What Draws You Back Again and Again?

I recently visited Fonthill, the concrete and tile home of anthropologist and collector Henry Chapman Mercer. The folks here are adamant about no pictures on their tours…Don’t even try to sneak a cell phone picture. And I was once accosted outside and grilled about my intentions when I was taking a photo outside while using a tripod.  When a photographer friend of mine was offering a workshop there, I HAD to go back with the camera. The place is a complete visual feast…overwhelming in all there is to look at.

In our few hours in this special place, I kept coming back to this little nook above the fireplace with the skull tucked in. When I first spotted it, the light was much too harsh to get a nice shot…but I wandered back through the room several times, waiting for the light to soften. Then there are the processing decisions…color or black and white?

What makes an image evocative and compelling to you? What draws you back again and again trying to see the same image from a new angle and with a new set of eyes?

If I can get just one good shot: The Blacksmith

It has been a long time since I have posted a photoblog…and a long time since I shot today’s photo. At Christmas time here in Pennsylvania they re-enact George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River with his troops. Only this year, the water level was too high and moving too swiftly, so there was no re-enactment. In addition to the costumed soldiers who do the crossing, there was a man working in the old blacksmith shop. The shop was dark and too full of spectators…but there was a moment that the light started to stream through an upper window…and the crowd in front of me started to disperse, and for a full 4-5 seconds, this scene appeared. It was the only “keeper” of the day.

What is Simplicity?

A recent blog post by a photographer friend talked about achieving simplicity, which I believe is a meaningful thing to strive for in art. Many photographers today use a dizzying array of post-processing tools and sexy filtering software to achieve an image that may be visually described as “simple.” My immediate reaction is that is NOT what simplicity is about to me.

I avoid heavy manipulation of images because I am Thoreau-like in my lifestyle. I like minimalism of effort not just appearance. I don’t want to live tied to the computer. This snow image appealed to me because it is profoundly simple with virtually no intervention. Appealing as shot, I chose one simple crop and a tiny levels correction to remove a color cast. The snow in shade already had this blue appearance.

I have watched digital photography and tools and toys evolve to a point where you can make the incredibly ho-hum into a sublime work of art. I am simultaneously intrigued and put off. HDR imagery to me already appears cliched. To me, beauty is in the inherent simplicity of the image as shot.

Pattern and Color

While working at my home office, I spied this cardinal sitting in a tangle of branches and vines across my backyard. The bird is a great distance away and I didn’t have a long enough lens and tripod handy to make this a full frame bird shot. But several things help this image work: the monochromatic tangle, the contrasting red and attention to the rule of thirds. We can’t always use the 400mm with telextender and sit in a bird blind, but there is still enough right with the image to make it pleasing.

Seeing the Abstract

We received close to four feet of snow last week here in the Philadelphia area. It is hard not to be visually inspired by such an event. But it WAS hard to venture out into the stuff because of the endless shoveling and the ridiculous thigh-high depth of the snow.

I was looking for patterns and abstractions, not just the obvious piles of snow on top of everything. The above shot was one of my favorite captures. The early morning light made for strong shadows. The sunlight created sparkles. The wind created dune-like patterns. The natural world is a vast canvas and those with the eyes to see can hardly find enough time to capture it all.

Changing Seasons, New Subjects

I took a photo student out for his first trip with a digital camera yesterday. We talked mainly about subject and composition. I encouraged him to shoot what interested him and to spend time with each subject, to come in closer, to remember that what you leave out is as important as what you choose to include. I didn’t have a camera with me because I was teaching, so I borrowed the camera I had lent him so I could take this photo because it demonstrates how dramatically different a scene appears during the changing seasons.

I explore this same park several times a month, but this scene appears dramatically different during the spring, summer and fall months with leaves on the trees. The color palette changed completely from intense greens to subdued browns and faded reds. With no leaves, the scene is about line, texture and shape. More than likely, unless there was a significant bird in this scene, I wouldn’t have photographed this scene at any other time of year. But the skeletal lines of the white trees, the dead tree arching over the nest box and their reflection were appealing to me yesterday.

Revisiting favorite places during different seasons allows you to appreciate the miraculous changes that go on around us.

Revolutionary

Chatting up the docent at Washington’s Headquarters in Valley Forge Park, Pennsylvania, led to his donning his jacket and posing for a few quick shots. I liked the focused shot just on the uniform best.

Waterlilies

I loved the architectural reflection in this water garden in Kennett Square, PA. The mid-day light was less than ideal for shooting, but I liked the non-polarized, silvery effect of the water.

July 4th Parade

I met the most colorful people at the local July 4th parade!

Just one more shot…

I was on a weekend photo workshop with friends. It had just finished raining so everything was particularly green and lush. I was already late back to the bus, but I wanted to grab just one more shot and continue my lingering appreciation for the beautiful place we shared together. I didn’t have time to work the scene…to climb down and remove the dead branch in the lower left (yes we photographers can be a bit compulsive and we do remove broken branches and risk soggy feet to clean up trash in pretty places like this.) I had to take it exactly as it was…a lovely little scene. I can still remember how it smelled and the sound of the water whooshing over the rocks.

Boat Reflection

One of my photographic obsessions is reflections. I was so taken by this little red dinghy on an early morning photo shoot with a handful of photographer friends. As the light came up, I became even more absorbed by its reflection in the smooth as glass water. I was standing on a dock near the boat and decided to bounce to get the ripples going! I love it as much with the water smooth as I do with the various ripples. Is it “cheating” to impose yourself on a photo in this manner?

An Earlier Time

This little wooden water bucket completely sent my imagination back to an earlier time. Such a simple little scene, but one that conveys an era in which life was both simpler and more difficult. Life had fewer distractions…but more hardships. Clean, running water is a blessing we all take for granted!

Let’s Go Sledding!

I wandered into a barn in Lancaster County, PA and saw these sleds lined up and couldn’t resist shooting them, even though I only had a pocket camera and the light was low. We learn to improvise in situations such as these. When I look at this, I can only think of the days before lawsuits when they actually let snow pack on the road and we took the sleds down the hill at the end of the street I grew up on. What fun! Today they scrape the streets bare and throw down salt so neighborhood sledding is no longer possible.

Winter Walk

One of my favorite local places to wander is the Pennypack Ecological Restoration Trust in Huntingdon Valley, PA. When you’ve been to many of the world’s most beautiful places, it is nice to still find the beauty in simple everyday scenes such as this.

The Fox Den

My son was walking our dog this past summer and he happened upon a fox den with four fox kits out playing. They quickly disappeared into their hole, but he came home to tell me where the den was. I returned 4-5 times to try to photograph the kits. I only saw them twice and was able to get a few images.

Yosemite – Glacier Point

Taking this photo became a defining moment in my life. Taken with film in October of 1995, it is the shot that re-ignited my now ridiculously satisfying obsession for photography. And the way it was taken also made me begin to find countless lessons in life through nature. I was tired of hiking on this morning. I was hungryand I almost quit just before the best part…Here’s an excerpt from my journal:

I had hiked for several miles on this icy October morning and all I was thinking about was breakfast, but I hadn’t reached the end of the trail. I had engaged in a sensual feast of smells and textures and I had found moments in which no man-made sound was audible, only the birdsong, the chatter of small mammals, the beating of my own heart in reaction to the splendor of this place. When I reached a point of having to scramble over rocks to complete the last leg of the hike, I decided to call it quits and head back. Something urged me on. “Push yourself. Finish.” So I climbed up the rocks toward an apparent summit. I could not have been more thankful that I did. Those last few yards gave me one of those lifetime moments.

Out of the top of the rocks grew a twisted pine which had weathered the winds of time for hundreds of years. While it had recently died, the tree had a grace that was amazing to me. The harsh conditions it had endured…the cold, the wind, the lack of soil, the ages. But the Jeffrey Pine was not the half of it. Looking out from those rocks gave you a 360-degree view encompassing Half Dome, El Capitan and the Yosemite Valley. It was a chilling experience. It was breathtaking and life giving. And I completely forgot about being hungry.

Art Museum Moonrise

When it’s cold outside, I like to revisit summer images to remind me that winter won’t last forever.

I spent a stimulating and productive day of shooting in Philadelphia, ending at the Art Museum when the sun was setting and the moon was on the rise. Should you find yourself in the city, I encourage you to spend a summer afternoon exploring this culturally vibrant and historic area, where you’ll find the architectural beauty of Boathouse Row, Waterworks, and of course the Art Museum itself, all along on the banks of the Schuylkill River.

Windows and Doors

There are a trio of buildings in Doylestown, PA, that are attributable to historian/archaeologist Henry Chapman Mercer: the Mercer Museum, the Moravian Tile Works and the Fonthill Museum. All are poured concrete buildings that have considerable character and are great fun to explore (although I and many of my fellow shooters have discovered the staff to be fairly hostile to photographers.)

The Dogs of New York’s Central Park

I love to photograph in New York’s Central Park.

Since falling completely in love with my dog, I have developed a new passion for photographing dogs. I believe this is a whippet.