Snow covered pines at sunset, Sudbury, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

Well, one day before the work week and the next February snow storm; so I had better get my last image from the decisive sunset moment from Friday.  This is Figure 1 and it shows the tops of four snow covered towering pines illuminated by a golden setting sun.  This might be deep in the woods but was, in fact, taken from the small park across from my house. Again I like the drama the color and the dynamic range. I think the composition could be better, somehow adhering to the Golden Rule of Thirds. However, I do like the sense of motion created by the treetops leaning to the left in the picture. All and all I am pretty happy with it and was very happy that my camera was on hand for nature’s fireworks.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 70 mm, ISO 800, Aperture Prioty AE mode, 1/1000-th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Snow covered treetops illuminated at sunset, Sudbury, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

The decisive light that I spoke about yesterday illuminated the tree tops against a dark, looming, almost night-like sky. The second image from this short but gorgeous moment is shown in Figure 1.  What really appeals to me, beyond the drama, is the dynamic range – that is how the eye pulls out the features of the trees and snow in shadow. It is unusual for snow photographs to have a golden tone. The blue tone of Rayleigh scattering is much more common.  And in this context it is unusual to compensate down in exposure, so as not to saturate, as opposed to up in exposure to drive the dynamic range towards saturation.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 70 mm , ISO 800, Aperture priority AE mode, 1/1600 th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Sunset after the snow historic center of Sudbury, Massachusetts. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

El Niño has given New Englanders a welcome respite from snow and cold this winter. But today we had our first real snow storm at least in Boston and it’s western suburbs. Still the signature of El Niño was there, in that it was a heavy wet slushy snow, the kind that sticks to every tree limb and power-line. So it was all pretty magical,

and the there was “the decisive moment” actually about ten minutes fo decisive moments. The sky was dense and dark when the sunset broke through from the west bathing the snowy treetops in a golden light. I have a few pictures to share with you from the decisive moment. Today I’ll start with Figure 1 that shows the historic center of Sudbury, Massachusetts.

Why do I live in New England?  ’nuff said?

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 70 mm, ISO 800, Aperture Priority AE mode, 1/2000th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Close and very close: contrasting pair #3. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

Last Sunday as I was walking down a corridor into the local mall I came upon a sign on the wall that promised that I was close. It’s arrow pointed right. I walked a little further and there was a second sign with even greater promise. I was very close. It’s arrow pointed left. They form a contrasting pair and also together form a minimalist tribute to the great American pop artist Robert Indiana.

Figure 1 – Mannequins: Contrasting pairs #2. IPhone photograph.  (c) DE Wolf 2016.

We have spoken before about this trend in retail for mannequins to lose all facial features and even to become headless. So I wanted to post, as the second in a series of contrasting pairs, photographs of two mannequins, one faceless one with appealing visage and even painted-in catch-light. Interestingly, these were taken at the same store. One window had the fully anthropomorphic mannequins and the other the faceless ones. I am even wondering if I Photoshopped out the arm to shoulder joint whether she could be mistaken for human. So what is the point? At one junture in their history mannequins were meant to be human like in their appearance. Now the opposite is true. And maybe a part of this is the political correctness of not assuming racial, ethnic, or national type. Still it gives you a little emotional jab to see them dismembered, stripped of clothing, and then rudely dressed – with no concern for possible humanity. Perhaps this is a metaphor for how we treat each other.

Figure 1 – Hand-drying: Contrasting Pair # 1. IPhone photograph. (c) DE Wolf 2016

Despite an unseasonably warm winter, extenuating circumstances have driven me indoors and out of nature. So this poses the question of where to find photographic amusement. I am starting a project that I call “contrasting pairs,” and launched this project this morning during a walk at the local mall. Just to prove that there are amusing photographic subjects to be found everywhere, I took this first “contrasting pair” of hand-drying devices. The top shows the good old standby – a paper towel dispenser, while the bottom shows the new-fangled electric stream dryer – advertised as both more sanitary and more eco-friendly. The eco-friendly part I question as it takes a certain amount of electrical energy to dry one’s hand. I have yet to do the calculation. I am also suspicious that these machines are designed to rip peoples rings off – well not really. I will also point out that the top photo may well fall into the category of photographs of things soon to be obsolete. Of course, one may also wonder why such gadgets are necessary at all. What’s wrong with drying your hands on your pants?

Figure 1 – Spike in the snow, Nine Acres, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

It is always fun after a fresh snow to poke around and see what kind of interesting geometrics you can find. I especially love the patterns that blowing wind makes on fresh pliable snow.The key is the intense contrasts broken by little bits of plants poking free. On Sunday I came upon the spike in the snow shown in Figure1. The spike was there to hold cords that helped a young specimen sapling survive the relentless onslaught of wind. I was intrigued by the starkness of the white contrasted with the red of the rusty spike as well as the perfectly straight line of the cord contrasted with the curve of its shadow. And, of course, the fundamental minimalism of the composition appeals to me.

There is always the question with soundscapes in color as to how to deal with the blue. It is a real physical phenomenon but your eye tends to correct for it. Here I decided to leave it. Surprisingly, my preferred exposure called for no exposure compensation. Usually you have to over expose to get the snow properly white.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 94 mm, ISO 200, Aperture priority AE Mode 1/800th sec at f/10 with no exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – The Black Hole. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

I have always loved and related to Hamlet’s statement:

“I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.”

It is, of course, a statement of Hamlet’s contemplative nature. But I think also that it points out the infinite in the miniature, the view that the structures of the universe are everywhere repeated. This is, of course, the whole concept or definition of a fractal, a random process creating order out of apparent disorder, but the same on all scales. The other geometry that seems ubiquitous is the spiral. We have the golden spiral ( a so-called logarithmic spiral) and the Archimedes spiral (a linear spiral): the spiral of the ram’s horn, the spiral of cream in a cup of coffee, and the spiral of the galaxies.

Yesterday was a gloomy day here in Massachusetts as we awaited the big snow, I had sought warmth, shelter, and amusement in the local indoor mall and while walking came across the spirals of Figure 1 – a spiral in a glass vase. My first thoughts were of the Twilight Zone hypnotic spiral, and the wonderful ambiguity of whether it features an inward or an outward spiral. Then my mind wandered to the the warp in space-time around a black hole, where everything is inexorably drawn in, even light, and where nothing escapes.  I don’t apologize for obscure associations.  All of our minds are set by random, that is fractal, associations. More accurately this is the path that you would see of an object trying to move perpendicular to the radius. This is the path of a planet circling a star – a decaying orbit drawn in the end to its doom. You may have seen shot marbles spiraling down a hemisphere at you local science center.

I took the image with my Iphone, and it proved exceedingly difficult to work-up to what I had visualized. In the end, I liked the distracting reflections mimicking galaxies and faint alternate spiral reflections. These seemed to add to the sense that I was looking at some giant scale astronomical phenomenon.

Hati and Skoll Gallery is pleased to announce that our New Gallery is featuring images from David’s experiments with digital photo-pictorialism. Some of these images have been published previously in David’s blog. We hope that you enjoy them! There are currently eleven images in the gallery. We expect this number to grow as the project progresses.