Figure 1 – The tailor’s shop, Natick, Massachusetts. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

It is usually the case that lighting in “the mall” is defined by the artificial. Figure 1 is an exception. I was at the Natick Collection in Natick, Massachusetts early Sunday morning, before most of the stores open. And when I past the Tailor’s Shop I saw that the display in the window was flooded with a warm beam of light coming in through one of the skylights.  It show and antique sewing machine and sewing table. These always remind me of my grandfather, who like so many of the immigrants of his day was himself a tailor. I smile also at the tailor Motel Kamzoi in the musical “Fiddler on the Roof.” I saw that play with my parents and grandmother in its first Broadway run many years ago. My grandfather had a foot treadle machine in his apartment, which I marveled at with the curiosity of my childhood.

The Singer sewing machine was the manufacturer of my grandfather’s day, and far into the twentieth century these icons of the past were ubiquitous. Isaac Merritt Singer was did not invent the sewing machine but he designed the first practical model, which he patented on August 12, 1851, and he embraced and adopted the mass manufacturing techniques pioneered by Henry Ford in the auto industry and perhaps more significantly he made it available under a hire-purchase plan enabling consumers to buy on credit in “easy installments.”

This image was taken with my IPhone 6 and I think really competes with what I could have achieved with my Canon DSLR. And it is unusual for me, in that I did it without toning despite its antique allusions.

“A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no? But here, in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn’t easy. You may ask ‘Why do we stay up there if it’s so dangerous?’ Well, we stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: tradition! “

Figure 1 – The common milkweed along Little Fresh Pond, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

In Massachusetts, we are well into the transition from late summer to early autumn. We have had glorious dry sunshine, cool nights, and medicinally warm days.  The colors are slowly changing, and you have only to look closely and see the subtle shades of color that define this season. Indeed, fall is fractal in nature. The range of color occurs on all levels. You have only to look.

I have been intrigued and watching the milkweed pods along the shore of Little Fresh Pond, in Cambridge. They have just started to pop.  They conjure up memories of the late summers of my childhood – strange alien plants. Yes, this sensation of the alien was driven by the scifi movie “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,1956, ” which in turn was driven by the mid-century communist scare. Wandering around the grassy areas of the Catskills you would find them – compact pods that would explode into little cotton balls of seed.

Milkweeds once were prolific in the American Midwest, but they were decimated by herbicides.  This in turn threatened the population of monarch butterflies whose larvae feed exclusively on them. Now in places like the Fresh Pond Reservation where there are projects to restore and save the monarchs, part of that is the repopulating of the milkweeds. The specimen of Figure 1 are in a little fenced in area by the dog beach on Little Fresh Pond. I like the color and the chiaroscuro lighting but am a bit disappointed by the sharpness. My camera is always set for birds and as a result the f-number was set at 4.5, which gives a rather shallow depth of focus.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 75 mm Aperture Priority AE Mode, ISO 1600, 1/4000th sec. at f/4.5 with no exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – American goldfinch (Spinus tristis), Little Fresh Pond, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015

You see the bird watchers at Fresh Pond in September stalking the goldfinches. For goldfinches this is their most spectacular time of year and they are very busy. They typically hardly stay still for a photograph. I was treated yesterday by this female American goldfinch (Spinus tristis), which typically have a greenish yellow coloration, pretty in its own right even if it pales in comparison to the male’s bright yellow. This one sat still enough long enough for me to really get “a bead on it.” I slowing moved around until I got her with a good side view and head turned down coy pose. And I especially love it when the picture shows the fine features of food in the bid’s mouth.

A couple walking around the Pond stopped politely and when I had finished taking my pictures asked what I had photographed. We chatted for a while and they equally politely squinted at the images in my view finder.

There is this golden light and a warm sense of harvest abundance, especially for the birds who feast on end of summer seeds, which are everywhere. Among these are the delicate milkweed pods, which will always remind me of the movie “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” The colors are just starting to change, with the dominant red coming from the year’s crop of poison ivy.  This is everywhere.

Can T2I with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at , ISO 1600 with Aperture Priority AE mode, 1/2000th sec at f/4.5 with no exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – First touches of fall, (c) DE Wolf 2013

Today is the first full day of fall and I was greeted this morning with a message from Facebook about how exactly two years ago I had posted the photograph of Figure 1 on Facebook.  So two things:

First the picture is exactly how I am feeling. I went for a walk today at lunch around Fresh Pond and everything was warm and glorious. The colors haven’t quite achieved the autumnal impressionism that I love so much. But of course, with Photoshop I could fake it. I hope my readers will forgive me the repost. I like this IPhone image so much that I just have to repost it.

Second, what the hell is going on? Our trail now proceeds us like so much cyberspore.  Look at a product on the web and you will be plagued with it forever. And should we find ways to stop that then website purveyors are going to have to find new means of revenue, like charging us for visiting – gulp. Is this the return of the AOL model?  The other problem with being followed by your past is that not so subtle voice yelling: “Look at you. You were young and fat then, and now you are old and fatter.” It is so inescapable!

Cumulus clouds over Concord, Massachusetts, September 12, 2015. IPhone 6.0 photograph. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

I just read an article that calculated the angular field of view of the IPhone 6 camera.  This came in at a remarkable 63.54 degrees – wow!  No wonder whenever I want to take cloud photographs, I am likely to grab for my IPhone 6 even if my Canon T2i is on hand. It’s no fuss no muss shooting, and if necessary, HDR is easy to implement.

It was no exception this past Saturday when I was in Concord, Massachusetts and saw these glorious Cumulus clouds behind the Trinitarian Congregational Church on Walden Street (Yes as in The Pond). One of the great things about Concord is that almost every building you look at is historic. The Trinitarian Congregational is almost two hundred years old and its member played a key role in the abolitionist movement and the underground railroad of the 1850’s.

One of the other Iphun points about the IPhone camera is that it lends itself to the creation of antique postcard like snapshots. That was what this image reminded me of, after I gave it an Autochrome like color palette.

Figure 1 – Cirrus uncinus clouds over Concord, MA (Nine Acres) on September 12, 2015. IPhone 6 photograph.  (c) DE Wolf 2015.

I took the photograph of Figure 1 with my IPhone on Saturday. These are cirrus uncinus clouds. Cirrus clouds are thin, wispy strand-like clouds. The name comes from the from the Latin word cirrus meaning a ringlet or curling lock of hair. Cirrus uncinus specifically is a type of cirrus cloud, where the name derives again from the Latin. Cirrus uncinus means “curly hooks”. These are also referred to as “mare’s tail” clouds.

Cirrus clouds form when water vapor undergoes deposition at altitudes of 16,500 to 20,000 ft. They also form as wispy outflows of tropical cyclones or the anvils of cumulonimbus cloud. As a result, cirrus clouds often form at the leading edge of frontal systems and are harbingers of bad weather ahead.

One of the great things about living in the twenty-first century is that we now know and have seen with our robotic eyes that cirrus clouds also form on other planets in our solar system: Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and possibly Neptune. They have even been seen on the Saturnine moon Titan. In many of these planetary systems they are not water-based clouds but formed instead of ammonia or methane ice. The term cirrus is also used for certain wispy dust clouds found in interstellar space.

Clouds, I believe, are at the juncture of science and art. Their wonder inhabits both worlds. We may marvel at the physics that creates them or listfully ponder their shapes. We may argue like Hamlet and Polonius whether a certain cloud looks more like a camel or a whale. Their beauty is all around us. We have only to look up and wonder.

“   I am the daughter of Earth and Water,

And the nursling of the Sky;

I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;

I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain when with never a stain

The pavilion of Heaven is bare,

And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams

Build up the blue dome of air,

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,

And out of the caverns of rain,

Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,

I arise and unbuild it again.”

From “The Cloud” by

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

Figure 1 – The path up the Glacken Slope, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

We seem to live our lives following routes. There is a set of routes that you take to work, be they driving roads or subway trains. It’s all laid out for you in advance.  The same seems true with other aspects of life. As a physics major in college and graduate school the courses followed a defined progression; each enabling me to take another step forward in secret knowledge, Bilbo Baggins, on the other hand and a bit reluctantly, was taking the less trodden path, the path to adventure. And I believe that it is the moment that you spy a new, and little explored path, that the adventure begins.

I have discussed how this one section of the road around Fresh Pond Reservation in Cambridge, MA seems to hold all of the magic. This is known as the Glacken Slope and true to form there is a path up the steep hill marked on its sides by aged decaying timbers that indicates the beckoning  path. I have gone a little way up this path. It leads first into a forest, where the crows squawk loudly at your intrusion into their private domain. You can then either continue in the woods or emerge back into the daylight of “civilization.” But I have never found the time to explore it properly.

Still whenever I pause there I think first of Bilbo, which was truly a mental exploration of my adolescence, and of Robert Frost.

The Road not Taken

Robert Frost

Figure 1 – Mardi Gras joker, Framingham, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

A couple of weeks ago I posted that Hati and Skoll Gallery was celebrating its third anniversary. Recently, I was looking at the statistics and I discovered that today’s blog post is number 1005. Yikes!  As Hamlet said: “Words, words, words.” He also, in response to Polonius’ blithering said “Tedious old fools.” Hmm. My blogs tend to run on average about 500 words; so that’s about 500,000 words, about six novels worth, unless you’re Tolstoy. Them’s a lotta words, dear readers. And I appreciate your bearing with me. Clearly, I have a lot to say and I have recently started trying to offer up something on weekends of greater length and depth. But mostly, I love photography and am fascinated by so many things.

And that’s the very point – love of photography. A great photograph is like a lover’s kiss in your life. I can tell you how a photograph makes me fee – what it means to me. But I cannot tell you how it will make you feel. A photograph is sufficient in itself; words are unnecessary. They get in the way of meaning. A photograph is a kiss, and the great screen actress Ingrid Berman said:

“A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.”

Today, in celebration, I thought that I would share an IPhone photograph of the Carnival Joker, Figure 1 – out to celebrate a Mardi Gras. He is not from New Orleans but rather from a local store called Jordan’s Furniture which is an icon in the Boston area, and where it is always Mardi Gras. They even greet you at the door with necklaces of shiny beads. As I was taking this photograph a very timid little girl was slowly approaching the bead bearer. So thank you all again for your interest and encouragement

Store tin man, Natick, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Yesterday was a Saturday and I went for a morning walk at the mall. Regular readers of this blog will recognize that this is really a a thinly veiled excuse for a journey in search of espresso and, in this case, a blueberry scone at Nordstrom’s eBar. My IPhone is ever ready to be playful, and I took Figure 1 of a whimsical Tin Man in the children’s department.

Tin men carry childhood memories. I remember vividly visiting my grandmother in the Bronx as a child and just as the IRT emerged into the sunlight there was this tin man on a rooftop. My sister and I always watched for him. I have done some websearching for this rooftop woodsman, but so far have been unable to find him. Perhaps a reader will be able to illuminate me.

But, of course the greater memory was of the Tin man in “The Wizard of Oz.”

The Tin man’s quest is to be human, which he equates with having a heart.

“When a man’s an empty kettle he should be on his mettle,
And yet I’m torn apart.
Just because I’m presumin’ that I could be kind-a-human,
If I only had heart.
I’d be tender – I’d be gentle and awful sentimental
Regarding Love and Art.
I’d be friends with the sparrows … and the boys who shoots the arrows
If I only had a heart.”

The Tin man is like the Little Mermaid, Ariel, who also wants to be human. Of course, in her case in the original what she is seeking is a human soul and through that soul the key to immortality But as for the Tin man I think that L. Frank Baum’s lesson is clearer. That being human come from deeds not birthright. You achieve having heart, you are not born with it.

Despite being a symbol of the possibilities of youthful imagination, this store Tin man isn’t meant to be profound just playful. Summer is waning. It is back to school time and for so many children there is a palpable excitement.

“I hear a beat, how sweet!
Just to register emotion, jealousy, devotion
And really feel the part
I could stay young and chipper
And I’d lock it with a zipper
If I only had a heart.”