Camera equipment saves lives

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It isn’t often that you hear about photography equipment saving lives.  It was a theme in Jurassic Park III when the graduate student and photographer, Billy Brennan, is saved from the raptors by his lucky pack back/camera bag. But in real life not so much.  By the way I love movies where the scientist is the hero! But now we have it stranger than truth … This past week the Johns family from Texas was saved by a selfie stick and the whole event was recorded by the video camera that was attached to the stick.

The Johnses were swimming off the coast of Nantucket in Massachusetts, when they got caught in a riptide. You probably thought that this was going to be a story about sharks, since sharks have been nibbling on people up and down the East coast this summer.  Derrick Johns used the stick to pull his daughter Erynn 16 towards the shore where a good Samaritan pull her in the rest of the way. Pretty scary stuff!  But as selfie sticks have developed a bad press and are banned from many locations, it may be time to reconsider them as life saving devices. How about a selfie stick defibrillator combination?

Evelyn Nesbit – the world’s first supermodel

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Figure 1 - Photograph of Evelyn Nesbit by Sarony 1902. From the Wikipedia and in the public domain in the United States because of its age.

Figure 1 – Photograph of Evelyn Nesbit by Sarony 1902. From the Wikipedia and in the public domain in the United States because of its age.

Continuing on the theme of sexism and imagery, I was reading the other day an article in BBC Culture by Lindsay Baker about “Evelyn Nesbitt – the World’s First Supermodel.” We have discussed the fashion industry in this blog several times. But the fact remains that there is, indeed must be, a symbiotic relationship between an exploitative industry and the models themselves. The problem is that for a young neophyte in the game the money and the power are all on one side of the relationship. Of course, there needed to be a first and it is not surprising that the first occurred as soon as photography became a potent force in advertising.

Florenced Evelyn Nesbit (1884 – 1967), was known professionally as Evelyn Nesbit, was a popular American chorus girl and artists’ mode. At the turn of the 20th century the figure and face of Evelyn Nesbit was everywhere. Beyond mass circulation newspaper and magazine advertisements, she was to be found on souvenir items and calendars. She was indeed the world’s first supermodel, defining the meaning of the term and profession. She was a cultural celebrity and she posed for a several of the leading, and mainstream, artists of the day including: James Carroll Beckwith, Frederick S. Church, and notably Charles Dana Gibson, who made her the quintessential “Gibson Girl“.

It is odd to me that I have read the story of Nesbitt so many times in different contexts. She caught the eye of architect – socialite Stanford White, who first gained the family’s trust then sexually assaulted Evelyn while she was unconscious. In one of the sensational trials (Papers of the day called it “The Trial of the Century”) of the era Nesbit’s jealous husband, multi-millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw, shot and murdered Stanford White on the rooftop theatre of Madison Square Garden on the evening of June 25, 1906. Think that you’ve heard this story before? Evelyn Nesbit figures as a character in the musical “Ragtime,” and was played in the movie version by Lady Cora herself, Elizabeth McGovern.

By today’s standard Nesbit’s portraits are tame. She was always fully clothed when photographed. But the key point was the undercurrent, the suggestion that there was something more, something erotic lurking beneath the surface. One could argue, in our era of explicit sexuality, that this mystery is lost and as such the image diminished. The subtlety is lost!

Women’s World Cup – mixed messages

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For Americans Sunday night was a big deal. We are proud of the United States Women’s Soccer team and their winning the World Cup – proud to be Americans. It’s good to win right? And from a photography/image point of view it was a field day. From Carli Lloyd’s “Hat Trick” on, it was a visual feast.  There is a big movement in the US to put a woman on a significant piece of currency.  Here’s one suggestion that I found on the web.  So congratulations to our Women’s Team. They are simply amazing!  They make us proud – not that they are going to earn what men earrn, but just saying “proud”. It also made me proud to see Amy Wambach kissing her wife after the victory, now officially her wife in all fifty states. That makes me proud of my country! Things kept getting better and better until the awards ceremony, when a bevy of beautiful women in sleek black dresses, revealing décolletage and high heels paraded out as official medal bearers. Now there’s a mixed message, if I ever saw one. What was FIFA thinking? Same old same old, I’m afraid.

The vernal pool

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Figure 1 - The vernal pool by Black's Nook, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Figure 1 – The vernal pool by Black’s Nook, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Off of Black’s Nook there is a vernal pool. Vernal pools are little wet spots that teem with life but whose depth and degree of inundation change over the course of the seasons. Most vernal pools will dry up completely periodically.  This one I have yet to see completely dry, but am convinced that the right summer drought would do it. What makes vernal pools unique is the variability of nutrients, salts, and acidity as the pool has more or less water. The term “vernal” comes from the assumption that it is at its highest water level in spring and summer..

That is a very technical definition. In another sense these are mysterious secretive places that require a bit of focus and concentration to see all of the life they contain.  In the case of Black Nook’s pool that is hard because it is in a protected part of the forest and you can only view from a respectable distance.I have observed it through the seasons: frozen in winter, surrounded by melting snow in spring, and now intensely green with vegetation in the heart of summer – shades of Vivaldi for sure. It was the greenness that brought it to my attention on this particular day. It was a verdant celebration, a microenvironment of rich emerald color that was tricky in its own way to photograph. I am drawn to this kind of lush greenness, I think because it reminds me of a panorama in the American Museum of Natural History of my youth depecting the Jurassic era. I am sure that the depiction does not meet modern interpretation, but it is engrained. So “Welcome to Jurassic Park!”

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 98 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/500 sec at f/10 with -1 exposure compensation. My camera is usually set forr bird photograph f/7.1 and central spot metering.  Here I went to f/10.0 and multispot metering to increase the depth of field.  These carpets of algae and plant matter I find overwhelm the exposure and it is necessary to cut back a stop if you want green instead of saturated white.

American black duck (hen) -Anas rubripes

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Figure 1 - American black duck )hen). Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA by the Glacken Field. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Figure 1 – American black duck )hen). Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA by the Glacken Field. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

I spotted this lone American black duck hen gliding quietly from behind a chain-link fence and a thicket of trees.  I walked quickly forward to find a place, where the trees would not obstruct my photograph and positioned the camera carefully so as to look through the fence and then I waited. Ducks are, in general, pretty wary even if protected from people. Here I got one of the most enjoyable aspects of bird photography, that moment when the bird notices you, turns her head, and watches you inquisitively.

I will admit to some confusion about identification.  The dark bill throws me. But I assume that this is the olive color that the guidebooks speak about for females. In English we make the distinction of the darkness of the feathers in this duck species.  It is a black duck. Taxonomists were clearly more concerned about the color of the feet.  Her formal Latin name means ruddy-footed duck, and indeed as she turned away from me these reddish feet were clearly visible.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 200 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/2500 sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation.

Independence Day 2015

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Figure 1 - Indian Cavalryman handing rations to a Christian girl during the First World War. In the public domain in the United States.

Figure 1 – Indian Cavalryman handing rations to a Christian girl during the First World War. In the public domain in the United States.

Today is Independence Day in the United States and we celebrate it as John Adams anticipated in a letter to his wife Abigail over two centuries ago:

“The second [sic] day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games,sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.“

I am always moved by this day and plan to celebrate it with friends watching the local parade: the cub scouts, brownies, and girl scouts and, of course, the minutemen. The American Revolution was profound in many ways. Its roots date back to Runnymede five hundred years earlier.  It was arguably the first war against imperialism, and in that context, one can argue that the death knell of European imperialism was sounded on August 15, 1947 with the lowering of the Union Jack and the raising of the Indian flag at the Lahore Gate of the Red Fort in Delhi, India. Well maybe not so much or not so fast. In many respects imperialism still thrives in the world. Yet there is continuity and forward motion.

I read yesterday a sobering account of the Indians who fought for the English during World War I and then were forgotten by both the English and their own countrymen. This essay is by Shashi Tharoor is a former minister in India’s Congress party and a former UN diplomat.  It contains many wonderful photographs (like that of Figure 1) of the Indian Army in this war, who out of duty fought to preserve the very empire that oppressed them And they expected that victory would lead to an independent India – not so fast.

Tharoor makes the point that The Great War “also involved soldiers from faraway lands that had little to do with Europe’s bitter traditional hatreds.” The role and sacrifices of Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians and South Africans have been celebrated for some time in books and novels, and even rendered immortal on celluloid in award-winning films like Gallipoli. Of the 1.3 million Indian troops who served in the conflict, however, you hear very little.”  In part, this is because, to the Europeans, only white lives mattered. Fortunately, we have no more of that sentiment.

Profoundly and, I think, significantly Tharoor points out that “the great British poet Wilfred Owen (author of the greatest anti-war poem in the English language, Dulce et Decorum Est) was to return to the front to give his life in the futile First World War, he recited [Rabindranath] Tagore’s* Parting Words to his mother as his last goodbye. When he was so tragically and pointlessly killed, Owen’s mother found Tagore’s poem copied out in her son’s hand in his diary:

When I go from hence

let this be my parting word,

that what I have seen is unsurpassable.

I have tasted of the hidden honey of this lotus

that expands on the ocean of light,

and thus am I blessed

—let this be my parting word.

In this playhouse of infinite forms

I have had my play

and here have I caught sight of him that is formless.

My whole body and my limbs

have thrilled with his touch who is beyond touch;

and if the end comes here, let it come

– let this be my parting word.”

Let us think of this on Independence Day. Let us think of free men and women on the Fourth of July, and let us think most deeply of those who are not yet free.

 

Tales of the Cthulu Mythos

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Figure 1 - Cthulu, Glacken Field, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA.

Figure 1 – Cthulu, Glacken Field, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA.

There is a region of the Fresh Pond Reservation that is referred to as the Glacken Field, where it is almost invariably shady, and you have enter a little forest. You go “into the woods” and you know what that means! My mind invariably begins to wander from its most scientific task of searching out and identifying bird species to one more mythic and primordial. It was here that I found Merlin’s tree and the Lady of the Lake. It is such a magical place with mysterious steps leading up the hill into the woods, as if to “a secret garden.”

In several places the well-worn tree roots breach the path.  These invariably turn my memory to the not so encouraging, yet existential, quote from William Cullen Bryant’s “Thanatopsis:”

“Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim

Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;

And, lost each human trace, surrendering up

Thine individual being, shalt thou go

To mix forever with the elements,

To be a brother to the insensible rock

And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain

Turns with his share, and treads upon.

The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.”

 

But also I begin to look for patterns, for faces. The troll of Figure 1 is such a pareidolia.

The news has been so terrible lately that the world seems destined to desolation and decay that I saw Cthulu in this face. Cthulu derives and evolves from the writings of H. P. Lovecraft. The mythos focuses on ancient imagined deities often referred to as  “Great Old Ones.” The most powerful of these is Cthulu himself. These are terrible gods that once ruled the world. But they are now dormant, imprisoned beneath the sea or Earth. They are dormant, but watchful, and will rise again when mankind itself degrades to such a point that the cosmos frees them.

This is what I was thinking about when I took the image of Figure 1. Perhaps it would be best to get back to the birds. We have become so good at ignoring the terrible, of keeping our eyes in the trees and not looking down at an inhumane world.

““Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They have trod earth’s fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread.”

H.P Lovecraft “The Dunwich* Horror”

* Dunwich is a “mythical” town in Massachusetts

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 75 mm, ISO 1600,Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/500th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation,

 

Cedar waxwing – Bombycilla cedrorum

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Figure 1 - Cedar waxwing, Black's Nook, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA.

Figure 1 – Cedar waxwing, Black’s Nook, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA.

I’ve got to agree with several birding sources that state how delightful an experience it is to come upon a group of Cedar waxwings – Bombycilla cedrorum. And the size of these groups can be imoressive. In my particular case I was walking around Fresh Pond and ended with a stop at Black’s Nook. There they were an intensely active group of birds hovering over the pond lilies and grasses like so many VTOLs or helicopters in search of insects. They were a bit too far off to get a good image with the lens that I had, but I quietly waited until one landed on a tree limb in front of me.

Actually, I did not know what I was looking at, but the Cornell Birdfinder app came quickly to the rescue. They are stunning birds as I hope Figure 1 captures – “a silky, shiny collection of brown, gray, and lemon-yellow, accented with a subdued crest, rakish black mask, and brilliant-red wax droplets on the wing feathers.” The mask is very confusing at first. At a distance you can’t quite figure out where the eyes and the beak are. This is truly the kind of experience which makes bird photography so much fund. And, of course, I am not quite satisfied with the photograph; so back I go to try to get a better one.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE mode, 1/1000th sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation.

Layers of technology

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Figure 1 - Detail of antique fire engine, Clark County Heritage Center, Springfield, Ohio. (c) DE Wolf 2015

Figure 1 – Detail of antique fire engine, Clark County Heritage Center, Springfield, Ohio. (c) DE Wolf 2015

Right now we are living in the great digital, wireless, internet age. And people of my generation have seen it all progress: the age of vacuum tube electronics. of transistors, of analog circuits. Remember broadcast television with its three channels of pabulum. Now we have two hundred channels of pabulum.

But what I wanted to point out here is that all of this was preceded by a mechanical age. And the complexity of machinery is truly marvelous. It was water, then steam, the gasoline. As I discussed a few days ago, last weekend I was in Springfield, Ohio. in 1838 Springfield was the western terminus of the National Road, which was the first major road construction project carried out by the United States federal government, and done, I might add, by manual labor. Springfield’s history is irrevocably tied to the Industrial Revolution.  As more and more people moved from the farms to the cities, it became essential that production of crop per acre and acres per farmer increase, and Springfield played an essential role in this industrialization of agriculture – almost seems a contradiction of terms.

There is a great intricate beauty in these machines. In the composite they show what can be achieved by complex integration of mechanical parts. If instead you focus on the individual components, often hand-machined, you come to marvel at what precision the human hand and mind can achieve when working in synchrony. This is the point of Figure 1, which is a close-up of the working mechanism of an antique fire engine. Photographically there is something so seductive in the specular reflections of polished steel and something almost alive in the interaction of parts. Recognize that the creation of the machine requires much more that the tooling of the part or the assembly of a hundred parts. It bespeaks a deep understanding of the physics of the engine and a knowledge of the science of the materials chosen.  The people who made this fire truck are long departed, but their essence is still there and still speaks to us.

Canon T2i with EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM lens at 51 mm, ISO 6400, Aperture Priority AE mode, 1/160th sec at f/8.0 with -1 exposure compensation.