Tag Archives: Landscape

FEBRUARY 20, 2015

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Never Say No

There are roads in Provence that can break your heart. This road near the town of St. Remy is one I have traveled almost every time I come to the region, and in fact it is so moving to me that I published two pictures made along its course in our book,”Provence: Lasting Impressions”. In those images the trees are leafed out in the fulness of summer, and again when fall burnished their leaves a rusty gold.

Now, on a wintry day, with flawless sunlight etching every detail into my eye, the white bones of the trees are singing against the blue dome of the sky. I’m not stopping – as I have done before, to dance in the middle of the road and play in the oncoming traffic –  but I’m driving straight through and letting the windshield be my frame while the miles of trees fill and empty it as I pass.

I love this road and how I feel whenever I am on it. It always feels new to me, and yet it touches an ancient nerve where the definition of ‘road beauty’ lies in wait to be awakened once again. I remain susceptible to these quirks of mine and never fail to respond even if it seems as if I have had enough of them to last a lifetime. And I may have. But I believe in letting loose the arrows in my quiver whenever the impulse arises. That gesture, that Yes!, is my tipping of the hat to the spirits that have guided me to respond to the world for more than 50 years, and I never say no.

Feb-20 L1026278.

FEBRUARY 13, 2015

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Glimpse

Friday the 13th. I already have had my bad luck day this week.

So the joy of seeing this chorus line of sprinklers dancing along the roadside in February lightened my heart. It’s a nothing image in lots of ways, but the reality of it, and the way it gave me pleasure, transcends the weakness. It seemed to me as if it was ‘light’ that was being sprayed across the fields. That momentary illusion, and the thoughts that trailed through my mind as it was left behind, were worth it to me.

I think that the stimulation the world so copiously delivers in its unbounded and random way, is what makes photography such a powerful medium for ‘ideas’. And for me, through all these years, photography, even though it is made of images, has really been about the generation of new ideas; ideas about life, time, place, relationships, or anything that comes up from that brief glimpse we catch, maybe even just out of the corner of our eye, that makes the medium so continuously provocative.

I feel so lucky!

Feb-13 L1026142.

FEBRUARY 8, 2015

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Buttermilk Sky

Whenever I see a buttermilk sky I am drawn to watching its curdled passage across the heavens. It’s a harbinger of weather systems on the move I’m sure, but of exactly what kind I am not. Still, they make for great skyscapes and play well with almost anything they relate to, like these trees with their frail, wintery branches whose color, somewhere between gold and green, vibrates against the blue.

Feb-8 L1026020

FEBRUARY 7, 2015

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Standing Still

Some days it might be the simplest of things that moves me; like the smokey yellow tone glazing the horizon, seen in relation to the russet underbelly of the cloud superimposed on the delicate celeste blue of the sky.

The poetics of the moment cause me to stand very still and watch the trio of colors slowly dissolve into a colorless wash of grays and blacks. It’s good training to observe something change right in front of my eyes. The long slow phase of one mutation into another. I always find it fruitful to search my mind for precise names of the colors that I see. The more precise I am the more I sensitize myself to where I am, and what is actually happening right then.

Stillness and taking in are two states of being that have always nourished me, particularly in the countryside where the tempo of life supports that kind of tuning in.

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JANUARY 30, 2015

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What Beauty

Again, a cold, wintry day, no one out on the streets of Menerbes, the light was gray, the town was ancient history, stones and more stones, and then, perhaps 30 feet away, I see a stain of acid-green leaking out into the street, a kind of luminous, neon-ish color that had nothing to do with anything in the town. This color is a modern artifact, and as such it defies naturalness.

So, naturally, I let myself be drawn toward the light, already feeling my openness and anticipation beginning to play with the ‘what ifs’ that might await me. And there it was! I cannot tell you what it was, as it only showed itself as a window, no store, just a space someone wanted to show this in. What was really fun was to stare into the room for 2-3 minutes and then turn around and look at the world. Everything was a glowing, electric magenta, which of course faded in 30 seconds or so, but was a lovely optical trip for the time it lasted. (you might want to try it right here on this page where, just a moment ago, I got the same flash of magenta on the screen when my eyes flicked to the side)

Let’s face it, photography is an optical trip too!

Jan-30 L1025732

On the way back to my car I saw the daylight changing and glowing in its own natural way, not to mention the lovely complexity of the layers, and I am sure that my response was in relation to that window I stood in front of a half hour before. The green! and the glitter of the light on the land, although less intense than the window, were nonetheless wondrous, as only nature can be. How many times daily do I stop and say, ‘what beauty’!

Jan-30 L1025733