My Photographic Journey
Thriving Against All Odds
After the recent snowfalls in the Berkshires, I am ready for spring to announce itself, hopefully in the next few weeks. So, in looking for an image to post in this blog I wanted to choose one that symbolized spring for me.
When I came across this image of a tree growing in a rock in the middle of the cascades of Umpachene Falls, I realized that this meant so much more to me than just the end of winter.
I found these tracks last winter while walking in the woods one afternoon.
Ring of Brodgar Stone Circle, Orkney, Scotland
On a narrow moor between the Loch of Harray and the Loch of Stenness, on the largest of the Orkney Islands in Scotland, there is a vast circle of 36 standing stones called the Ring of Brodgar. It was built 5,000 years ago, making it older than Stonehenge. Originally, there may have been over 60 stones.
When I see stones that have been extracted from the earth and then shaped and set into the ground, I think of the people who placed them there and why they chose to make this extraordinary effort.
May the new year be the start of many beneficial collaborations and achievements.
Sandstone Bluffs, El Malpais, New Mexico
I made this photo during my first trip to New Mexico back in 1990. El Malpais National Monument is near the town of Grants. Back then I was using a 4x5 field camera with black and white film. More recently, I scanned the negative and did some digital editing on the image.
El Malpais translates to “the badlands” in Spanish. It is named for the ancient lava flows that spread out below these sandstone bluffs. From atop the bluffs, I remember the wondrous feeling of being able to see for miles and to watch rainstorms way off in the distance.
This photo was taken several years ago on color slide film. The scan I made of it was technically not good — it lacks sharpness and detail. I decided that I could make an interesting image by taking advantage of the soft feel of the scan, and this is the result.
I am working on a project that is inspired by the hanging scrolls of Chinese and Japanese artists from past centuries. Although images of any proportion could be hung in a scroll-like fashion, my initial set will be tall and narrow. I am also limiting my first images to black and white.
My intent is to create scrolls that convey a quiet beauty, such as what might be found in the tokonoma of a Japanese home — an alcove where paintings, ceramics, flower arrangements, etc. are displayed.
May Snowfall 1
I am excited to announce that Harper's Magazine has chosen my image, Big-leaf Maples, Hoh Rain Forest, to appear in their August issue. The photo will be a full-page accompaniment to an article about Big-leaf maples and the development of a tree DNA database. The article is written by Lauren Markham, who is a journalist and essayist as well as an award-winning fiction writer.
This place is a popular tourist attraction, especially for photographers. Who can resist the reflections made in the thin layer of water on the floor and the light from the sky entering through an oculus in the ceiling? I suspect hundreds, if not thousands, of photographers have uploaded their images of the Portuguese cistern to the internet. So how could I expect to make an image that would be different and distinctively mine?
Read MoreThis photo was taken last fall, but when I converted it to black and white it looked like a springtime scene to me. I made this image near a section of the Appalachian Trail. I go back to this area whenever I wait for my car to be serviced after dropping it off at the nearby garage.
Recently, I was reviewing my images of Death Valley that I had made in 2013. They were taken at a photography workshop with three outstanding instructors: Bruce Barnbaum, Jay Dusard, and Jack Dykinga. One of our outings was to 20 Mule Team Canyon, an area of eroded hills made famous by its history of borax mining. As I stood on the road at the floor of the canyon, I noticed Jack standing on a hilltop with his camera set on a tripod. Curious, I climbed the hill to see what he was looking at.
Jack pointed out an interesting V-shaped notch in the foreground hills, and he said he was making a panorama image of the hills and notch. I was so taken by the beauty of the scene that I made my own panorama image of it while standing right next to Jack. (You can see it on my website in the color landscapes gallery.)
But the panorama shot I made was Jack’s vision; I was seeing with his eyes, not mine. On reviewing my images from that workshop again, I was struck by another photo I had taken of the same scene that was not part of the panorama. It was a closer view of the V notch, and when I converted it to black and white and adjusted the tones to my liking, I felt that this was an image I could really call my own.
On the same afternoon as our visit to 20 Mule Team Canyon, we also stopped at Zabriskie Point. There, I made this next photo. I have never published or exhibited either of these photos before, but now I enjoy looking at the two together.
Winter Scene, Central Park, 2013
I like to look for pleasing compositions in scenes that appear at first glance to be chaotic, or visually messy. I frequently come across a woodland scene that has a jumble of tree branches, bushes, vines, or some combination of these. If there is something about the scene that I find interesting, then I will try to find a way to engage the viewer by using some of these natural lines to guide the eye around the frame. I often don’t succeed in finding a good composition, but I think this image is an example of where the attempt succeeds. What do you think?
I recently visited this protected area along the Housatonic River in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, called Housatonic Flats. The area is a floodplain. Here, trees and other plants do not just survive, but thrive, when the river overflows its banks. This tree is at the edge of the riverbank, and it apparently toppled when the eroding bank could no longer support it. I marvel at how this tree has adapted to being partially uprooted and how it continues to put out new growth.
Although I don’t often come across a tree with a horizontal trunk and vertical branches, that is not the reason I decided to make the photograph. Instead, I was intrigued by the pattern of lines made by the trunk and its branches, and I thought that they made an interesting design.
A friend emailed me about the cover story in the Summer 2021 issue of Sierra, the magazine of the Sierra Club. The story is about the photographer, Beth Moon, who has photographed ancient trees around the world. I had discovered Beth Moon’s photographs a few years ago, and she has been a huge inspiration to me ever since. The article in Sierra includes several of her stunning tree portraits, some of which I had not seen before.
One of her images that was new to me was the juniper tree on the magazine cover. If the tree looks familiar, it may be because you remember one of my recent blog posts about this same juniper. Quite a coincidence!
Central Park Encounter
Sometime in the autumn of last year I passed the fifty-year mark in making photographs. This photograph, which I call Central Park Encounter, was the image that told me to seriously pursue photography.
It all started in 1969. After college, I started my first full-time job, eventually getting time off for vacation. While planning my first trip, it occurred to me that most people take a camera along to bring back pictures to show friends and family, and that I should do the same. Before that, I had never paid much attention to cameras or photography.
When I returned, I became friends with someone who had been photographing for a while. He showed me his photographs, which I thought were beautiful. So, when I showed him my vacation photos, I was quite surprised when he said I had a good eye for photography and urged me to pursue it.
He accompanied me to buy my first camera, a Nikon F with 50mm and 105mm lenses, all used. After I got my second roll of black and white film back from the developing lab, he looked at my contact sheet and pointed this image out to me as something special. What beginner’s luck, just my second roll of film!
Next year is my seventy-fifth birthday, and I plan to commemorate my photographic career with a digital publication of my 75 favorite images. Look for my announcement in January. It will be available on my website as a free PDF download.
As I wandered around Brooklyn’s Prospect Park a couple of years ago, I came upon this arrangement at the lake. It reminded me of Japanese calligraphy. Perhaps the turtle provides some kind of punctuation mark.