Figure 1 – Toy phone a study in obsolescence, IPhone photograph, (c) DE Wolf 2016.

And speaking of obsolescence, the other day my wife and I were having lunch at a favorite haunt, and I was watching some children playing with the toy telephone of Figure 1. And no I didn’t rip it out of their precious little hands to photograph it. I have spoken before about the fun and historic value of soon to be obsolete technology in its eclipse. And what could be better? The rotary dial phone is barely seen anymore (worthy of a photograph), and a toy version even better. I have intentionally thrust it back into the black and white era and for good measure given it a healthy sepia tone to emphasize its antiquity.

Many years ago, we were on vacation at a hotel and I watched my son face the enigma and conundrum of how to use a rotary dial. He adapted perfectly and flawlessly. This is either a testament to the plasticity and adaptability of the human mind, its ability to figure things out. Or he had played with toys like that in the figure at daycare.

Nevertheless, you can see how old the toy is – broken strings and chipped painted eyes – this not to mention the yucky remnants of a thousand childhoods. It seems unlikely that this toy has been cleaned in at least twenty years. Kids today punch away on toy cellphones. Still all the kids today at lunch picked it up and said “Hello, hello,” and I shuttered at the remembrance of the Twilight Zone episode “Long Distance” where the little boy, played by Bill Mumy, talks to his dead grandmother.  And so it goes. Cords? Rotary dials? How difficult it must have been to live in those days!

Figure 1 – Flowers through a window, Highfield Hall and Gardens, Falmouth, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

I took the image of Figure 1 earlier this summer and have been studying it since. I really liked the geometry of the window and the intense colors of the flowers outside. The subtle lack of squareness the slight angle of the window frame appeals to me. I am even willing to dismiss my general prejudice against flower pictures on the basis that “they are too easy.” They allow you to seize and dominate by sheer force of color. Indeed, the fact that I took only a single frame or shot at this subject is not so much a testimony to my compositional skills as it is an expression of a slight bit of embarrassment at the simplicity of the subject. I don’t want to be caught photographing flowers!

But, of course, flower photographs are nothing of the sort. They still require a demanding eye for not only color but composition. The autochrome days, where color alone was sufficient to intrigue, are long past. But, but, but the issue for me here was whether to just work-up the picture as a pure, sharpflower image or to painterize it, to saturate beyond the normal, or to add noise to the point where it becomes photo-pictorialist or impressionist. In the end I have decided on the purer form. And also, in the intense, drought-laden days of August I can remember the gentler days of July, when even rain was a possibility. The image was taken at Highfield Hall and Gardens this past July in Falmouth, MA.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 94 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/1250th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Parallel lines meet at infinity. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

The photograph of Figure 1 is another example of how well the wide angle capabilities of the IPhone 6 camera copes with huge depth of field. Here is an image of simple bricks painted white – a tone-on-tone. And the fun part is that, at least in the world of the lens’ focal plane, parallel lines do indeed meet at infinity. My geometry teacher was right!

Figure 1 – And there are more good things to come… (c) DE Wolf 2016.

I am always looking for cool geometrics to photograph with my IPhone and yesterday I ran into this simple sign. It was my favorite kind of sign, namely translucent white. It bore a very simple message “And there are more good things to come…” Literally in this particular store, as the arrow indicates, these are upstairs. But that aside, I am taking this as a deeper, more existential message. Don’t despair AND there are more good things to come.

Obviously, I have dramatized the typographical geometric elements and emphasized the contrast. All of this to emphasize the simple elegance of the ampersand and its cheerful message to a world dominated by the @ symbol.

Figure 1 – Dragon in the Olympic National Park, August 19, 2016, IPhone photograph, (c) AB & DE Wolf 2016.

Dragons – we know them as mythical creatures, and I learned from the Wikipedia that there are two mythic traditions:

• European dragons, typically depicted as reptilian creatures with animal-level intelligence,. four legs, and a detached set of wings.
• Asian dragon, more serpentine creatures with above-average intelligence, four legs, and wingless.

And it is an important point that someone is always headed off to slay the dragon. In our cultures dragons have major great  spiritual significance. They are “revered as representative of the primal forces of nature, religion and the universe. They are associated with wisdom—often said to be wiser than humans—and longevity.” And, of course, they often possess some form of magic or other supernatural power. There is, after all, this ability to breath fire. Oh, and, many can talk! Pete’s Dragon, Puff the Magic Dragon, The Reluctant Dragon …

I remember as a boy being disappointed that dragons do not really exist. Somehow it seemed that the world was less without them, having loss a major force of magic. Magic was not real. So I abandoned it for science, and found the magic again.

Still “anything can happen in the woods.” And yesterday my son was hiking along the Klahhane Ridge in the Olympic National Park, when he came along this fine fellow, whom he photographed with his IPhone. I’ve “worked the image up;” so it is a father-son collaboration.