Figure 1 – Orange Poppy, Sudbury, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2018.

Another rite of passage – with the coming of summer, come the poppies. It is, of course, reminiscent of the “The Wizard of Oz.” Poppies have their associations with opium. And we are indeed mesmerized by the pod-like center of the flower with its pollen that offset the wonderful extremes of color.

The poppy of Figure 1 is from my own garden. I struggle to grow them and then are rewarded by this blast of monochrome – in this case orange. Taking such close-ups I am usually drawn, as her, to use my IPhone, which offers a dramatic no fuss no muss approach to macrophotography – a kind of natural  Rorschach test.

“Through the dancing poppies stole A breeze, most softly lulling to my soul.”

Figure 1 – Infant’s grave, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2018.

I have visited Concord’s Sleepy Hollow Cemetery many times over the last 30 years, always with camera in hand. But the place that I always return to is the little infant’s gravestone of Figure 1. I have found it so hard to express in image. It speaks eloquently of the tragedy of child or childbirth death, so common to the nineteenth century. But there is something else. The stone is worn with time, and that weathering creates a sense of embryonic form. It is not a fully formed life. It has been tragically cut short, despite the potential of all humanity.

I think that this amorphic character is what makes the grave so hard to photograph. The camera like the human eye tries disparately to focus, but all the lines and edges are fuzzy. But really it is through that blur we share the tragedy of so long ago.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 70 mm, ISO 200, Aperture Priority AE mode, 1/50th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – The glade at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, an Allegory of the 19th Century. Concord, MA, (c) DE Wolf 2018.

Figure 1, I believe, is an image that epitomizes Concord’s Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. It shows the view from Authors’ Ridge through the trees and down into an open glade. We have spoken many times of the nineteenth century, that first century of photography. Here the souls of that century sleep, neatly stored beneath stone monuments. The scene is always bucolic, peaceful, and we invariably feel a sense of loss and remorse. The passions of the day are now quaint footnotes except the one’s like race which still burn in our hearts. We all read Alcott, and Thoreau, and Emerson as children. And, of course, there was Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, which taught us about intolerance and hypocrisy – such a meaningful and timely story for our own age. What appealed to me most when I took the photograph of Figure 1 was the blurriness of the scene within the glade. You cannot quite make objects out with any clarity in the afternoon light. Like the remembrance of these people, what they said, what they meant, and what they stood for has become a sort of blur. As you look at this little scene, you might for a moment turn around and look behind you.

“Stop traveller and cast an eye,
As you are now so once was I,
Prepare in time make no delay
For youth and time will pass away.“

Canon T2i with  EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 75 mm ISO 200, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/80th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Gravestone detail, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2018.

The ancient Greek word for beauty is κάλλος, or anglicized kallos. And from this we derive the name of the calla lily. The calla lily has become in Christian times a symbol of rebirth and resurrection, and hence I found it as a detail of a nineteen century tombstone along author’s ridge at Concord, MA’s historic Sleepy Hollow cemetery. Author’s ridge is a favorite tourist spot. It is where Concord’s great authors Emerson, Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, and Nathaniel Hawthorne among others rest their final rest. Before my visit school children had left quotes and pencils on each luminary’s grave.

When first carved the stone would have had a virgin, holy, and pure appearance. All of these words are associated with the calla lily. But with the patina of time, the erosion of rain and ice, the dirt, and the lichens the stone has acquired not a new meaning but a more vivid one. The hand seems to come out of the earth, out of the grave, and it clutches the lily as a savior from death and corruption.

The mythic significance of the calla goes back much further than Christian times. It plays a wonderful role in ancient Greek mythologies. It begins with Zeus, the King of the Gods, disguising himself as Amphitryon the husband of Alcmene, while he is out to war. Zeus made love to her after disguising himself as her husband, Amphitryon. He impregnates her with Heracles or in the Roman Hercules. Third points here. First, you will recognize here the story of David and Bathsheba. Second, and as it turns out Amphitryon actually returned the same night and impregnates his wife with his own son, Iphicles. Third, I am not making this up!  This unusual event is referred to as heteropaternal superfecundation.

Now, Zeus’ wife, Hera is, not surprisingly, less than pleased with Zeus’ infidelities. And it is in her face that the infant is named Heracles, meaning the glory of Hera.  In the case of Heracles, she is determined not to kill him, but rather to make his life as miserable as possible. Hence, for instance, are the labors of Herakles, and more ominously she places two poisonous snakes in his crib. The story of Heracles is very complicated, as befits the epic of a great mythic hero. But what concerns us here is an event that happens early in Heracles’ life. Zeus takes his son by Alcmene and places her at Hera’s breast, while she is asleep. Now, as you might well imagine, suckling at the breast and drinking the milk of a goddess bring with it great superpowers. But Hera awakes and recognizing Heracles pushes him aside and, in so doing, sprays her milk into the sky where it becomes the Milky Way and onto the ground where it forms calla lillies. Calla lilies possess the purity and beauty of the goddess.

Now when Aphrodite (Venus), goddess of love, beauty, and desire, sees the lilies, she becomes incensed with jealousy. To curse their beauty she places a large, yellow, phallic pistil in the middle of each flower. As a result the calla becomes associated on the one hand, through Hera, with beauty and purity, and on the other hand, through, Aphrodite  with lust and sexuality.

So Hera is credited with creating the virgin beauty of the calla lilly and she is also credited with creating that most beautiful and humbling of sights, the Milky Way. This brings us full circle to the words of a Concord author, who is buried on Authors Ridge.

“Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way?”

 Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 91 mm, ISO 200, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/50th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation

Figure 1 – Man. dog, and Windsor chair. (c) DE Wolf 2018.

I thought that I would share today this portrait of my son and his dog. Hopefully, yet casually, it shows the deepness of the bond. That was what I was going for. Dogs remain quite perplexed as to why you want them to look into the camera. Momentarily there is the hope for a treat. But ever is the delight, I am with my best friend.

I continue to marvel at how easily the IPhone and its kin enable us to capture intimate portraits and stunning close-ups. I love how beautifully it translates to black and white. The dynamic range is always just a bit stifling, but still there a purity to its performance. I am giving this photograph the pretentious name “Man, dog, and Windsor chair.” The Windsor chair in actuality has nothing to do with anything. But still …

Figure i – Iris, the goddess of the rainbow. (c) DE Wolf 2018.

Yesterday was June 1. So I wanted to celebrate the coming of summer, the coming of the solstice, and most of all the coming of the irises to New England Gardens. It seems a simple but magical moment, but I wait expectantly for these beautiful flowers in early June, every year. Those in my own garden are a beautiful yellow, closer to that of the natural iris. I am growing impatient, but they should bloom today or tomorrow.

The iris is the flower of Iris, the Greek goddess of the rain bow, the messenger of the gods. Hers is a beauty that takes us back to Homer, the blind Greek poet who saw so much. So here today, and very simply as beautiful visions should be, is a perfect bloom that I captured outside my office at just the right moment.

Figure 1 – Girl of the “wired generation” in checked pants. (c) DE Wolf 2018.

I was having lunch this afternoon when a scene appealed to my inner Brassaï.   His are many deeply intimate portraits taken in street cafes and cabarets. The IPhone is perfect for innocuously capturing these moments. Here it is a young woman of the “wired generation” intently staring at her own cellphone into a wonderfully burning Vermeer light. I have, of course, true to my inspiration, given it a subtle sepia tone and it is a rare photographic moment for me where I have actually dropped the brightness and increased the contrast. In the work-up, I found myself nostalgically imagining taking this with my own Leica M3, setting the contrast with a well chosen grade of Kodabromide, and then most wonderful of all was always toning in the selenium bath.

Figure 1 – Foam on the surface of a brook, Audubon Society’s Broadmoor Wildlife Refuge, South Natick, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2018.

Figure 1 is another image that I took this weekend at the Audubon Society’s Broadmoor Wildlife Refuge in South Natick, MA. It is one of those moments that reveals the symmetry that underlies nature and shows foam on the surface of a brook revealing the surface waves that along with gravity are defining its motion. This was the quintessential bubbling brook. It was dark and cast in shadows, something immediately calming, and I loved the linear patterns, the geometric aspect of the moment.

I had thought not to add a quote here, but then I found this one which just like the little brook drew my attention and gave me pause.

Figure1 – The swamp emerging, Audubon Society’s Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary, S. Natick, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2018.

We move very quickly now into the fleeting time of chartreuse, where all the greens are fresh. It is very subtle at the moment, but not for long. Figure 1 epitomizes the emerald insistence. It shows an awakening patch of swamp at the Massachusetts Audubon Society’s Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary. The swamp itself seem dormant, of course it is not, but little patches of swamp-grass shout out vividly.  It is as if they were painted in glorious chartreuse on an otherwise dark canvas.

“The world is exploding in emerald, sage, and lusty chartreuse – neon green with so much yellow in it. It is an explosive green that, if one could watch it moment by moment throughout the day, would grow in every dimension.”
― Amy Seidl, Early Spring: An Ecologist and Her Children Wake to a Warming World

Canon T2i with lens at 160 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/2000 th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.