Fogure 1 – Heard Farm, Wayland, MA in the heat of summer 2018. (c) DE Wolf 2018.

I went for a walk around Heard Farm in Wayland, MA last weekend. It was hot and it was humid and generally miserable. So Figure 1 is meant to capture that sense of heat and humidity when everything glazes over and fades into an atmospheric haze. What is most striking is the sharply defined height of the grass – all the same. I am thinking of the same timeless scene perhaps a century ago; so 1918. That was a time when one could not seek the relief of air conditioning, which adds a kind of desperation to the moment. But the scene itself would have been generally the same, captured on a dry plate or on film and printed, perhaps, on albumin.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 87 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/4000th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Sequins. (c) DE Wolf 2018.

My theme and Figure for today is “sequins.” The photograph was taken as a close-up of a designer dress with my IPhone and was meant to be like an impressionist abstraction. The incredible ability of the IPhone’s camera to take close-ups is here demonstrated by the sharp focus of the individual disks.  I commented to the store clerk that it must be difficult to prevent the sequin disks from falling off. Seems to me that it is like scaling a fish every time that you bump into something or someone. But I was assured that the very expensive dress was only meant to be worn once – like a kind of transient beauty. This led me to wonder about a deeper meaning involving a very materialistic society. However, I choose instead to focus on the luminescence the sparkle and the color in abstraction.

Figure 1 – Animal faces # 11 “Mophie,” Weston, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2018

I went this past Sunday with my son and his dog to Cat Rock Park in Weston, MA. The trail ends at a waterfall, and all the dogs head for the water. We ran into this fine fellow, still somewhat happily soggy from his adventures.It has been said that “the eyes are the window to the soul.” If this is true then is this fellow, whose name by the way is “Mophie,” lacking, or is it just that you have to dig deep to find his eyes. He was certainly as sweet as the soggy face suggests.

I looked briefly into the question of who first said that “the eyes are the window to the soul. Without getting too deeply into it. The Roman philosopher Cicero (106 BCE – 43 BCE) is credited with the remark,  “The face is a picture of the mind as the eyes are its interpreter.” In  Matthew 6: 22-23 we have that, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”

I first encountered the phrase many years ago in art class in a discussion of ancient Egyptian art. Any connection between a hot Sunday in Massachusetts and art class so many years ago would seem to be purely coincidental. But this photograph is the eleventh in my series of “Animal Faces,” and, really, it is the very question that I set out to raise with the series: what goes on in the mind of these animals and how does it relate to us. And against these questions it would seem that Cicero echos my meaning best.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 140 mm , ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/250th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Norhern water snake, Sudbury, MA, August 4, 2018. (c) DE Wolf 2018.

Today we went for a stroll in the woods. I am told that anything short is not a walk and anything not uphill is not a hike. So I have concluded that it was a stroll. We came upon this Northern water snake, Nerodia sipedon,by one of the bridges. I do wonder why snakes , given the whole forest offered up to them, defiantly taunt you, dogs, and children by positioning themselves by the side of the path. This one was in no hurry to beat a retreat. Perhaps it is seeking to remind us that there is only a thin and imagined veil between us and the wild.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 200 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/80th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Texture on the surface of an urn. (c) DE Wolf 2018.

Figure 1 is not an “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Unlike John Keats’ urn, it does not reveal forms and figures frozen in beauty and time. Rather it is a study of the texture in a more modern vase. The IPhone camera is a perfect tool for this. The eye starts with the urn itself, but the camera draws us inward to a point, where rather than shape texture becomes predominant.

I love these little sojourns of vision. It is the magic of the photograph, where a simple, perhaps inconsequential, object in a store window reveals an inner beauty at a more intimate level. It reminds me of a Japanese Garden, where beauty functions on all levels, much like fractals are random walks regardless of scale.

In Keat’s words, themselves made timeless by the passage of time:

Figure 1 – Ruby throated hummingbird, female, July 30, 2018, Sudbury, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2018.

I have been waiting for the sublime moment when the ruby throated hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) returned to our feeders. And finally they have arrived. There so many species of hummingbirds in the Americas. But east of the Rockies we have only the ruby throats.  These magical little birds can annually migrate as far as Costa Rica to Canada, Figure 1 shows a female hovering in mid air by my feeder. They also love my mandevilla with its conical flowers. I have positioned my camera with my birding lens so that it is ever ready for the moment.

Canon T2i with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens at 260 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/800th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Break in the clouds, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2018.

Those dramatic and transient cloud moments call for you to stop the car, jump out, and take the photograph. I have found that the IPhone is wonderful for this, because of its marvelous wide angle of view. When my goal is black and white, I find it great to just switch the camera over to the “noir” filter and take the photograph as if I were using a deep red Wratten filter – shades of fifty years ago.

Figure 1 is such an image taken in Concord, MA a week ago. The subject is an old one. A dramatic ray pierces the clouds and seems to indicate an ascent to or descent from heaven. In any event there is the other worldly sense of the celestial spheres, the sense that we are confined to one shell, but here we are miraculously given a view to the level that lies beyond. What lies beyond the next level, we may ask. Is it enlightenment or merely a tease.

I have not thought of this view of the moment before. It reminds me of Franz Kafka’s Parable of the Law where a gate keeper refuses to give “the man from the country” entrance to the law. Levels upon levels upon levels. The explanation is given to “the man from the country” from the gate keeper.

“At the moment the gate to the law stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the inside. When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: “If it tempts you so much, try it in spite of my prohibition. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the most lowly gatekeeper. But from room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the other. I can’t endure even one glimpse of the third.”

Figure 1 – Juvenile raccoon, Sudbury, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2018.

You may have heard the admonition “to always have your camera with you.” I was reminded of this yesterday when this juvenile raccoon, Procyon lotor,  and three of its sibs (that’s one of the sibs right behind him) took a rapid jaunt across my patio. That’s “rapid” not “rabid”. I barely managed to compose and take the image of Figure 1 before they all scampered off. This was taken through my sliding glass doors; so I was no more than five feet away. An important point if you don’t have glass between you, is to not mix with a raccoon. They have very sharp teeth and, if cornered, will not hesitate to use them.

I wish, of course, that he had been looking up into the camera. Also I have chosen to do this in black and white, because, well, raccoons are black and white.

I’ve got to quote the late, great Roger Tory Peterson”

‘We don’t have to go to wild places to find wildlife. A surprisingly wide range of species can be found in our cities and towns, from familiar animals like the raccoon to more exotic ones like the mountain lion.”

It raises the important point that raccoons are becoming increasingly intelligent as they solve the puzzles that we present to them. So if you are worried about the world evolving to “The Planet of the Apes,” think again…

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 188 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/150th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.