Figure 1 – Winter Dunes, Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, Plum Island, MA, Boxing Day, December 26, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2021.

Figure 1 is another photograph from the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge at Plum Island, Massachusetts taken on Boxing Day, December 26, 2020. So windy, so cold, so wonderful. This shows the exit from the beach, the path through the dunes with louring winter clouds. It is a thin remembrance of sunny summer days on the beach but magnificent in itself.

Figure 1 – Sunset, Salem Massachusetts, December 17, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2021.

Winter is more than a season in New England. It is a feeling, a sense, and a mood. There is little light and the sky reflects a sense of brooding and foreboding. The City of Salem has a long history from its seventeenth century witch trials and hysteria to its heyday as a great seaport reflective of the magic wonder of the orient. And, of course, there is always Hester Prynne and the Scarlet Letter. All this churns in the western sky on a December afternoon after a snowstorm.

“There are many things in this world that a child must not ask about.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

Figure 1 – Growling surface Parker River National Wildlife Refuge. Boxing Day, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2021

Apologies to all my readers for being AWOL and Happy New Year from Hati and Skoll Gallery. I have not been posting, but I have definitely be photographing and have quite a backlog built-up. It has been a strange, sad, and terrible year and I want to wish all my readers health and happiness for 2021.  

I’d like to start the New Year off with these images that I took on a cold, bright, and blowing Boxing Day at the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge at Plum Island Massachusetts. The surf was active and growling. Plum Island in winter is such a magical time and place!

Boxing Day represents a timestamp in the journey of our lives and there is nothing more symbolic of the cycles of time, geologic time eclipsing human, than the unrelenting motion of waves. Here with the camera you watch them come in and anticipate just when they will break churn up the sea and blast forth sprays of foam.

Oh, and on a personal note, the vitriolic politics on Facebook got to me some time in October. So I no longer post images or anything there. They can still be found here, obviously, and on Instagram, my last social media account. I don’t miss it!

Figure 2- Growling surface Parker River National Wildlife Refuge. Boxing Day, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2021

Figure 1 – Canon T2I with EF70-200mm F/4L USM lens at 70 mm, ISO 800,  Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/4000 sec at   f/7.1 with no exposure compensation.

Figure 2 – Canon T2I with EF70-200mm F/4L USM lens at 98 mm, ISO 800,  Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/3200 sec at   f/7.1 with no exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Path through the autumn woods, Punkatasset Woods, Concord, MA (c)DE Wolf 2020

I found this morning that I never completed this blog from October. It was from a trip through Punkatasset Woods in Concord, MA. And at this point it is a reminder of the glorious places where we have been. The path begs the question and when covered in autumn leaves is too mystic to ignore. October is the magic time in the Northern woods and now we transition in Burts, fits, and starts into the Winter. Snow it must be said is the most magical of winter’s transformations.

Figure 1 – Clouds over the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

Well, there is no denying that winter and December are upon us. Perhaps, we may soon see the glorious light of spring. My son pointed out to me that the clouds of winter in New England are distinctive. And yes that is true. A clear example were the looming clouds over Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, in Concord, MA the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It afforded a wonderful opportunity to shoot in black and white and develop in tritone. The effect is Figure 1, which very much captured the moment, reflected of course, in Shakespeare’s Richard III. 

“Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York;

And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;

Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;

Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,

Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.”

Figure 1 – Bittersweet, Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

Social distancing has kept us outside wandering and photographing in nature. As a result, we have been witnessing the glory of the changing seasons even if it is the metamorphosis that takes us from glorious autumn into brooding winter. And what a winter it is to brood in. I am way behind in posting images, and today thought I would share this especially bleak scene from Great Meadows Wildlife Refuge in Concord, MA taken on Thanksgiving Saturday. The bittersweet is perhaps a symbol of the season itself and reminds me of the M. Night Shyamalan movie ” The Village” and the “bad color.”

Figure 1- After the first snow, Habitat Conservation Land and Wildlife Refuge, Belmont, MA, 10/31/20. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

Friday was an October surprise snow storm – both the first snow and the first significant snow! In this area we got four to five inches. It was glorious: fall leaves not yet gone and wet snow turning everything magical. Before it melted on Saturday, we went on two walks. The first was to the Habitat Conservation Land and Wildlife Sanctuary in Belmont. MA. The second was to the Rock Meadow Conservation land, also in Belmont, MA. It was truly a photographer’s paradise. Figure 1 from Habitat defines the scene – a leaf strewn path into the forest, snow clinging to everything. It was a curious moment, when the one season slipped away and the other came upon us suddenly. If you view winter as the nadir then the day was truly the precipice of the abyss.

Figure 1 – The unremembered path, Punkatasset Woods, Concord, MA, October 17, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

OK, so as promised, a couple of more images of the glories of New England fall foliage. Both of these were taken a couple of weeks back at the Punkatasset Conservation Land in Concord, MA. Both were taken with my iPhone XS, having made the decision that there was specula value in opening my eyes this year and just looking!

Figure 2 – In the forest, Punkatasset Woods, Concord MA, October 17, 2020.(c) DE Wolf 2020.

Figure 1 – Tree roots (Thanotopsis), Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, October 24, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

Peak foliage is finished here in Massachusetts, and as we build up to Election Day, we have moved into the dreary days of November. So I think it worth a few more fall foliage images.

Figure 1, from this past Saturday, was taken at the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge and shows some tree roots piercing the ground and covered in autumn leaves. There is something intrinsically magical and mythical about tree roots above the surface. Are these Tolkein’s Ents? Are we seeing a connection with an unknown world? Is it perhaps the underworld of the dead? And certainly there is something profound about trees gaining nourishment from the decay of last summer’s leaves – a continuous circle of decay and renewal.