Figure 1 – The Orange Hat, IPhone photograph. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

I recently upgraded my cell phone to an IPhone 6 and with that comes the “better” camera than the 4S. I have a love of IPhone photography.  You absolutely have your camera with you at all times, and it can be counted upon to give a reasonable image as long as the light is in the normal range.  Also, it enables you to step back into a less serious side of photography.  Figure 1 is my latest venture in this arena, “The Orange Hat.”  I have nothing profound to say about it.  Orange Hat was fun to take, no fuss no muss, and it was fun to work-up.

My mind does however, have a tendency to literary allusion.  I am forever making weird associations and this is not exception.  So I am reminded of a poem by Robert Burns (1759-1796) entitled “To a Louse.”  Well, you know lady’s hat and all. It seems that one Sunday he was sitting behind a young lady in church when he noticed a louse roaming through the bows and ribbons of her bonnet.  It was a more common thing in those days – both bonnets and lice.  It led to one of the most famous of Burns’ quotes “Oh would some Power with vision teach us to see ourselves as others see us!”  Here is the last verse in both eighteenth century Scottish and modern English:

“O wad some Power the giftie gie us                 
To see oursels as ithers see us!                        
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,                 
An’ foolish notion:                                           
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,           
An’ ev’n devotion! ”       

“O would some Power with vision teach us  
To see ourselves as others see us!
 It would from many a blunder free us,
 And foolish notions: 
What airs in dress and carriage would leave us,
And even devotion!”

Figure 1 – The Melt, first day of spring 2015, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Yesterday was the first full day of spring, and I stopped along side the road to photograph this little grove of trees by a stream in Concord, Massachusetts.  My goal was to capture the sense of the spring melt.  This is what I refer to as an intimate landscape.  It is not a screaming vista but an isolated group of trees along a little brook. For me it epitomizes the wetlands of Eastern Massachusetts.  It is what I strive for in a landscape.  When I analyze my motivations I recognize that I have an ideal or standard set by the nineteenth century artist Samuel Palmer and my the early English calotype landscape artists. It is how I visualize the landscape – a soft creamy sepia tone and perhaps a just a touch exagerated sharpness so as to create a sense of an etching.  And I have come to realize that in the work of the greats like Palmer there is a key aspect of cool dampness that belies the richness and fertility of the soil, the emphasis of the landscape as a living thing

Figure 1 – Sycamore Tone-on-tone, Black Nook, Cambridge, MA, March. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

All winter long I have been eying several ancient sycamore trees off Fresh Pond.  These are the quintessential urban park tree.  In fact, all through my childhood in New York City I used to look down on one from my bedroom window or at the squirrels that made their apartment ever so close to ours.  The sycamores at Fresh Pond have spent the winter with their great bleached, arm-like branches raised up as if in defiance against the winter. Several times I had thought to photograph them but was repeatedly thwarted by the lack of sun or the intervening branches.

The light today was odd, overcast but bright, and as I looked up into the canopy at one of these trees I was struck by one of my favorite photographic challenges, the tone-on-tone, the challenge of pulling out an image of whites on a white background without exaggerating the dynamic range excessively.  Here was a case to be made for a truly white background.  I loved the exaggerated upward angle, the peeling bark, and the burred seed pods against the sky.  It was worth the experiment of Figure 1.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 104 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture-Priority AE mode, 1/400th sec at f/20 with + 1 exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Spring melt comes to the New England marshland, Sudbury, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

At last, but as is inevitable in the revolutions of nature, spring is coming to the New England marshland.  There is a special place that I like to watch the seasons change just off Landham Road in Sudbury, Massachusetts.  This past Saturday I made a special stop there, knowing what I would find.  The thaw had been melting the ice and collecting in huge puddles, and on this particular day our first big downpour of the season was adding to the effect and creating an atmospheric softness.

So far we are melting just right. After so much snow a quick melt and we will be inundated.  I am sure that the beavers in this little marsh are wary of that.  A few seasons back they were flooded out and would sit frightened and confused by the side of roads turned to rivers.

I had to cover my camera with a towel to keep it dry as I took Figure 1.  It was raining heavily.  And for that reason I decided not to slow myself down with my monopod despite the fact that it was pretty dim light and the lens that I was using had no image stabilization.  Would Fox-Talbot have laughed at us or would he have been envious?  Pleased with what I was getting, I took several images, and this was the first that I worked up.  I liked the glistening snow and water against an otherwise brooding scene and chose to stay in color for just a hint of hue.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 100 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture=Priority AE mode 1/200th sec at f/7.1 with +1 exposure compensation.

Winter 2015 #5 Trees reflected in the melting snow, Fresh Pond, Cambridge, MA, March. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

March the first marked the beginning of meteorological spring.  Boston and Cambridge remain waste deep in mountains of dirty snow.  Still there are signs that Winter’s Witch will soon be beaten.  We had our first serious melt today, and I slogged through it along Fresh Pond in Cambridge.  Spring’s signs are definitely there.  There is the unmistakeable greenish yellow tone of the willows ready to burst fourth. I was greeted by a bulldog named Kaylee, who was just so excited to be out and about.  I heard and saw the first male cardinal proclaiming his territory and love of mate from the tallest tree. And I found just enough open water on the pond to be a sure sign that the ducks will soon feel welcome and return.

As for the melt, I became photographically intrigued by the bare trees reflected in the puddles. I offer two of these as Figures 1 and 2. There is a certain delight in the fuzzy focus, or lack there of, brought on my the wind blowing over the water.  For someone as obsessed by sharpness as I the impressionist sense is disconcerting, but appealing.

And as for Winter’s Witch:

“I’m melting! Melting! Oh, what a world! What a world!”

Figure 2 – Sycamore reflected in melting March snow, Fresh Pond, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015

Both photographs taken with a Canon T2i using a EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens ISO 1600 Aperture-Priority AE mode with no exposure compensation

Figure 1 at 113 mm 1/4000th sec at f/4.0

Figure 2 at 70 mm 1/2500th sec at f/4.0

Figure 1 – Winter 2015, Leaves in the snow, Fresh Pond Reserve, Cambridge, MA, (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Figure 1 – “Winter 2015 Leaves in the snow” is so far my favorite image of this grueling winter.  There is nothing that I like better than coming upon a scene where a beam of light accentuates.  In this case there is a sense of golden warmth contrasting with a cold blue-tinted winter snow.  I tend to think of winter in black and white, but sometimes, this being an example, it demands color.

Significantly the view is very small. To me it is like a Japanese garden, a miniaturized idyllic garden.  Japanese gardens have taught me to think of landscapes as fractal in nature.  They function equally on all scales, from sweeping vistas to perhaps a single plant or stone and everything in between..  The day itself, was warm in a winter sense and sunny; so I was actively in search for shadows and highlights. And here you have the additional contrast of the leaves of autumn against the snows of winter.

One complication when I took the photograph was that there was a breeze causing the leaves to move.  I cut back on the f-number and therefore depth of field so that I could decrease the exposure time.  I waited for an auspicious moment of near quiet and shot at f/8.0 at 1/800th sec.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM at 70 mm, ISO 400, Aperture-priority AE mode, 1/800th sec at f/8.0 with +1 exposure compensation.

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I think that for most New Englanders the start of winter brings on a sort of car neglect.  It does not seem of much use to wash one’s car since it is certain to become filthy again with the next snow fall.  So this morning I realized that my car was essentially encased in salt and decided to do something about it.  There I am sitting on the line for the car-wash, I have put my car in neutral, and am slowly being inched forward.  Then it hits me. Photo-op! Fortunately while i did not have my digital SLR with me, I did have my IPhone and so I began snapping images contentedly.  The results are the four images of the short slide show about, a few minutes journey into an impressionist worl.

Figure 1 – Primroses. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

To all my readers and friends in the Northern hemisphere, today is March the first.

Think spring!

And remember what Ophelia said to Laertes:

“Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.”

– Hamlet (1.3.48-52)

Figure 1 – Winter 2015, Photominimalism. Fresh Pond Reserve, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Even more than sand and seaweed snow provides the ultimate environment for photominimalism.  It is all about contrast, just short of pure black and pure white – a binary image.  Figure 1 shows one of my favorite subjects in this medium, a pure white, cold, and windy landscape broken only by some dried and intriguing plant forms.  These are the merest remnants of last summer and thus emphasize the sterile lifelessness of winter contrasted with the abundant life of spring and summer.  It provides a promise.

And what I have tried to accomplish here is to create the sense that the light is on the verge of overwhelming the scene and the image.  I take this from the book of J. M. W Turner (1775-1851).  Turner was referred to as “the painter of light,” and through his career the light slowly seized control and methodically overwhelmed the subject. We move now towards the vernal equinox towards the ascendance of the light.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 100 mm, ISO 400, Aperture-Priority AE mode, 1/500th sec at f/16.0, with +1 exposure compensation. Cold toned black and white image.