Figure 1 – crepuscular rays, Derby Wharf, Salem MA. January 7, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

I recently joined the “Cloud Appreciation” users’ group on Facebook – that vast wasteland!  It is interesting because you immediately recognize that people are emphasizing a bit and often tending towards photographic hyperbole. I am no exception. You could argue, as I do, that it is art and more significantly that the goal of art photography is to represent what you see with “your mind’s eye.”

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet it may be recalled that Horatio is alarmed when Hamlet says that he sees his father. ”Where, my lord?” Hamlet replies: “In my mind’s eye, Horatio.” (1.2. 180-185).

I have not seen a ghost, an extracorporeal being. But I have seen crepuscular rays. These are the rays of light emanating from the sun, or so they appear, through a break in the clouds. They are in fact parallel lines meeting in infinity! Figure 1 is an example of this and was taken from Derby Wharf this past Tuesday afternoon in a waning light. And they occur during the crepuscular times of day, just after dawn and before dusk. When the rays appear to reach the ground they are referred to as a “Jacob’s Ladder.”

What’s this with Jacob and his ladder, you ask. Jacob’s Ladder (סולם יעקב Sulam Yaakov) refers to the ladder that led to heaven in a dream that the biblical patriarch Jacob had during his flight from his brother Esau in the Book of Genesis.

I am tempted to say, all this from a simple cloud and sun photograph. However, truly there is awe in the presentation of the light!

Figure 1 – By the wharf in winter at low tide, Salem, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

I was going to explore further the processing options for yesterday’s “Walking along the wharf in the rain,” but then I was back at the wharf today in the late afternoon when the light was blue and took the image of Figure 1. This I have entitled “By the wharf in winter at low tide.” The major features today, as I watched the gulls expertly smash clams against the rocks, was the cold blue light and the shallowness of the tide, which created beach all along the wharf on either side and revealed offshore rocks. A friend who complained about the intense aquamarine in yesterday’s image is going to really hate this one. Again it is stylized in a very similar way to yesterday’s. Again it is driven toward the pastel, but here a cold rather than a warm palette.

Figure 1 – Walking along the wharf in the rain, Salem, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

This past Saturday morning I was walking along Salem’s historic Derby Wharf and I came upon this woman, smarter than I, with an umbrella also walking along the wharf. I was struck immediately by the scene, reminiscent perhaps, of a gloomy wet winter day in Holland. The point with Derby Wharf, with Hawthorne’s Custom’s House, with Derby Light, and with the resident Friendship Sloop is that the place is bathed in history and seems, even in the brightest light, to be haunted by ghosts. The filI of the wharf is loaded with shards of broken antique bottles and historic porcelain. I think these were dredged up from the harbor and I imagine someone unloading a ship from “the orient,” losing their balance, dropping and shattering a jug or jar – the momentary curse still echos.

I  realized that there were so many ways to view this photograph. Perhaps keep the colors muted but shifted just a bit to a pastel template. For the interpretation of Figure 1, I resorted to stylizing with the PRISMA, turning the image into something painterly. I stuck to a pastel palette but chose more saturated colors. I think that I will experiment with other approaches and interpretations, but for now I am very fond of this one.

Figure 1 – New Year’s Day on Singing Beach, Manchester by the Sea. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

Well, it’s that time. Happy New Year from Hati and Skoll Gallery. I am so grateful to my readers for making this site a success and so grateful to all the people that have shared and inspired my photo-adventure. Perhaps G. K. Chesterson said it best:

“The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul…” 

And that is the very point, isn’t it? So leap enthusiastically into it. There is so much to be set right in this sorry little world of ours; so we get an artificial chance to start anew. Seize it with joy and determination!

Yesterday was brisk, sunny, and chilly here in New England. What better time to go to the beach? And what better beach than Singing Beach in Manchester by the Sea. We were not the only ones with this idea. Hundreds of people and maybe more dogs than people. And the dogs were doing what they do best and teaching us a valuable lesson. Enjoy being! Enjoy your fellow beings. 

So I am offering up, hopefully as inspiration for the New Year, Figure 1, which shows two golden retrievers racing joyfully in the surf. They are oblivious to cold water and chilly wind. They rejoice in being. Do that my friends! Do that and do good things!

Canon T2i with EF100-400 mm f/4.5-5.5 USM lens at 180 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/800th sec at f/16 with no exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – The maelstrom of the potamoi, South Lee, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

Hmm! I find myself working on the last images of the old year. It has been a fun one photographically. Last night I downloaded a trial copy of Topaz SharpenAI. I am very interested in Artificial Intelligence as it relates to images. Recognize that AI offers a wholly different approach to processing than standard algorithms. In a sense the computer becomes you or more importantly becomes the photographic expert. More on the comparison later, after I’ve more critically reviewed it. So far, I have found that I can do better, or at least as well, with the usual toggles in Adobe Photoshop’s Smart Sharpen tool. 

Case, in example is Figure 1, which shows “The Maelstrom [of the potamoi]” of a stream in western Massachusetts that I photographed a couple of weeks ago after pretty torrential rains. Here I much preferred the sharpening that I achieved with Photoshop. 

Maelstrom is a great word, connoting the anger of the River god. Or perhaps it is the fury of a jilted water nymph. The potamoi were the gods of the rivers and streams of the earth, all sons of the great earth-encirling river Okeanos (Oceanus). Their sisters were the Okeanides (Oceanids), goddesses of small streams, clouds and rain, and their daughters were the Naiades, nymphs of springs and fountains.  While we know so much now from science and nature about the origins of natural phenomena such as the furious roaring of a brook in the woods, seeing it inevitably conjures up the ancient ones. They are figments of our imagination for certain, allusions to classical themes. Yet they remain poetically placed in our collective imaginations. 

Figure 1 – The storm breaks, South Lee, Massachusetts. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

I was out in Western, Massachusetts two weekends ago and was struck by the “finally” breaking storm heralded by a gibbous moon peeking periodically through the waning clouds. I captured this in Figure 1 with my 70-200 mm zoom. I was particularly struck by the colors: a deep blue night sky, dark looming near-black, clouds, and golden red illumination. The sense is reminiscent of a nebula deep in space. In a deeper sense it is a scene that only the sky can inspire.   

It is a moment that send chills up your spine both from the sheer beauty of the moment and from the allusion to so many horror movies. Uncontrollably it is going to pop out of me. The Wolf Man, 1941.

“Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.”

Canon T2i with Canon EF70-200EF-4L USM lens at 200 mm, ISO 3200, Aperture Priority AF Mode 1/10th sec at f/4.0 with no exposure compensation. 

Figure 1 – Ray of light on the mountains, Lee, MA in midwinter. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

We have, at last, reached the heart of winter time, the coming of the winter solstice and the shortest day in the Northern Hemisphere. I know that I obsess a lot about this. I do not like the darkness interdigitated with the cold and I await anxiously the changeover to Daylight’s Savings Time in March. Today in Boston the solstice came at 11:28 am this morning. We were treated to a whopping 9:04:40 hours of sunlight, with the sunrise at 7:09 this morning and the sunset at 4:14 this afternoon. Interestingly the sunsets have been getting later and later since December 13, when the sun set at 4:11  pm. Yes minutes count in my misery.  

From the viewpoint of a person on the Earth, (Hey that is us!) Old Sol does a couple of things. First, he rises in the east each morning and sets in the west each night. Similarly the background of stars moves in this daily cycle. If you imagine, as the ancient did, that the stars are painted on a dome above the Earth, there is a ring called the celestial equator that is overhead at the Earth’s equator. Now the Earth’s orbit is in a plane that is at an angle to the celestial equator. As a result, the sun appears to move in this plane against the background of stars. This is the second apparent motion of the sun. It appears to move in this plane along a path referred to as the ecliptic through the constellations of the Zodiac Psst, actually the Earth is moving in its orbit!!! The ecliptic crosses the celestial equator at the two equinoxes, in March (vernal) and September (autumnal). It reaches its highest point above the celestial equator at the summer solstice and its lowest point at the Winter Solstice.

The mathematical among you will recognize that the sun’s path through the sky looks like a giant sine wave about the celestial equator up and down ad infinitum. I am embarrassed that I do not remember my college Calculus professor, but he would have been proud that I remembered that the rate of change in the height above the celestial equator must be zero at the maximum (the summer solstice) and the minimum (the winter solstice). Effectively the sun momentarily STOPS in its motion through the Zodiac. “Solstice” is derived from the Latin word sōlstitium. It literally translates to “the (apparent) standing still of the sun.” That’s because sōl means sun and sister means to stand still or “to come to a stop.”  Ain’t it wonderful!

The image of Figure 1, like the winter solstice, is a harbinger of the coming of the light. I took it last Sunday on a cold dreary day in Lee, MA in the heart of the Berkshires. The ray, of course, represents illumination. This particular ray is worthy of the ascent of Moses to heaven. And, again in the case of Moses, the bringing of light to the world.

Figure 1 – Photopictorialist study # 19 – landscape behind The Clark, Williams College, Williamstown, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

The year is nearing its end, and we are joyfully nearing the shortest day. Eventually we may emerge, like Dante, from the tyranny of Daylight Standard Time. Not that I am bitter and grumpy! I spent a really nice weekend in Western Massachusetts and, as a result was able to capture, the nineteenth of my photopictorialist studies. This is shown in Figure 1 as a stark, but well groomed, hill taken from behind The Clark at Williams College in Williamstown, MA. All that I have done to the original, so as to “pictorialize” it is to add a bit of noise and to brighten and saturate the colors. I took several images concentrated on including and excluding, as well as positioning, various trees in the foreground. This is the image that pleased me most in the end.

It may be worth noting that despite the fact that this was only a few days after our first big snow of the year, recent warm weather and heavy rains had obliterated all of the snow. Grass and trees cling to life in a New England winter only to themselves emerge again come spring, and spring will come!

Figure 1 – Orchid Vine Shadow, Boston, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

You go to an art museum to look at the art – right? Well sometimes. During my recent trip to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts I came across this beautifully twisted orchid vine in the reception area. I was really taken by the shadow that it cast on the wall, and by moving and positioning the camera just right I was able to achieve the spectacles shown in Figure 1. I want to emphasize one point. The background is not merely blank white. It has the texture of the wall, and this texture gives added dimension to an otherwise flat image. I am told that it if you don’t know what it is, it looks like a drawing, perhaps sketched by Picasso with great and characteristic fluidity.