Joining the'Glitterati'

I intended to make my own Christmas cards this year but time slipped by and I realized it was getting too late for that project so I went out and bought some cards. They are nice cards with chickadees on the front and lots of glitter.

When I took the cards out of the box there were mini-drifts of loose glitter in the bottom of the box. As I wrote addresses and signed cards glitter clogged the tip of my ball point pen so that I had to repeatedly clean it off with a paper towel. Seeing the glitter all over the dining room table top it occurred to me that perhaps I should seal these envelops with cellophane tape or a sticker, it might not be good to lick them and ingest all that glitter. I wiped up most of the glitter on the table but glitter remains on the floor around the table and in the kitchen from walking to the fridge to get a drink while working on the card project. The floors in both rooms sparkle with their own version of holiday cheer.

When Diane came home from work she commented that I had glitter on my face. Only then did I remember the odd looks I had gotten when I went out late in the afternoon on some errands.

Down by the Riverside

The last of the Christmas packages have been shipped except possibly for one. We haven't found that gift yet. We'll look for it this weekend and send it by mail if we find what we're looking for.

Since we now have snow I decided to go snowshoeing for the first time this winter. It was fairly mild, temperature around freezing, and I took my camera (as usual).

I shot a couple dozen pictures but this is the one I liked best. I found this beech sapling down by the river in amongst a grove of mature hemlocks. I've always been attracted to the beeches. They have wonderful grey bark and they hold their leaves longer than any other deciduous trees in this corner of the world. When all the others are stark and bare, the warm colors of the beech leaves stand out against the snow.

Weathering the Weather

Yesterday we got about 5-6" of heavy snow. The postmaster remarked that it was more than we got all last winter. I doubt that but it was certainly more than we had at any one time in the last two winters. It was the final straw or in this case snowflake that prodded me to buy a snowblower.

It kept up all night and by this morning we had 13½" on the level. Clearing up with the snow blower didn't take any less time but it was a lot less work. I still had a bit of shoveling to do and when I was cleaning around the bird feeder the chickadees continued feeding, although they did keep an eye on me.

Our Everlasting Christmas Tree

We broke down and bought an 'everlasting' tree this year. Everlasting is a nicer word than 'artificial'. Aside from not having to water it, clean up the fallen needles, etc. I find it handy that when decorating it I can bend the branches to hold the ornaments and they stay where I put them.

I call it a Christmas tree but if you celebrate some other holiday at this time of year, religious or otherwise, feel free to think of it as a Hanukka tree, a holiday tree or whatever. The tradition of festivals around the winter solstice goes back centuries before the beginnings of Christianity and the Romans used to decorate trees and exchange gifts during their solstice festivals. December 25th isn't really the birth date of Jesus. Christians sort of inherited the tradition from the Roman holiday after Constantine made Christianity the 'official' religion of the empire in 324 CE. No one knew the actual date so the existing holiday was adapted as a matter of convenience.

Given its roots, the flap over whether a public tree is a "Christmas tree" or a "Holiday Tree" in recent years is a bit silly. There have always been a variety of celebrations around the winter solstice based on the hope of renewal that comes with the lengthening days. It is in that spirit that I share our tree of celebration and wish everyone a happy holiday.

Walk in the Woods

Diane and I took Gus for a short walk in the Southville State Forest today. There was fresh wet snow still falling as we walked. We didn't get to the river. The trail was underwater in a hollow and we didn't have waterproof boots nor did there seem to be a convenient path around it. I shot several photos including this one which I have 'messed with'. :-)

It got warmer during the day and much of the snow melted but it is coming back as I type. The cars will need cleaning off in the morning.

Craft Fair

Yesterday I 'did' the Saranac Lake Craft Fair. It was a pretty good day. If I count only the booth fee & gas money to get there I came out in the black. If I added the expense of producing the photos I'm sure I was in the red again so we won't go there.

I met several interesting folks with interesting stories. In the booth next to me was a couple with wood & stained glass boxes. The husband, it turns out is the industrial arts teacher in the Potsdam school district and remembered Ian. One woman was the daughter of the family that owned McCollums Cabins where Diane & I stayed on our honeymoon. One fellow was a retired DEC resource manager who spent his career wandering the northern ADKs and recognized almost every location I'd taken my photos without my telling him. And then there was a friend of my friend Jim who turned out to be my brother's next door neighbor. An interesting day.

I got home around quarter past 5 to a beef stroganoff dinner. That has become my traditional birthday meal and Diane outdid herself on last night's batch. It was clearly the best ever.

Chilly

Since the 1st killing frost on October 29th we've had several frosts and the days are chilly. Our day time highs are running 8-10 degrees below normal for this time of year. I'm sure when we have January and February days in the high 30s or low 40s I'll think it is rather mild but on this end of winter I find those temperatures quite nippy.

The photo was taken the same day as the frosted cosmos blossom. I desaturated it and played with the image to add borders.

A Bump in the Night & Hunches

We were anti-social for Halloween. We turned off the front lights and pulled the shades. Neither Diane nor I felt like running to the door for trick-or-treaters, dealing with Gus barking, etc. None of the trick-or-treaters bothered us but we got "tricked" by Mother Nature though.

Later during the night the wind blew and I woke up when I heard something 'bang' loudly outside. I figured it was probably a tree limb falling but we discovered this morning that a storm window I had left leaning against the house on the porch had blown over and broken. It wasn't a large loss since it was an old one that I had already ordered a replacement for but I didn't really need the mess of broken glass to clean up.

Actually it was an example of one of my hunches. Every so often I get a feeling, "a hunch" that I should do this or not do that. Every time I ignore a hunch I regret it. Just yesterday as I was passing the window on the porch in the midst of doing something else the thought popped into my head that I should move that window inside so the wind wouldn't blow it over. The wind wasn't blowing at the time and I was already busy with something else so I put off doing it, then forgot about it. I should have played my hunch.

FROST!

This morning when I went out to get the paper I found the begonias and cosmos had been hit by frost. That is at least a month later than our usual first killing frost. Often I can shoot photos of autumn leaves with frost but this year the leaves are nearly all down before the first frost hit.

Winters in the North Country of NY are always unpredictable. A lot of people believe in the predictions the Old Farmers Almanac makes but they overlook all the times the Almanac is way off. The only prediction I would make about winter weather is "we will have some". I can remember a winter when it was below zero day and night for six weeks straight. I also remember two Christmases with temperatures in the 60s. I have photos of the aftermath of blizzards as late as April. There was one winter it stopped snowing any significant amount before New Years and I didn't use my snow shovel at all during the next calendar year. What snow fell was only an inch or so each time. We just walked/drove through it until it melted or packed down, usually within a few days. It didn't snow enough to bother shoveling again until after the next New Years. What will this winter be like? Judging by its start it will probably be mild but I won't put any money on that bet.

Digital Panorama Photo

Yesterday I took a walk and as I crossed the river I decided to shoot a photo of a small section of the waterfall by the bridge. I had to go out to a point on the shore that was below the falls and after shooting that photo, I realized that this was a natural site for shooting a panoramic view of the river and bridge. The full sized image is made up from 16 frames. They were all handheld shots so I made no attempt to blend them. If printed full size it would be over 78" wide and almost 19" tall. If you click on the small one above, you will see a greatly reduced copy but hopefully big enough so you get the idea.

It Must be a Record

The begonias in the pots on either side of my front gate are still blooming, happy and healthy. We still have not had a frost. We can usually expect a frost as early as Sept. 1st. We almost always have a frost before the end of September. There is no frost in the 5 day forecast either.

Worlds Within Worlds

As of March 2008 I'll have been a photographer for 50 years. I began with an Ansco Readyflash that shot 8 photos/roll on 620 film. I still have the camera. They don't make film that size anymore although I could re-spool 120 onto 620 spools if I wanted. I don't. I've graduated from two schools of photography, taught photography in one of them and in evening courses. I was a 'pro' for a short while when young but it's a tough way to make a living and I had a family to support so I have relegated it to a passionate avocation for most of my life.

Recently I had the notion that I would like to pursue an MFA in photography in my retirement. I found an accredited school on the West coast that has an on-line MFA program and I inquired about it. Aside from the cost being prohibitive (it's hard to justify spending about $40K in borrowed money for a degree in something you don't plan to make a career of) I decided after reviewing their program that it wasn't a good match for me anyway. They proudly advertise that they train 'conceptual' artists. I'm not into conceptual art even if, as they claim, it is the 'dominant' art form today. My concept is that I'm a visual omnivore. I don't limit myself to a particular subject matter or way of working. If something catches my eye, I'll photograph it and share my vision of it with anyone who cares to look. I try to make images that convey the experience of being there.

I looked up some of the people whose work they train photographers to emulate and found several who are billed as "one of the most influential photographers of all time" or words to that effect. Now in my 49+ years of continual study of my craft I have encountered the likes of Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Caponigro, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and literally dozens (maybe hundreds) of others, Muybridge, Curtis and on and on and on. The list seems endless as tens of thousands of their images swirl through my memory. The funny thing is, I never heard of any of these photographers the school lists as being the most influential of all time until I started researching this MFA program. I don't know who they've influenced and looking at their work... they wouldn't have influenced me even if I had heard of them sooner. I'm sure if an accredited MFA program and the galleries think these people are "influential" they must be to someone but I still don't like their work and have no desire to emulate them. If I had $40K I'd rather spend it on the photography I like doing and am proud to share with my audience than to learn to produce work I dislike.

Tooley Pond Rd.

As promised here is a photo from my trip on Tooley Pond Rd. I had to play with it a bit. It wasn't as sharp as I wanted but the end result is okay. It has been 'simplified' to get rid of extraneous detail, thus the 'painting' look. I was primarily attracted to the flow of water and the pattern it made as the various small streams converged. The rocks and leaves are a nice counterpoint to the water, a mix of permanence, temporary and motion.

The Magic Season

In the movie industry they talk about "magic hour", the hour around sunset when the light is wonderful. For landscape photographers autumn is the 'magic season'. Combine the magic hour and the magic season as in the photo I took of Connery Pond or the above one of the waterfall at Wilmington Notch and you get double magic. This is a scan of a slide I took about a week ago.

For an autumn that started out to be unpromising I've had a pretty good fall photographically speaking. In its early stages it was a definite case of making lemonade but this last week the leaves that turned brown early had fallen and the remainder turned fairly bright colors. I had an excellent day on Tooley Pond Rd. on Tuesday. Perhaps I'll post one of those tomorrow. If you like my photos (which are copyrighted) I'd be happy to sell you a print. I don't make any money at this but it would be nice to break even.