my first thought and inclination is always towards black and white. My favorite among the BBC images is Daniel Furon’s wonderful photograph of coffee cups and saucers at the Café Stijl in San Francisco. De Stijl is a Dutch art movement, whose origins date to 1917, that was based on pure abstract geometric form. And therein is an important point really. For this kind of geometric image, color would be superfluous and distracting. Shedding color accentuates the geometry, and I find my eye delightedly exploring Mr. Furon’s image. The compositional balance in the photograph to me is just perfect.  Well done, indeed!

Bring in the drones

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The age of drones is upon us – another technology that is moving faster than we are.  If you take a short nap, Rumpelstiltskin, it will catch you unawares.  Yesterday the Town of Somerville in Massachusetts sent the drones out to locate roofs in danger of collapse from all the snow – this rather than the dangerous and painstaking process of sending firemen up to “check it out.”

Well, we’ve spoken about this before, and there are many reasons to be concerned.  There is the bad side of drones and their ability to deliver bad things.  There is the disappointing fact that the US Postal Service is certain to miss the boat or drone and continue its downward spiral.  We can obsess about potential accidents with aircraft, cars, and pedestrians or about being attacked by irate raptors.  But the truth is that the same was said about bicycles and cars and airplanes.  And honestly, friends, as Pierre Curie could attest horse drawn carriages caused accidents as well.

But of more immediate, and artistic interest, in terms of photography are some truly stunning photographs of a frozen Niagara Falls taken from a drones.  We are assured, btw, that the falls have too much water to freeze completely.  A century ago people were assured that hydroelectic works on the Niagara River would never tap more than 5 % of the flow.  My understanding is that we are now up to about 50 %.  Back to the drones, these devices, a kind of floating or flying tripod, are now quite affordable for hobbyists and enthusiasts.  So as a tool of photographers, the everlasting search, for new perspectives, this is truly something spectacular – a real game changer.

So I am going to have to default once again to my standard that you can’t fight or ultimately control technology.  As a result, you had best embrace it and open its potential.  And right now, at this moment, I am going to revel in these glorious images of the falls that played such a significant role in the dawn of the electrical age a century ago.

 

Caramel lace

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Figure 1 - Caramel lace, Sudbury, MA, February 2015. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Figure 1 – Caramel lace, Sudbury, MA, February 2015. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

An amazing aspect about snow is that you can’t stay made at it for long.  It’s all about a love/hate relationship. And now that I’ve got about a billion pounds of it taken off my roof, I’m back to focusing on just how beautiful it is, and I will continue loving it until I have to drive in it again. Hmm!

Last night we have a gentle snow fall and awoke to the sense that some numinous deity had sprinkled confectioners sugar on all the trees.  I was packing the car for work when I was captured by the site of my neighbor’s tree.  It was glistening in the morning light like so much caramel lace. I say “caramel” because, of course, I was going to sepia tone it.  I was especially struck by the contrast between the dendritic fractal pattern of the branches and the parallel lines of the electrical wires – all equally snow encrusted.

I could, in fact, have stopped a hundred times this morning to take tree images.  Well maybe.  The thing is that our streets are now snow tunnels, and it is impossible to safely pull over to take photographs.  SO I had to remain satisfied with the image of Figure 1.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM Lens at 98 mm, ISO 400, Aperture-priority AE mode. 1/400th sec at f/9,0 with no exposure compensation.

A thin veneer

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I’m seeing more and more bizarre images this winter – sights that stretch credulity and imagination.  This evening I came across this image from WITN out of Greenville, NC.  It shows an unusual ice formation actually cast into shape by a Jeep’s grill. It was snapped at a parking lot at the Vidant Medical Center in Greenville on Feb 17. An eyewitness reported that  the vehicle’s owner warmed up the engine and left behind this imprint., and the imprint remained after the driver backed out of the parking space. The ice was attached to the curb. It is a kind of modern fossil, a sense that is accentuated by its reminiscence of some kind of carnivorous dinosaur. OK I’ve got a strong imagination. Stranger than truth and you saw it first at Hati and Skoll!

 

Hugh Welch Diamond and the face of madness

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Figure 1 - Patient, Surrey County Lunatic Asylum Albumen silver print from glass negative 19.1 × 14 cm (7.5 × 5.5 in). From the En Wikimepedia and in the public domain because of its age.

Figure 1 – Patient, Surrey County Lunatic Asylum by Hugh Welch Diamond, 1850 – 1858, Albumen silver print from glass negative 19.1 × 14 cm (7.5 × 5.5 in). From the En Wikimepedia and in the public domain because of its age.

A curious recurring photographic theme is “The face of madness,” which tend to be a series of portraits of inmates at asylums, hospitals, and half-way houses.  I have seen several of these.  But they all have their roots in the 19th century and began with the, then, ground breaking, work of Dr. Hugh Welch Diamond (1809 – 1886). He was an early specialist in the new science of psychiatry and was appointed to Brookwood Hospital, the second Surrey County Asylum. Diamond was also a founding member of the Photographic Society, ultimately becoming its Secretary and editor of the Photographic Journal. For a series of his images see.

It was common belief at the time that “madness” could be read in the faces of a person, which was, of course, an offshoot of the field of phrenology.  Perhaps, this is an early form of “profiling,” now so common in world airports.  Our faces are to be read and assessed by digital cameras and computers. We have to ask who is mad now?

In terms of photographic opus the results of Diamond’s efforts form a revealing and not unsympathetic step backwards into the world of the poor souls condemned to these places.  This is the world of “Blackwell’s Island” and “Bedlam,” of 19th century “it runs in the family.”  We have spoken of the way in which we seem to communicate mutely with the subjects of old photographs and here it is even more profound, because you wonder exactly what was in the minds of these people.  An image such as that of Figure 1 demands the question whether the smiling face is that of Bertha Mason, Rochester’s wife imprisoned in the attic in the novel Jane Eyre.

Mardi Gras 2015

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Sorry to disappoint, but I am not going to post about Miss P, the beagle.  I will admit that she is cute.  But we try to avoid cute cuddly animal pictures here at Hati and Skoll.  Also, I am not going to post about Bostonians jumping off roofs and out of windows into the snow.  I went this morning into the belly of beast – straight into downtown Boston.  By the time I found a place to park, I fully understood the frustration of these snow jumpers.

I have however, been carefully studying all the carnival photographs from around the world.  My favorite is a snap of my friend, and reader, Mary from the Dominican Republic with a rather scary looking character.  But from a more public venue I have settled upon (Best in Show) a beautiful and very blue image – cool blue –  by  Vanderlei’ Almeida for the AFP showing Samba dancers at the annual carnival parade in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  But dig in to all the images yourself.  It is a colorful wayl to escape winter – images from Rio, New Orleans, and of course, from Venice.

Carnival for photographers is a wonderful mix.  You’ve got colors.  You’ve got strange and wonderful forms that ultimately test the bounds between reality and fantasy.  What more could you ask for?