Figure1 – Surface roots in a pine barren, Sudbury, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

Some trees, I am told, have surface roots, and these are the bane of lawn mowers. Yet in a sense they seem magical. In one sense they are suggestive of a massive root system. They give us a glimpse of what lies beneath, both on a physical and a mythical plane. In another, they seem poised somewhere between this world and the subterranean world. Trees, of course, connect the three world domains heaven, earth, and underworld. A large part of their magic appeal relates to stories of the world tree that in so many mythologies is the Axis Mundi. 

Do you think of this when you trip over a root that you didn’t expect on a morning’s hike through the forest? Was it put there by some troll to ensnare you? I would never deny that there is always a heightened sense of the mystic when I walk in the woods.  In the words of Steven Sondheim:

“Anything can happen in the woods

May I kiss you?

Any moment we could be crushed.”

Figure 1 – Doll of the Norse Goddess of Winter, Skadi. Salem, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

On a bright September morning Skadi, the Norse goddess of Winter, is the last person or deity that you expect to run into. But this is Salem, MA after all and it is getting on towards Halloween and the Day of the Dead, which are celebrated here for the entirety of the month of October. I encountered the doll of Figure1 in a shop and fell in love with the face, gown, and light, not the least of which for me was the bokeh of the background.

The myth of Skadi is intriguing. She is a jötunn (an ice giant) and a goddess, who is associated with bowhunting, skiing, winter, and mountains. In a sense, she is the Artemis of cold weather. She is revealed to us in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century. Compiled significantly from earlier from earlier sources such as the Prose Edda and in Heimskringla, also written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson. Skaldi was initially married to the god Njörðr but they become divorced because Njörðr could not deal with the cold of Skaldi’s world. She then marries  the god Odin and bears many children with him. Importantly, it is Skaldi who places a poisonous serpent to drip venom continuously on Loki. In marital devotion Loki’s wife Sigyn catches the venom in a bowl and it is only when the bowl becomes full and Sigyn must empty it that the venom drips agonizingly into Loki’s eyes. This, of course, figures prominently in the Norse end of the world myth, the Gotterdammerung or fall of the Gods and the coming of the Ragnarok.

Less romantically Skadi is the origin of the the Snow Queen in the Disney movie, Frozen.

Canon T2i with EF 70-200mm f/4.0 L USM Lens at 104 mm, ISO 400, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/15th sec at f/8.0.

Figure 1 – Stairs from the beach, Stage Fort Park, Gloucester, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

So far we are having a truly wonderful September light, and I took the image of Figure 1 in Gloucester, MA last weekend looking up the stairs from the beach at Stage Fort Park. On the one hand this is meant as a simple geometric study taken in an intense fall light – a chance to practice a black and white photographic art and to lovingly and magically give it a subtle sepia tone. This recalls the best moment in analog printing, when, with lights on, you bathed the print in selenium toner and watched with growing anticipation for that magic moment of perfection. It was all so like baking a cake! But at another level there is the sense that stairways always give of climbing up metaphysically to a higher plane. Often when you walk along a difficult path you wonder about the people that hewed the path from nature’s grasp, here a sea wall and a place to climb out of it.

Canon T2i with EF 70-200 mm f/4.0 USM L Lens at 98 mm, Aperature Priority AE Mode, ISO 400, 1/1000th sec at f/8.0.

Figure 1 – Glass bottles in a glass window, Salem, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

I was out with my camera this morning when my attention was drawn to two glass bottles in a storefront window. The window was dirty and there was a lot of glare. But I decided that the glare added a degree of the etherial to the image, as if the bottles weren’t quite settled or rooted in space. The result, after a little processing, is the image of Figure 1. It seems to be as if the bottles are almost floating in free space.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm L USM Lens at 70 mm, ISO 400, Aperture Priority AE mode, 1/20th sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Herring gulls at Fort Stage Park, Gloucester, MA. Spring 2019. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

I actually took the image of Figure one of a pair of herring gulls, Larus argentatus, last spring on May 18. It was a cool day and the whole summer of egg laying and brooding lay before these birds.  I have been meaning to work it up for months. I particularly like the pure whiteness of the birds perched on Avalon terrain granite and I love the pattern of the blue ocean water behind them.

Canon T2i with EF 70-200 USM Lens at 172 mm. ISO 400, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/3200 these at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.

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Dwight and the fried egg at The Ugly Mug, Salem, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

Today’s post is just for fun, meaning no profound inner meaning. I had a breakfast meeting with my colleague Dwight at The Ugly Mug in Salem, MA. I noticed these giant soft sculpture sunny side up fried eggs adorning the walls and took this portrait of Dwight against that back ground. This relates to the ancient myth ….

Figure 1 – True picket fence near “Burying Place,” Salem, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

When it comes to picket fences, we tend to have the classic version in mind. This brings to memory Huckleberry Finn and the whole issue of painting said fence. But before that there were truer to form versions like the one of Figure 1. This is an image that I took in Salem, MA near “Burying Place.” This is the original town cemetery first opened, no deposit no returns, in 1637. For the standard DSLR such an image would present a focus challenge. But to the iPhone ten, with its incredible depth of field, absolutely no problem.

The universe mirrored by reflections on a blue glass dome, Salem, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

Sometimes the universe is imaged in more microscopic settings. In Figure 1 it appears in the reflections of ceiling lights on a blue glass dome. But it is all there to be seen. We are reminded of: a black hole, of gaseous primordial clouds that are the anvil of the gods, of galaxies and super novae, of Ptolemy’s circling domes, and in the end of a spherical warp in the fabric of space-time complete with gravitational lensing.