The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month

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"US 64th regiment celebrate the Armistice" by U.S. Army - U.S. National Archive. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_64th_regiment_celebrate_the_Armistice.jpg#/media/File:US_64th_regiment_celebrate_the_Armistice.jpg

“US 64th regiment celebrate the Armistice” by U.S. Army – U.S. National Archive. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikipedia Commons

Today is Veterans Day, which used to be called “Armistice Day’ that commemorated the The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month – 11 am, November 11, 1918 when The War to End all War ended.That was ninety-seven years ago today, and sadly there have  now many wars and many veterans to remember and celebrate, people who fought for our freedom.

Let us celebrate with the long gone faces of the men of the US Army 64th regiment, 7th Divisor who had been to hell and back, and captured in that joyous moment by the miracle of photography. And let use never forget what all our veterans did and do.

“In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.”

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

Razzle dazzle em’

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Figure 1 - "Razzle dazzle em'," Natick, Massachusetts. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Figure 1 – “Razzle dazzle em’,” IPhone photograph, Natick, Massachusetts. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

“Razzle Dazzle ’em
Give ’em an act with lots of flash in it
And the reaction will be passionate
Give ’em the old hocus pocus
Bead and feather ’em
How can they see with sequins in their eyes?”

Chicago, The Musical

Yesterday morning I was having my Saturday espresso when a saw a woman walking and holding the hand of a little girl in a leopard dress and ruby princess slippers. The woman was walking. The little girl was, in fact, hopping. And I realized that we could all use a lot more of that. We all need to hop a little. The world of children is filled with magic, and this little girl, indeed all of the children, that I saw were thoroughly delighted by the magic of the mall. They are so gleeful when they emerge into it. It is a combination of having devoted parental attention and the sounds, sights, size of everything around them. We need to be less serious have a little less substance and more art in our lives.

We have spoken before about the magic of photography. Photography is intrinsically magical. It was magical to watch the image appear in the developing tray and it was magical to be handed little packages of frozen moments. You have to ask yourself whether any of that magic is lost today in the age of digital photography. I would suggest that the magic is different but still there. The image is only latent on the sensor for a very short time before it is transferred into some file format.  But magically it can be retrieved, and it can be retrieved as often as you want as well as transformed into other file formats, displayed on computer or phone screen, or even reproduced in minutes onto paper. Yep, it is all pretty magical.

So yesterday I went looking for some photographic magic at the mall.  I wanted to see the sequins in the eyes of a child. And I found it in the razzle dazzle of a window display. And just to complete the magic look closely at all of the little control circuits and the LED lights.  Therein, lies the magic of our modern technology.

Bittersweet

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Figure 1 - Bittersweet. Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Figure 1 – Bittersweet. Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Yesterday we had record tying temperatures in Cambridge – 73 F deg. It was delightful to be back in a summer shirt and it was no burden at all to walk along the Pond. I even resurrected my now grungy summer cap. Most of the leaves have fallen now, although not all, and it is so much fun to walk upon the path densely covered in leaves and to watch those leaves take flight in the wind. My cat has been waiting for this. For the past several weeks she has watched the leaves pile up on the patio and watched them fall from the trees. But what she really loves is watching them swirl in great numbers in the wind. A hater of the vacuum cleaner, she is a lover of the leaf blower.

The greatest display of color now are the berries, and best among these is the bittersweet. In a sense it is the transition berry, because people collect these vines and make Thanksgiving wreaths for their doors out of them. As a result, it used to be that bittersweet was beloved of New Englanders. Now to be clear there are two species Celastrus sandens the native to North American and Celastrus orbiculatus, the invasive oriental bittersweet. I believe that I have the invasive variety in Figure 1. But they are pretty much lumped together in love or hate. The point is that we are now expected, by the enforcers of political correctness, whoever they may be, to hate the bittersweet because it “chokes” other plants. So if you love the beautiful berries that explode like so much red-orange popcorn, it is best to be quiet about it.  For the New England photographer it is a last boast of autumn, foliage in a microcosm.

 

Bay-breasted warbler (Setophaga castanea)

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Bay-breasted warble in fall plumage, October 30, 2015, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Bay-breasted Warbler in fall plumage, October 30, 2015, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

The duck migrating through Fresh Pond is the “big” story but there is also a “smaller” story.  These are the warblers passing through Massachusetts for a second time and headed South. Figure 1 shows a Bay-breasted Warbler – Setophaga castanea. This is a small, sweet looking bird if I may anthropomorphize, and its fall plumage nondescript, but its journey is monumental. It winters with the tourists in the Caribbean, in Colombia, and Venezuela.

At this time of year particularly with the females and juveniles it is hard to distinguish the bay breasted from similar warblers. But in the end I has identified, possibly misidentified it as a Bay-breasted. The black feet rules out the Black Poll Warbler and after examine other shots that I got I see faint striping on the birds back, which in turn rules out the Pine Warbler.

Warblers are fun. If you are not paying attention they are easily mistaken for sparrows. But their behavior is different and they tend to pause long enough and get close enough that if you are quick you can get a few photographs. On the small size is always a challenge. Here I got the eyes nicely in focus which is always the goal.

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

Wing flapping

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Figure 1 - Wing flapping ring-necked duck. Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA, October 30, 2015. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Figure 1 – Wing flapping ring-necked duck. Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA, October 30, 2015. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

The ducks have begun to congregate on Fresh Pond. They appear to have favorite places, and the different species occupy the same spots as last year. I was delighted on Thursday to see that the hooded mergansers had returned to Black’s Nook.  I had taken a day off from my camera, just to enjoy and take in the color and the smell of fresh air after a heavy autumn rain storm.  When I returned on Friday this group was already gone. But I suspect that others will appear.

The pond itself is filled largely with ring-necks (Aythya collaris). All of the ducks treat humans warily. They don’t flee in a panic but paddle off to a safer distance. Hidden behind foliage and a chain-link fence, I was able to photograph a group when one of the males rose out of the water and put on a “wing flapping” display.  Fortunately I had already set the focus and so was able to capture the scene in the few seconds that it lasted.  This is why I prefer the more moderate zoom – it is quicker than the long zoom and doesn’t require a monopod.

Wing flapping is an expression of dominance and, in the breeding season, a  courting ritual. Multiple drakes often gather around a single hen and display in this way. She in turn  picks out the drake she likes with a nod of the head back and forth or paddling with her head held low.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 149 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE mode, 1/2000th sec at f/7.1 with +1 exposure compensation.

 

Sleepy Saturday

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Figure 1 - Sleepy Saturday. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Figure 1 – Sleepy Saturday. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Regular readers of this blog know that I am not fond of posting cute cuddly animal pictures. Still a great privilege of life is being able to share it with feline friends. Today I wanted to capture the exquisite joy of a sleepy Saturday morning, when the room is filled with sunlight, when you are very sleepy, and when your best friends in the whole world are snuggled up with you in bed.

My particular furry friend is more tolerant of the IPhone than my Canon. The Canon is not to be trusted. It tends to flash in your face – ever so annoying to sensitive cat eyes. After all blinking faster than the flash takes up a lot of energy.

Unstuck in time

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In his classic psychological drama of time travel “Slaughter House Five,” Kurt Vonnegut describes his protagonist Billy Pilgrim as being “unstuck in time.” This would suggest that we are tethered to what physicists refer to as our “world line,” the path in space and time that we travel. For us time is an arrow and we move ever forward. For Billy Pilgrim, well, not so much. “All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.”

You may have heard yesterday that a US military surveillance blimp became untethered in Maryland and drifted a couple of hundred miles across rural Pennsylvania. Yes unstuck, unthethered, but certainly not in time. Well a photograph taken yesterday by Jimmy May of Bloomberg Press Enterprise via the AP tells, or at least suggests, a different pilgrimage for the blimp.  He captured it hanging over an Amish horse drawn carriage in Millville, PA. The Amish strive for a peaceful timelessness and here it was certainly broken by an apparent anachronism.

“It is just an illusion here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone, it is gone forever.”

Kurt Vonnegut, “Slaughter House Five,” 1969

Faces of the old country

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Figure 1 - Augustu Sherman Guadeloupean woman. In the public domain in the United States.

Figure 1 – Augustus Sherman Guadeloupean woman. In the public domain in the United States because of its age and that it was taken by an employee of the federal government..

A friend and reader has brought to my attention a remarkable article in The Washington Post showing the faces of “the old country.” It has been estimated that approximately 40% of the population of the United States can trace its ancestry back to the 12 million people who entered  America through Ellis Island in New York Harbor. It raises the old cliche that we are a nation of immigrants. But the true story is much more than one of numbers, As rich as America has been in natural resources, its greatest asset has been, and continues to be, it immigrants. These people came and come to the United States to build a future and their future is the future of the country.

These photos were taken by Augustus Sherman, who was both an amateur photographer and the chief registry clerk on Ellis Island from 1892 until 1925. He photographed people coming through in their native costumes, while they were the greenest of “green horns.” The photographs were published in National Geographic in 1907 and for many years they hung in the federal Immigration Service headquarters in Manhattan. They are now archived in the the New York Public Library.

There are several points to be made about the images themselves. There was a certain seriousness to the picture process, or was it fear of rejection. The pride of the sitters rings through. And in composite they are a definitive monument to America’s diversity.It is hard to pick a favorite among these images. But I have chosen as Figure 1 this stunningly expressive photograph of a beautiful Guadeloupean woman in native dress. All of the elements are there: pride and just a hint of a smile

Photographs of imaginary places

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Figure 1 - Don Quixote in his Study, 1857, by Julia Margaret Cameron and in the public domain in the United States because of its age.

Figure 1 – Don Quixote in his Study, 1857, by Julia Margaret Cameron and in the public domain in the United States because of its age.

There is a prologue to the musical “Man of La Mancha” and then Cervantes grabs us with the words:

“May I set the stage? I shall impersonate a man.
Come, enter into my imagination and see him!“

And there he is in Figure 1. There is Don Quixote in his study as Imagined by Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) in her 1857 photograph.

So fast forward, for several weeks I had been anticipating last Monday’s release of the movie “Jurassic World.”  It became available for rental and on Saturday I found time to watch it. The movie begins with images of the imaginary theme park Jurassic World and at about the moment of the attack of the pterodactyls I became struck by how real the images seemed. See for instance the mosasaurus eating a pterodactyl and like me forget everything that you know about these soaring reptiles and their precarious flight.  These scenes seemed, indeed were, photographs of what previously existed only in the mind. That is the beauty of modern digital photograph and its cousin digital video.

From the very beginning the word photograph carried with it a sense of authenticity. Of course that was misplaced, but it was there. And the very roots of photography in classic art meant that early photographers sought to imitate painting and so photographed the religious, the mythic, and the literary. Julia Margaret Cameron was a major practitioner of this art and her legacy is followed by the magic mysticism of modern day photographers like Beth Moon.

Recently I have been struck by what is called “Fantasy Photography,” which is not to be confused with boudoir photography. In fantasy photography the photographed person is integrated seamlessly into an other world, and you cannot quite be sure if you are really looking at a portrait reworked or a totally manufactured and created person and scene. It marvelously extends the possibilities and stretches the limits of the photograph.  There is a wonderful series of fantasy photographs by photographer Annie Leibovitz where she transforms celebrities into well known Disney Characters. And one of my favorites is Kristy Mitchell’s “Wonderland.” This typifies the marvelous transcendence of the genre into the magical, into the mythic. We seem to be looking at photograph of Mallory’s  “Nimue, the Lady of the Lake.” It conjures up Edward Burnes-Jones’ The Beguiling of Merlin (1872-1877). You may recognize his model, Jane Morris, from a previous blog. But as beautiful as the painting is, Ms. Mitchell’s  image is so much more. It is a photograph, and photographs have an implied truth. It is as if the photographer transcended reality and entered the realm of Mallory’s mind.