Monthly Archives: February 2017

Using Another Lens

Metaphorically, that is. For the photos below I used a 60 mm prime lens on my camera. The aesthetic lens I used was more intentionally abstract and experimental than what usually goes on in the mind behind the camera.

 

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This group of Red alder trees was photographed using an in-camera art filter called Key Line (Olympus OM-D E-M1 camera) –  then lightly processed in Lightroom. What I like about the Key Line filter here is the way it emphasizes the linearity in the fine network of branches, last year’s heaps of dried grass and the bark markings.

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These images were also photographed using the Key Line filter, looking out a window that had a blue-violet object placed in it. The object went out of focus; the trees outside are in focus, but radically altered by the filter. Cropped and minimally processed in Lightroom.

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I’m attracted both to detailed linear images, and to fields of pure color without detail. Here I was photographing a small potted iris (Iris reticulata) indoors. There wasn’t much light, causing the camera’s automatic focus to search, sometimes unsuccessfully, for a focus point. Instead of switching to manual focus, I pressed the shutter when the image was out of focus to record the glowing colors. Minimal Lightroom processing.

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In the first photograph I focused on the raindrop-spattered window and let the light shining through the trees outside go soft. For the second photograph I didn’t do anything unusual as far as camera settings go, but I looked for a simplified, more abstract image. I found it along the edge of a marshy bay.  Later, I made very subtle adjustments in Lightroom.  All the photographs were taken in the last few days, in and near home in the Pacific Northwest.

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This week I made a big decision: I left my (more-than-full-time) job. With increased responsibilities at home, a full time job isn’t practical. The benefit is that I have more time – much more time – for photography.  I’m already enjoying it. More posts should be coming soon…

IT’S COMPLEX

We have a joke that comes up a lot – in response to anything puzzling, or in situations containing contradictions, we just say, “It’s complex.”   Long before the brain storm that struck four weeks ago today this phrase was shorthand for the shared knowledge that when contradictions arise, you acknowledge them and find a way forward, through and with the discrepancies. Or, maybe you set aside the conundrum and return later for another look, but there’s no getting around it – complexity is all around us.

So here we are. I go out

with my camera.

I see

dark and sad things, and

I see

beauty, which itself

is overlaid with

subtle

opacities,

somber films.

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And

I have

no doubt,

light abides too.

 

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1)  Home – a foggy Pacific northwest woodland morning.

2) Chewed and fallen, a Cottonwood leaf at Quitobaquito Spring in Organ Pipe NM, Arizona.

3) Hydrangea bloom from 2016, still gathering the light at Bellevue Botanical Garden, Bellevue, WA.Japanese wood Buddha, ca 1130, from Kyoto, now in the collections of Seattle Asian Art Museum, which will soon close for a major renovation.

4) Japanese wood Buddha, ca 1130, from Kyoto, now in the collections of Seattle Asian Art Museum, which will soon close for a major renovation.

5) Bamboo in the breeze, Bellevue Botanical Garden.

6) Camelia bud in black and white, Bellevue Botanical Garden.

 

SOUTHWEST ARIZONA – A Rough Draft

I’m back home in the Pacific Northwest, and life has finally calmed down enough that I can work on photos and step back into blogging. It’s time to play with my impressions of Arizona. There was the vacation: three days in a remote corner of Arizona near the Mexico border, and the unexpected aftermath: three weeks in a Phoenix hospital. Thankfully, that’s behind us now.

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From the passenger seat at 60 mph, near the juncture of Route 85 and Route 86, and the town of Why.

Indeed.

Next, the ubiquitous Saguaro cactus, up close.

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Above is the “lush desert” of Organ Pipe National Monument. This 517 square mile (1,338 sq km) Biosphere Reserve, located in southwestern Arizona, contains Sonoran desert plants that reach their northern limits here. It’s named for one of them: the Organ Pipe cactus. The cacti in this photo are saguaro and cholla; we’ll get to the Organ Pipe.

A remarkable quality of this particular spot on earth is its long history of human habitation. Over thousands of years people have managed to live in this harsh environment. These days humans in the Organ Pipe NM landscape may be tourists, drug smugglers, illegal immigrants or human traffickers. More about that later.

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Below, scenes from the small town of Ajo, where we stayed. The town is fascinating and I recommend it to anyone with a taste for the offbeat.

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Above, Quitobaquito Spring at Organ Pipe NM and below, Organ Pipe cacti and the Ajo Mountains. You can see why this is called a lush desert – there is a plethora of different shades of green and the ground is thick with cacti and desert shrubs.

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In some sections of Organ Pipe NM there are frequent signs of human use, like this primitive rusted stove found only a stone’s throw from Mexico. There’s nothing but a low fence at the border, a political boundary that divides the land where the desert people live (the Tohono O’odham), splitting the indigenous people into two unequal parts – the American and the Mexican O’odham.

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Winter in the desert can be bleak, but the odd hummingbird animates the scene. This is probably a Costa’s hummingbird.

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The road to Painted Rock Petroglyph site, west of Phoenix. We saw a Roadrunner here but it was WAY too fast for my camera. This shot is more my speed – no traffic, take your time, stand in the middle of the road, compose – nice!

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On a more somber note, one of many roadside memorials we saw in Arizona. This one is just inside the Tohono O’odham reservation. Below, Teddy Bear Cholla cacti (Opuntia bigelovii) glow with the last light of a fast-setting sun.

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Below, the interesting Elephant tree (Bursera microphylla) which stores water in its trunk and lower limbs as insurance against fluctuating water availability.

One evening I had a tepary bean salad; these tasty beans are also highly specialized and  adapted to local conditions. They’ve been grown in this area (and especially in Mexico) for thousands of years. People quickly plant when the rains come and can harvest beans just two months later, without irrigation. One vendor was selling dried tepary beans at the tiny Ajo Saturday Farmers Market; there is a movement to return to crops like these that are adapted to the sudden appearance and disappearance of water here, instead of planting crops that require extensive irrigation. Seems logical, but….

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Above, Saguaro cacti, below, another view at Organ Pipe NM.

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Scrolling back through these images I can see that my take on this obscure wedge of Arizona may be pretty damned peculiar. I juxtapose rusted out cars, lonely trailers, and roadside memorials with botanical images of cacti. This southwestern sojourn was characterized by schizoid swings between the sublimely beautiful and the absurdly tragic. We began to see it as soon as we got outside Phoenix – the endless dry vistas, the small town struggles. The extremes intensified as we explored the section of Organ Pipe near the border – a beautiful natural desert spring contrasted with the jarring knowledge that smugglers were probably close by, helicopters were definitely buzzing us and good Samaritans were planting flagged water caches for desperate illegal immigrants. That energy continued back in Phoenix, where long, tense days in the intensive care unit and sleepless nights were interspersed with lovely dinners in local restaurants and countless friendly interactions with strangers.

I’m ready for a little middle ground now – just a little will do. I promise I won’t get too comfortable, just give me a bit of average.

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COGNITIVE WHIPLASH

I’m back in the rainy Pacific Northwest for a few days – actually, as I look out the window, I see it’s snowy!  It’s good to be at my full size computer, where I can work on my photographs and compose a post without squinting at the phone screen.

Those of you who have lived through your own or a loved one’s serious illness know that it’s a roller coaster ride – hence the title.  I hope the photos convey the ups and downs of the last two weeks – the unexpected heartache, and the unexpected beauty still to be found in places, things and people.

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Some explanation might be in order:

Mixed among photos from the hospital and ICU room are images from the Phoenix Art Museum, where I escaped late one afternoon for a restorative, two-hour gaze at art. The following evening I found time for a brief sunset walk at Phoenix Mountains Preserve, my second escape from “reality.”

The pitch black image with tiny lights is a powerful installation at the museum by Yayoi Kusama, an extraordinary, 87-year-old Japanese artist whose work I first heard about back in the early 70’s. It’s a strangely disorienting kind of pleasure to step into the black, mirrored room strung with lights that change colors. You can hardly sense where your feet are, or where the walls are – perhaps this was a practicum for the new reality.

The vigorously inked leaf shapes are from a 1777 Chinese ink painting by Huang Zhen at the Phoenix Art Museum. The Buddha is also from the museum. Though small, their Asian collection brought me a significant measure of peace.

I find it interesting how the green thingies that hang off the IV pole echo the budding mesquite leaves, and the steady logic of Don Judd’s red wall piece echoes the ICU monitoring equipment, with its reliance on precise numbers and measures.  Now that I look at these pictures I can see my approach to the two shots was perfectly congruent with my mood. The Judd made me feel centered and secure so the shot is composed and balanced; the ICU shot reflects the topsy-turvy feelings that place evokes.

The waterfall sculpture is at the museum’s sculpture court outside the entrance. The chairs casting shadows from strong Arizona sunlight are in the hospital’s Healing Garden. The mountain path, saguaro and sunset were taken at the Phoenix Mountains preserve.

Wednesday I fly back down to Phoenix. With any luck, rehab will already be underway. I am, as a friend said today, in a state of suspension these days.  Whether I’m looking up at an IV pole and dangling paraphernalia in the hospital ICU, or a tall saguaro and bright moon in the Phoenix Mountains, it’s all part of the new Cognitive Whiplash Dance.