This Side of China

Cascade at Winchester Lake
Winchester, CT

Cascade Curios

There's just a few days left before I leave for China.  I wont be digging my way there.   I will be letting the currents of change navigate the way.  This has been a tumultuous year with lots of surprises.  I might as well see where it takes me.

The only promise I've kept to myself is that I simply would go wherever the journey leads me.  Life is more interesting that way.  I've abandoned lots of my old structure and allowed myself the opportunity to just be. Old conventions and rules simply no longer work for me.  Armed with knowledge and curiosity, I've got to press on.  There's simply too much to experience and absorb before the journey ends.  I know there's nothing rational about it but what appeared to me to be sane for all these years now seems dreadfully insane.  

I'm not afraid of what lies on the other side of this cascade.  The water's motion entices me.  It's insane not to live.  It's even more insane not to try.

Needs Some Work

Needs Some Work
Mt. Pleasant, Tx

Last week, I spent some time working in East Texas. Things have a way of slowing down as accents change and I found myself slowing down as well.  

Although I had reminded myself that I was there for work, I did spot this old truck twice with the corner of my eye.  It sat in a field just a few yards from my last customer call of the day.  I couldn't just ignore it could I?  

In English literature there's a term when words are written like the sounds they represent:  smash, bang, crash, etc.  The term is called onomatopoeia.  (Yes, Mrs. Fortuna, I actually fooled you and was paying attention in class, not just daydreaming.)  I wish I could invent a photographic term for images that I captured that represent how I feel.  I think I will take a Sarah Palin moment and conjure my own vocabulary:  photo-essence.

As I studied the truck before I shot it, I developed my strategy to capture the beauty that was still in it.  I knew how the colors would appear as the late autumn sun cast it's glow on the subject and I knew how the shadows would lie.  There would be some warm tones to contend with for sure.  The image would be great with those tones coming through, I thought.

Yeah this old truck needs some work but you really have to look beyond that.  As beaten up as this truck is, it still has plenty of life and a great story to tell.  For now the truck resides in an East Texas field, but one day someone will find it and make something again with the relic.  In the meantime, the story remains untold.

Photo-essence, I like the term.  Yes that's me in the photograph out in the field.  I just need a little work and someone to appreciate what I have to offer.  Don't discard me yet.  There's a picture waiting to be made.

Autumn Daydream

High School Daydream
Winsted, CT

Some who remember me in high school thought of me as a serious student.  Few knew that I was a daydreamer.  Autumn brought it out most in me.  In fact, I was caught red handed staring at the hillside beneath our school by my English teacher, Elaine Fortuna.  She was merciful in her reproach and smiled the whole way while she brought my attention back to the subject of the day.

I am grateful that she didn't discourage my dreaming.  She knew I was enamored by the fall colors.  They were spectacular then and even more so in the dreams I have had since remembering them.  She caught a glimpse of my real nature.  She knew I was more artistic and creative than even I knew.  Instead of snuffing it, she let me bask in all the colors that I could view through my window perch.

That day the hillside was ablaze with color.  It's hard to write about something like this unless you've actually witnessed it.  She let me witness it.  Today, I write:  "the hillsides were ablaze with color.  It was a natural fire of color that only heavy winds, frost, and the onset of winter could extinguish."

My pilgrimage back to my home town afforded me the opportunity to reminisce and to enjoy what I've missed every year since I left.  Although it was thirty-six years ago, the memories are as real as yesterday.  The hillside remains ablaze in my mind.

Autumn Perspective

Countryside
Riverton, CT 

Heublein Trail

This time of the year, I miss the country hillsides of New England.  As a kid,  I enjoyed slipping into the countryside and hiking.  I found that the autumn countryside afforded a unique solace.  Floating colorful leaves and sweet smells filled these memories.  Things seemed to slow down and I used the added time to put things once again in perspective.


Each day, I remind myself to put it all in perspective.  I try to grasp that I am not the only one going through this journey, that there are other passengers.  Mine is not a unique sojourn only my experiences are uniquely mine.

Pond and Autumn Drizzle

There are so many things I still want to do.  I think back about my New England days and I meditate about the things that made me calm.  Somethings have changed but the person I am has not.  Today, I need to rely on my experiences and draw from the well.  Time to reflect on childhood autumns to refresh and renew.  The journey is long; it's good to take pause.

I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends

Rothko in Winchester Center

The wonderful thing about an abstract is that it only slightly resembles reality.  We catch a glimpse of what is real; we see it, but it is distorted just enough to make it different.  In essence, we see an extrapolation of reality.

Deep down within we know that the image resembles something we've seen before.  Our mind and our eyes try to make sense of what we see.  We go through a cognitive deciphering process to break the code.  Breaking the code in some instances is the difference between viewing a Pablo Picasso or a Jackson Pollock painting.  One offers at least the illusion of reality while the other offers no clues.  Both are strictly about the details.

We hit points in our lives where we can't discern the reality of a situation.  Our perception of our own capabilities become distorted.  The picture we see is ambiguous like an abstract painting.  It's okay to ask our friends for help.  Perhaps the picture they see is different from the one we perceive.  Perhaps they've got clues that we don't have.  The idea of asking is foreign for males but we could all learn to ask for guidance and coaching.

As a photographer, I don't always see or get the picture.  There are times I have to find the picture within the picture.  I crop and rework the image until the motive for my shooting surfaces.  In this case, I really did see a Rothko.

Small Town Diner

Yankee Small Town Diner

There are some very basic rituals in our lives.  The routine of the morning breakfast at a hangout seems to be a great tradition where oversized folks in little chairs are the norm.  Inexpensive food draws out the heavy contenders.  I can't say I blame them.  Value is important especially during tough times.

My voyeuristic photographer tendencies surface at these places.  I am drawn by the mystique of the hangout like Norman Rockwell was to a Thanksgiving day meal.  These are real people with mundane lives, salt of the earth types.  Not everyone was meant to be the corporate mogul you know.

If the truth be known, sometimes I like hiding in their midst.  I am one of them.  "How ya doing?  Mind if I join you?"  I feel at home and at ease.

There's not much that really separates me from them, a few twist and turns.  Our roots are similar and for a few moments I draw nourishment from them.  I know where I came from and I draw strength from those that surround me.  I am reminded from their communion that I have  strength to draw from.  Sometimes it's good to be reminded.

Frost

He Had "a Lovers Quarrel with the World"

New England is the resting place of many of the thinkers and writers who influenced my thoughts.  By mere coincidence on my journey, I found the final resting place of my favorite poet, Robert Frost.

Pennies For Your Thoughts

The cemetery in Bennington, VT is the type of place where romantics would want to be buried.   It is a tranquil place surrounded by elderly maple trees and in the shadows of a white colonial church.  It's a place where patriots lie and saints await their awakening call.

Frost questioned the conventions of his time.  He despised the norm and was not afraid  to get us to ask why?  Thought and reason are not bad things.  Unquestioning and lack of curiosity are more dangerous to our development.

Graveside Birch

Beneath this earth lies a man who was not afraid to live and was not afraid to ask why things were the way the were.  "One could do worse, then become a swinger of birches."  Question it all and perhaps you can enjoy what life truly offers.