Tag Archives: Provence

JANUARY 12, 2015

This Is Not A Pipe….”Ceci n’est pas une pipe“, Magritte

I came across this pipe (which?). It was lying innocently on it’s side among a lot of other lost souls in a stall filled with castoffs of all description. So why, as I passed by, did this unnecessary object call out to me, a call which I barely heard amidst the din of all the glittering and shapely spent objects? It was a pipe. And I heard that long remembered Magritte line;”Ceci n’est pas une pipe“. But it was.

When I saw it in my own collection it fell in with this brass and copper pipe, something that once might have been in the mouth of a fish, or a face on a fountain. One pipe weighs nearly nothing and is silk in the hand, while the other has gravity and weight, and is cold to the touch though warm to the eye. They seemed to want to be together. That suggestion coming to me was so timid as to be just below consciousness, but I heard it, the Zen Bell I always hear when it calls me. I’ve learned to listen for it.

On the hand made background (more about that some other time) they came to life and played together, and something like a force shivered between them, and they continued to fall against each other until I found their balance and poise. The cloth added a note as well. I was in thrall to the light, and the dark, and the way their character, independent of each other, and together, emerged.

I was taken in.

JANUARY 11, 2015

JANUARY 9,2015

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Being and Seeing

Living in a new place sends us spinning out into the countryside every chance we can. It’s fun to just get lost and see where we end up, and of course, along the way we see everything from the grand scale of the countryside to small notes of momentary significance. That’s part of the pleasure of being and seeing in a new place.

On the road to St. Remy this wall of of sunny stone holds a procession of London Plane trees, pruned in the manner of this part of France, which is always astonishing to see given how they reach and swirl their limbs toward the sunlight, and they never fail to make me gasp at their powerful forms. As I came to a halt at the light it seemed as if everything there pinged a red note at the same moment, and then we moved on.

While waiting for lunch in a restaurant in St. Remy, I watched the play of light on the wall nearby, the kind of distraction that comes when you are ready to order and the waiter is lingering elsewhere. Moments like this you could call, ‘filler moments’, my eyes wandering over everything looking for some hook to catch my attention, and often the most unexpected things call out to me. In this case the projections from a leaded glass window tumbled over the geometrics of the window frame which itself sat near an elegant old radiator.

When these kinds of collisions happen I always try to make something out of them, try to see in a different way, it’s more like play really as I juggle the elements in the frame to see how long I can stay interested. Sometimes it is just an exercise and leads nowhere, and other times a fresh breeze blows through my mind.

JANUARY 6, 2015

JANUARY 5, 2015

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To wake up in another country, one you know you will be staying in for awhile, is an opportunity to try and slip into the life of the place in ways not so easy to do when one is away for just a few weeks.

So this little 6th century village of Bonnieux, with barely a thousand people in it during the winter, offers itself up for wandering through its’ streets, watching the inhabitants live their daily lives, and, perhaps best of all, to be taken in by the light, atmosphere, and freshness of all its sensuous pleasures. The process of discovery is not only of place, but of self.

JANUARY 4, 2015

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Photography isn’t only about seeing something and then making a photograph of it. It’s also about movement, moving in and around as you feel the qualities of the place you are in open up your mind to the other possibilities the image presents; the what if… moment. For me that’s part of the joy of seeing. I love the expansive experience of recognizing the potentcy of even such small scenes as these two below.

What was it that drew my attention? A tinkling of sunlight on Christmas lights seen against a classic French village building caught my eye, and then they pulled me forward to look more carefully, and of course everything changes with every step one takes. 20 feet further on I looked up at the lights and saw them dance against the sky.

None of this is of any great significance in the larger scheme of things. But for a moment, once again, the world offers its bounty, and I am grateful.

ONCE MORE AROUND THE SUN

A photograph every day for a year