Seventy-five at Seventy-five

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I mentioned in my last post that I was making a journal of my 75 favorite photos to commemorate my 75th birthday and that I would have it available on my website in January as a free PDF download. Well, the journal, Seventy-five at Seventy-five, is now available and can be downloaded from the Digital Media page of my website.

The idea to compile a selection of favorite images was inspired by Brooks Jenson (www.brooksjensenarts.com), who published a PDF of his favorites photos when he turned sixty-six. Brooks got the idea from his friend Joe Lipka (www.joelipkaphoto.com). So, the idea is not new, but I think it’s a great way of looking back at one’s creative life.

Now I look forward to seeing where this photographic journey takes me from here.

I wish you a healthy, happy, and productive 2021.

Looking Back Fifty Years

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.

 

Olive Tree, Chefchauoen, Morocco

I continue to comb through my archives during the Covid pandemic. This is my latest find.

There is something about old, gnarled trees that resonates with me. They cannot run away from hardship and adversity to seek a better place to live. They must face whatever challenges life presents and adapt as best they can. Yet they always maintain their dignity.

Hawai’i Tropical Botanical Garden

Last December I traveled to the Hawaiian Islands. One of the gardens I visited was the Hawai’i Tropical Botanical Garden, located just north of Hilo, Hawai’i. The garden has a spectacular display of tropical plants, both native and exotic. Some of the images in my Tropical Dreamscapes series were taken here.

A section of the garden is devoted to palm trees, where I found this colorful design of roots at the base of one of the trees.

Birch Trees in Iceland

Birch Trees, Iceland, 2013

When one thinks of Iceland, typically it is of a treeless, barren land. So I was surprised and delighted to come upon this idyllic birch forest on a walk one day during my second visit to Iceland, in 2013.

Before Iceland was settled, trees covered 25–40% of the land, and birches were common. Over the centuries, trees were cut for building material, for fuel, and to make grazing land for livestock, leaving the land almost devoid of forests. Recently reforestation efforts have begun to bring back the trees.

Photographing Comet NEOWISE

Last month, my wife and I went to a field near our house in western Massachusetts to view Comet NEOWISE, which has been visible on clear nights about an hour and a half after sunset. Just for fun I wanted to try to photograph it. I had never tried photographing the night sky before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was pleased with the results.

Comet NEOWISE

Eyrarbakki, Iceland — 1973 and 2019

Icelandic Fishing Village, 1973

In 1973 I visited Iceland, driving around in a VW bug and camping. Back then I found that the roads were not paved after leaving the Reykjavik area, and driving on gravel roads slowed me down and prevented me from reaching some of the farther destinations I had hoped to see. However, I did see some of the south coast, where I came across this picturesque fishing village and made some photographs, including the one above.

I recently traveled to Iceland again, but before I left home I decided to try to find out about the village I had visited 46 years earlier. I did not remember its name or its location, but I had a sense that it was not too far along the south coast. Using the internet I discovered that even today there are very few villages along that stretch of the south coast where I had traveled earlier. The village of Eyrarbakki is on a road that seemed like one I would have taken on my first trip, so I searched some images and found a recent picture taken near the same location as my older photograph, confirming my hunch.

I visited Eyrarbakki twice on this recent trip and was able to photograph the same scene at approximately the same location as my earlier photo—see below. The fishing boat is long gone; utility wires have been buried underground, and the streets are now paved. Although fishing is no longer an important part of the community, Eyrarbakki has retained much of its charm, and it is a popular destination for Icelanders and tourists alike.

Eyrarbakki, Iceland 2019

Spencertown Academy Juried Photography Show

Two of my photographs have been selected for this show.

Yoshino Cherry Trees

Yoshino Cherry Trees

Opening Reception
Saturday, June 22, 4 PM – 6 PM

Exhibition Dates:
June 23 through July 14, 2019

Spencertown Academy
Arts Center

790 Route 203, Spencertown, NY

Gallery Hours:
1 PM – 5 PM
Saturday and Sunday

Driftwood, Bandon Beach

Driftwood, Bandon Beach

Four Intimate Landscape Photographs in Juried Show

I am fortunate to have four of my intimate black and white landscapes chosen in a juried exhibition art at the Meeting House Gallery in New Marlborough, Massachusetts from June 23 - July 22. 

“Each of Backer’s black and white digital photos captures a scene of the natural world, cut into vivid shapes where rigid lines of rock, sand and wood collide and intersect....One photo titled Driftwood at Bandon Beach, taken in Oregon, features a large piece of driftwood set against a sheer rock face. Without color to provide definition for the eye, the driftwood appears almost alien, the husk of some otherworldly creature washed ashore on a beach of some distant planet.”
— Berkshire Record, June 22-28, 2018

My 12 Best Pictures of 2017

I find that It is good exercise to review the photos I took in the year past and to choose the ones I like the best. This process gives me the perspective of time to see what worked, what did not, and how I "see" and make images may have changed from the year before — hopefully for the better. Here are the 12 photos I selected from 2017.