I suffered for their art

I listen for the silence between the sounds
They make more music
They bring great shame upon these instruments

I close my eyes as if to drown it out

They stand and bow at the end
Pleased as punch with themselves
I blame them, though none are composers
They’ve been complicit
They brought it to life

At the end I open my eyes
Just long enough to tap two fingers together
And glare at each and every one of them



From the archives:
Take This Inspiration And Shove It
I answered my own question
I Stand In Judgement 

(Untitled)

I’m so much better than I was
I thought I was good before
I couldn’t have imagined this - what I’m doing now

I show no sign of stopping
I’ll keep going on
If I’m lucky
If I’m allowed to live

Ten years from now
I can’t imagine now how good I’ll be
At that time I’ll know what I can’t know now
What can’t be made now
What can only be seen hence
When I see it I’ll understand


From the archives:
Picture Edit
Careful Words
The High Cost Of Being Me

Picture Edit

It’s good. I can see that.

The lines are there. So are the composition, saturated palette and light. The filmy Christmas lights hung on the awning add a bit of whimsy - I could go as far as to say light irony - to the photograph. This keeps it from being too precious, too conventional, too full of itself. The rest of it is just the right kind of majestic.

Everything that years of working, failing, then trying again and succeeding are there.

This could be a welcome addition to my series.

I don’t feel the way I should about it. There’s no quickened heartbeat, crack of the bat against the ball and powerful arc signaling a home run. There’s no thrill in having captured it.

Like everybody, I spend my days in compromise. Maybe I cut a corner here, stay longer than I want, say yes when I mean no, exert willpower. My life is good. None of it is over my head. Not really.

But with photography, I’ve got to be all the way in. It gets to have my whole heart. If there is exactitude with love then here is where that is.

With this I get to have the orchestra, the breathlessness, the purity.

So I go ahead and delete it. I don’t regret it. Soon after, I don’t think about this image anymore. It’s stunning how quickly that happens.

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I walked to the end of the driveway
Chicken Scratch
My Future Crappy Work

The New Environs

These sidewalks soon to be old friends.
The worn groove made comfortable - cozy even!
By the repeat tread, week by week, seasons running into each other.
Or colliding as the case may be.
The northeast being itself.

And so it is as it has been before and will be again.
Drunk on the hard work of navigation, the full throttle .
After a time, so quick, really.
This becomes my coffee place, my drugstore, my doorman, my Tuesday.
I take my small residence, my share of the space.

You see, the waiting room, the couch in the lobby, even the train.
That's my writers colony, my MFA, my studio.
So this is all crucial, as secondary as it is.
And as singular as I am to see it at all.

My Future Crappy Work

Sometimes - often - I will do some writing, a collage or photography and realize quickly that it is crappy.  In many cases, I abandon it entirely. Delete.

Other times, I salvage it. A few tweaks and then it's good. I wrote about that experience here in The Crappy Collage.

On occasion I'll jump ship on the first attempt, then re-do it from start to finish. I do this when the idea is good but there is something wrong with the execution.

If I share some writing, collage or photography that means I like it. That's the simple way of looking at it.

It might be almost perfect. But I allow for some other things to happen. Sometimes I try something new on for size and see what sticks. I might consciously decide to explore a new direction or post something I'm a little on the fence about.

If I insisted on perfection every time, sure every time, well developed every time, I wouldn't share anything and I wouldn't do anything.

For the most part though, if I share it I'm proud of it.

If I'm lucky, I stay proud. There's stuff I've made or written that I love as much as the day I finished it. These are rarified moments in artist-time. I cherish this.

There is an in-between thing that happens frequently. Time passes, and if I had it to share again, there are small things I'd change. A paragraph I'd get rid of. Something that could have been more refined. I could have shifted my vantage point a bit to the left. Cropped something out.

So far, I've acknowledged this, but left the words or the image alone. I'm more interested in moving onto the next thing. It was a moment in time and I'm willing to let that be. This isn't brain surgery. This kind of imperfection never killed anyone.

If I get anything published I'll work with my editor and address it then.

Every once in a while, something else happens. I won't beat around the bush.

There is work that I created and shared at some point in the past. This work is crappy. I did not realize it at the time. I thought it was good six months or three years ago. My intentions were good.

It took some time and distance for me to realize it was crappy.

I took a bunch of crappy photographs and wrote a bunch of crappy words. While doing this, I learned a few things. The work I do now is much less crappy because of it.

I stay pragmatic and I stay positive. However, it sometimes takes my breath away, just how crappy something I did is. It's like the air being let out of a balloon. Or the terrible sound the needle makes scratching against an LP.

I keep it in perspective. How important is it that I shared a crappy photograph of moss in 2012? Or that a collage that accompanied a blog post is the paper and glue version of a train wreck? Bad poetry isn't the worst thing that can happen.

Crappy work is something I try my best to avoid but once it's been out there a while it's like carrying a screaming two-year-old out of the lake whose lips are turning blue. He needs to come out of the water. He doesn't want to come out of the water. He's making a lot of noise and kicking. People are looking.

He's your third child. He's acting crappy. You know he's acting crappy. All of these people at the beach know he's acting crappy. You’re not worried or defensive about what these people are thinking. You and these people are in agreement about the crappy screaming. It's best to contain things and move on. Don't overthink it like you did with the first.

That's exactly how it is with the crappy memoir piece I wrote.

My problem isn’t with what I did. My problem is with what I am about to do.

I write a blog post. I do what I always do these days. I write it.  I get rid of some of it. I make a collage. It had no diagonals because I am sick of diagonals. I use my computer printer in a ways that utilize classic printmaking techniques with an irreverent twist. The entire effect is beautiful.

I have a satisfied feeling that comes from doing a good job. I am proud of my work.

But then it occurs to me that I was proud of all the other work I did before and then at a later date I realized that some of it was crappy. Furthermore, there wasn't much rhyme or reason to which work had staying power and which work would become crappy later.

That's when I realize that I might have just finished some future crappy work!

I sit with the worry for a little while. Then I let it go.

It's easy for me to not publish crappy things in real time. I'm not an idiot. I’m not lazy.

The only way to avoid sharing work that I am sure wouldn't ever be crappy later would be to make work and then sit on it for several years before sharing it. Then after a decade, I could see what was still good.

Or I could keep working and working without sharing until becoming a near perfect writer or artist or photographer. I'd emerge, fully formed seeming like an overnight sensation or hidden genius.

These ideas are romantic and not without appeal.

Here's why I'm not doing it.

When I was younger there were limited ways of sharing your work. There was no social media. You could be in a gallery show, you could be published in a book or magazine, you could get commercial assignments, you could show your portfolio of carefully crafted prints to other people.

I did all of these things. But there could be long, lonely spaces between shows, assignments, and publications. Things remained buried in drawers and clamshell boxes. Sometimes I couldn't get anyone to look at my work.

In the best of all worlds, I'd shoot beautiful still life photographs that almost no one would see for six months because that was the lead-time of the magazine.

I wasn't made to work in isolation. Social media is one of the best things that has happened to me.

There is something democratic with all of this. In a global sense, there are no gatekeepers. Our lives are crowded with crappy work that we now need to delete, filter or ignore. Some people dislike this. There's no one keeping the riffraff out.

I've said it before. The cream will rise to the top. It always does.

I can't worry about what work will remain suspended and preserved in amber, or for how long. I can't worry about what will seem antiquated in a month, what will gain meaning with time or look like amateur hour a year from now.

So if you look and read, you'll see my process. It's not a fairy tale. That would be a lovely work of fiction. You never know. I might just write that fable someday.

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30 Minutes A Day: Re-framed

Late last spring, I embarked on a new tradition. I stumbled over it by accident. I started taking a 30-minute walk every day. I wrote about that experience here.

I felt all kinds of benefits from the walk. I meandered. Except for the 30-minute part, I had no agenda. I took photographs. I invariably felt refreshed. I continued more or less consistently. I wrote another post about it last July.

This kind of stroll might be my version of meditation.

I thought I was going to keep doing this. I imagined the benefits of the 30 minutes a day building upon one another. I imagined writing about my experience in the fall and then the winter.

That is not what happened.

What happened instead was that I'd go out for my walk and enjoy it very much at the time. But sometimes, before and after the walk, I'd feel stressed out. I wasn't stressed out about other things then found later that taking the walk was worth it. The stress was about the walk itself.

The walk was becoming another obligation. The walk was becoming a nag.

One thing I value about myself is my consistency. For that reason, it was difficult initially to switch gears. One of the drawbacks to making blanket proclamations and plans is that it can lead to rigid behaviors. I started to see the writing on the wall.

Oftentimes, we make plans before all of the information is in. Sometimes we don't acknowledge when things have changed. Commitments made during one period of life may not work for another. That is what happened to me.

I gave myself permission not to go for a walk for 30 minutes a day. That was a start.

While out for a run or folding laundry, I thought about the walks I was taking. That is when I do some of my best thinking. More information trickled in.

The 30-minute walks were ideal for some days and not for others. This is not an all or nothing situation. It has nuances.

Going out for a 30 minute walk makes sense when I am doing the type of work that benefits from a break. Certain types of paperwork, organizing and unpacking, research, cleaning house and repetitive tasks done over a long period of time and keep me housebound are obvious things. Days where my schedule is flexible enough and not interrupted by outside forces are also welcoming to this walking experience.

Days where I spend a great deal of time out of my apartment do not make the most sense in terms of the 30 minute walk. Nor do days where interruptions are built in. Days where every moment is accounted for means that the walk may cause more stress than it alleviates.

There are days when my teenagers are around and need a great deal of interface from me. Sometimes the walk is not practical. Other times it's an excellent idea. It gives me a break. It gives them a break.

Finally, there are the kinds of days where creativity and very pleasurable work is the actual order of the day. The walk is not really needed the same way on those days. Those times I set aside for blogging, making collages or photography are examples of this. These activities are already akin to meditative experiences for me.

This change of plans may seem like a small thing. It is in fact a small thing when stacked up against more important stuff. But my being able to switch gears with this has other implications. Making distinctions between good walk days and bad walk days is great practice for sorting out matters of much larger consequence.

Sunday was a good day for a 30-minute walk.

I was doing a lot of scheduling, school paper signing, organizing and filing. There was minutia. There was banality. And while everything was timely, I had a bit of flexibility in terms of my time.

I used the 30-minute walk as both a break and a reward. I set out at the designated time. I made sure to pack an umbrella because the sky was getting dark and it was windy. Rain seemed imminent.

Barring a thunderstorm, I planned to stay the course.

This might not seem like a good time for a walk. For me it was ideal.

For one thing, I've noticed that people are very adverse to rain. They will go right inside once it starts looking dark and foreboding. I found the streets to be nearly empty. Not only did this make my walk more peaceful, but also I had fewer folks to worry about when taking some of the weirder photographs I do.

Once it started to sprinkle people started running in a frantic attempt to go inside before more water hit them. There was screaming and flailing. There was wrestling with umbrellas.

The rain began while I was in a lush garden. I positioned myself under some trees and saw some interesting stuff to photograph. Sometimes I used my umbrella propped up on some branches or the ground to keep my iPhone dry so I wouldn't have to worry about it.

I took a video of raindrops hitting a marble bench and making an interesting dot pattern, but it was a little too boring for anyone but me, so I deleted it.

It never became torrential and it reduced to a steady, misty drizzle. I dispensed with the umbrella and walked out on the sidewalk. The flowerbeds were very interesting.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret about rain. It can be good for photography.

I'm not referring to stormy situations. I am not talking about high winds. I am not talking about weather-advisory thunder and lightning.

I am talking about a lazy drizzle.

When there's a lazy drizzle it is highly uncomfortable for most people. But it is fine for me. It might be okay for you too. If I were putting out a singles ad, I could honestly that I enjoy long walks in the rain. I have already mentioned that this alone is a good thing for photography. Less people mean fewer headaches.

Cloudy skies almost always accompany rain. This gives you a nice, even light. This isn't the time to get all experimental with shadows. There won't be many. But you can explore a softer look.

The wetness has a lacquer like effect when it lands on things. That shine, plus the soft even light makes colors pop. It's like the palette is on steroids.

While rain gives a nice jolt to colors that are already intense, it does something equally interesting to more muted hues. Mauve, silver - grey, olive green, terra cotta and taupe look decidedly richer.

Things become dotted and splattered in a way that I like. The video I took may have been boring. But I loved what the rain did to this leaf.

When it's raining, the differences between what is light and what is dark can be intensified. Case in point: the dirt in this flowerbed became darker and blacker when wet, while the dead stems remained light in color. This is a lovely edition to an ongoing series called Past Their Prime. It also reminds me of a scratchboard.

I worked to capture an image that is the essence of wet. After several attempts, the rain and I came up with this.

Moving forward, I anticipate taking more 30 minute walks - some of the time. I'll move through the crisp autumn days a half hour here and there and slog through snow the same way. There are times to be disciplined about something. There are times not to be. Today I'll be talking about a walk outdoors. Tomorrow it will be something bigger.

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I Changed my Mind About: Shakespeare

I am happily surrounded by The Intelligentsia.

My husband Jeremy is extremely bright. So are all members of our extended family. My friends are also highly intelligent.

I always befriend people smarter than me.

When I say smart in this context, I mean book smart and IQ smart. I'm smart that way too. However, in a nutshell, I need more support than my friends do around learning stuff.

It may seem that I am putting myself down.  I am not.

There are multiple intelligences. What I may lack in numerical skills I make up for in the humanities. I have a little more street smarts. The common sense I possess is an endlessly applicable skill. I think I am off the charts for creativity. I have emotional intelligence. I am a deep thinker. I think well on my feet. If you have an emergency, you want me around.

I am self-aware. I don't imprint things as quickly as Jeremy and some of my peers. I use notes and organization and electronics to help myself so that my level of functioning is high. I call this scaffolding.

All of that said, I am often blown away by the sheer brain-power of those I spend time with.

It is no accident that I surround myself with smart people. Most of the time this is a good thing. But there are small things about it that present some issues.

If you have enough smart people in one place, it is inevitable that there will eventually be a movement afoot to go see some Shakespeare.

Oftentimes, extremely intelligent people like nothing better than going to see Shakespeare. If you are this smart, than chances are that Romeo and Juliet is not your favorite Shakespeare play. In fact, every extremely smart person I have met says that it is their least favorite and most problematic.

There are things that happen before the Shakespeare play. There are things that happen during the play.

Before the play, smart people like reading a synopsis. They are reading the synopsis either to refresh their memory because it's been quite some time since they’ve read A Midsummer Nights Dream, or because it is a rare, obscure work that no one has read.

If smart people are together before the Shakespeare play, they will often gather around while one person reads the synopsis aloud.

During the actual performance, smart people pay close attention and seem rapt. They will laugh uproariously at a witty turn of phrase or the bawdy women. They don't mind the difficult plot turns. They don't mind what looks like overacting. They don't mind the weird fake, shrill laughing the actors are doing.

The most intelligent among us quote from Shakespeare spontaneously from an enormous bank of memorized phrases to fit the real life situation. It can be a bit startling because one minute you're having a normal conversation about dinner and the next someone is speaking very fancifully.

I'm going to come clean. I am not a fan of Shakespeare. But there is one play of his that I really like. That play is Romeo and Juliet.

This was assigned reading in 10th grade English. When I read it at home, I couldn't make heads or tails of it. But when we read it in class, with discussion and livening up from the teacher Ms. Hughes, that really made a connection.

The English teacher was also the drama teacher. She'd get up on the desks and act out all the parts. We got to go on a field trip for a screening of Zefferelli’s screen adaptation. Since we were watching with a Catholic school class, the projectionist covered up Romeo's naked butt.

There is nothing like going to see 15 year old Olivia Hussey in Romeo and Juliet when you are in fact 15 years old. She is my age and she is having a relationship.

I have built up an extremely positive relationship with Romeo and Juliet because of school and other reasons.

On the same day as the field trip, my next-door neighbor who became our across-the-street-neighbor had a baby girl after having three boys. The dad was driving down the street a little recklessly with excitement and pulled over to tell me the news. He said that the doctor played a trick on him and initially told him the baby was a boy.

I knew my life was about to change because every time our next-door/across-the-street-neighbors had a baby, I'd spend as much time at their house as possible.

I think that more smart people probably love Romeo and Juliet but no one wants to admit it.

You will never see me more bored than before and during a Shakespeare play. It starts during the reading of the synopsis. Sitting in a chair while someone reads about the play already has my eyes glazing over and it hasn't even started yet. I know I'm in trouble because the synopsis will seem interminably long.

The mind crushing boredom continues as I watch the play and pretend I don't hate the wenches and wonder why everyone is laughing. All of this laughing until you cry and knee slapping  looks a little like Shakespeare play posturing.

If I want funny I'll watch something with Amy Schumer in it or, reruns of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

You'd think that with my abiding and somewhat confounding interest in British Royalty I'd have more connection with Shakespeare. Unfortunately, my interest begins with Queen Victoria and ends right after Princess Diana.

I am common.

Early in my relationship with Jeremy, I got roped into more Shakespeare than I do now. I wanted to impress him.

Some time after we were married, I admitted that I did not like it. Jeremy did not divorce me because of my other more irresistible qualities.

The one bright spot was when Jeremy and I went to see a Shakespeare play put on by Shakespeare & Company at The Mount, Edith Wharton’s home in the Berkshires. There I saw a young Keanu Reeves, flitting about and jumping on the lawn right in front of me. The whole thing sparkled. It was a beautiful day. My mother in law packed wine with a sweet effervescence and some really amazing cheese and crackers.

But all other times, no.

So recently some extremely smart friends of ours suggested going to see some Shakespeare at a nearby park. They were performing Henry IV, one of his lesser-known works.

I agreed to go. I agreed to go because I really wanted to see our friends. I agreed to go because my imagination was being used up on other matters and I didn't want to have to suggest alternatives. I agreed to go because it was a 10-minute walk from my home. I agreed to go because it was free. I agreed to go because afterwards we would go out for dinner and have actual fun.

I agreed to go because of something I do once in a while. It's an activity I call taking one for the team. I can take one for the team. Once I have identified that I am on fact taking one for the team, I feel better about it.

Also, a couple of times I took one for the team and it really worked out. I enjoyed the movie about Moses and the action film with Tom Cruise much more than I thought it would.

It was a lovely evening. Jeremy and I got a great spot. Rock music was playing on the sound system. The weather was beautiful. But I began to worry about the boredom factor.

I asked Jeremy to do something very specific. While we were waiting for our friends, I asked him to read the synopsis silently to himself. Then he was to give me a very brief overview, in layman's terms and lasting no more than a minute or two.

He began reading the synopsis aloud. I reminded him firmly that he was to read it silently to himself. Jeremy did, and then did a beautiful job of summing things up. He even modernized it a bit. I felt like it sounded okay.

As I leafed through the program I perked up when I realized that a neighbor of ours who we are acquainted with would be in the performance. This acquaintance already has British accent, which puts him ahead of the game. He has cut quite the figure as the MC of the nursery school live auction. He also showed that same bold presence, as his booming voice said be quiet to my then three-year-old son at the aforementioned nursery school that his better-behaved daughters also attended.

I then proceeded to cultivate a positive attitude toward the play or pretend to look forward to it depending on how you want to look at the situation.

A few minutes into it, I felt myself changing my mind about Shakespeare.

Some mind changing that I do is big and spectacular. This was not one of those times. I would call this mind changing the beginning of something, a slow burn or a slight spark.

I'd love to say that the power of the acting or the production took me to a new place. This was not the case.

The acting was uneven. Some was good. Some was labored.  It made me realize how difficult it is to act in a Shakespeare play. Even going off book is hard. The production was stripped down and could have used a bigger budget.

The bawdy women bothered me. Can't they just be natural? What's with the shrill Hahahahaha that's way too loud and mannered? Is this necessary?

The setting and the company were indeed lovely. But it wasn't that either.

Jeremy's brief synopsis helped me follow the story but I wasn't slavish about it. Since I was taking one for the team, I made myself as comfortable as I could. I did some subtle yoga moves to keep myself from getting too bored or too stiff sitting on my blanket.

Since I wasn't trying to follow too closely, I let the words and the language roll over me like I do when I read poetry. This seemed to be key.

I am a person who loves words. Words are my palette. When I look like I am searching for a word, that isn't so. What happens is that often five or more appropriate words will come up for something I am saying. I need a moment to sift through to find the best one.

The part of me that is like this, liked the language I heard. It was often aesthetically pleasing, and sometimes that was my sole focus. Other times, it would be like the sharp sound the bat makes when it hits the ball. It would make something clear and brilliant and meaningful the way regular English cannot.

I'll so offend to make offense a skill. Like light refracting through a prism, this phrase opened up another world for me. I also enjoyed the concept of the Bawdy House, a place referred to many times.

There was one passage so filthy dirty, so raunchy, so R-bordering-on-X-rated for language and sexual content that it left me both shocked and enamored. It was nasty. Good nasty.

So I found that I was mostly not bored.

Part one of the play was very long. There was an intermission. I geared myself up for more Shakespeare. I hoped I could keep boredom at bay. I hoped Shakespeare could.

Then a wonderful thing happened. The play was deemed too long by the three intelligent people! So we left and went out for dinner!

These smart people showed some remarkable common sense.

Leaving on a high note, a technique I use with my son Noah, works it's magic for me too. Two hours was enough Shakespeare. I liked what I heard. For the first time, my curiosity was piqued for more.

I see my future self on a picnic blanket with cheese and crackers. Instead of wine, perhaps it will be a cocktail, poured cold from a silver shaker, since Jeremy doesn't like wine. I am outdoors, not in Central Park, which sounds like its own set of problems, but maybe in the country. I'll skip the group synopsis, but have Jeremy do a quick, to the point overview just for me. A synopsis of a synopsis.

We will choose something preformed by a top theater company, with actors steeped in craft and near the top of their game. I'll let the words wash over me and see if anything sticks.

I'll try to ignore the wenches. I'll shift, stretch and accommodate. Hopefully those small moments will happen, when the cream rises to the top and washes all the ennui away.

This is the latest in a series about things I have changed my mind about.

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30 Minutes A Day: The Summer Edition

This past spring I stumbled onto a new resource for stress reduction. I take a leisurely 30-minute walk every day. I go out each day, regardless of weather.

I've skipped a walk here and there due to tightly scheduled time or unexpected circumstances. On those days I clearly missed the walk. So I'm prioritizing it.

The walk is no less or more than 30 minutes. It's not meant to be exercise. Errands don't count. I can stop whenever I like to take photographs with my iPhone. Sometimes that means I don't make it very far from my apartment. That's fine. Distance isn't the point.

You can read about how I got started here.

When I wrote my first post about this topic last spring I was just beginning to take this walk each day. I liked what was happening and decided to continue. I wanted to see if it kept on helping me with stress. I wanted to see what would happen.

Here's what happened.

Spring turned into summer. Daffodils and tulips made way for roses. Many of those have drooped then died. Lilies are everywhere. Lilies are having their moment.

There was something of the miracle in spring. The flowers did their delicate dance, poking through like it was the first time ever.  There was something pure and primary about it.

I'm a city dweller but the natural world has a way of jostling through the concrete. And so it is with summer. This summer is good and settled in now.

Where spring was young and gay, summer is languid and a bit sexy. The flowerbeds are a jumble of just bloomed, slightly sour and gloriously cloying. It's like too much perfume only good.

There is the hint of the exotic in this summer. Everything I see has been around the block and back.

The heat and humidity slow me down. I don't complain. This walk is only 30 minutes long and there's no need to exert myself or hurry. Given a choice I walk on the shady side of the street. I'm a shade-seeking individual. So is my camera.

I take photographs every time I'm out. I keep some, delete others. One of the reasons I find these walks relaxing and rejuvenating is there is no real agenda except to stay out for 30 minutes. There's something meditative about it. Walking slowly and looking around, taking photos, some good, some bad.  This might really be my version of meditating.

In practical terms, my walks serve as a much-needed break or incentive when I am working on things that are demanding and require discipline. It seems to help with stress. It's free. It's available.

I keep doing it because I enjoy it. I keep doing it because it's working.  I keep doing it because it's something I can count on.

Most of the time I go out for my walk at a predetermined time, based on what else is happening that day. I don't choose my 30-minute block when it's "nice" out, because it's sunrise or because it's cooled down. It's more of a process of elimination. I can't go when I have a meeting. I can't go while I'm cooking. I can't go when I'm taking care of my children. I can't be in two places at once.

So from 9:00 - 9:30 or 2:30 - 3:00 or 7:40 - 8:10 it is. It doesn't matter. Whatever is out there is out there. Morning rain shower, late afternoon sun with long, inky shadows, hazy miasma, warm, forgiving dusk light. It's all good.

My thirty minutes are up. I walk into my apartment after my tiny journey. My air conditioner and iced coffee with soy vanilla greet me. I left the meandering outside and I snap to, smart, sharp and ready to take on whatever it is.

I took the photographs below during two thirty-minute walks on July 7^th and July 8^th.

I was attracted to the rare coloration of this saturated and fragile bloom.

I don’t know what kind of plant this is. It sure is orange.

It’s unusual for me to go inside during my strolls. I’ve been eyeing this lobby for a long time and saw an opportunity. This is the latest addition to a series I am working on called Mid-Century Modern. I love the clean lines, optimistic looking palette and whimsical tiles paired with the poignant wear and tear.

This might be one of the last Hydrangeas to bloom. This is but a section of the giant white orb, drooping ever so slightly in the heat.

Mid-day light and shade on the weathered wall of Park Terrace Gardens.

I almost never see anything representational in my abstractions. This time, I saw an eye in the knot of this tree bark.

The same sun and rain that nourishes the cultivated flowers also supports the weeds. My latest in the series I call Hardscrabble Plants.

Another view of the elegant and mysterious plant bearing exotic red flowers.

These lilies are heavy with their own loveliness.

A mess of daisies.

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White Seamless

I was a still life photographer. People sought me out and hired me because of my creative vision. If you wanted a photograph of a product - say a shoe - and you needed that shoe to be elevated through use of lush fabrics, rich colors and a keen sense of composition, you would call me. If you wanted to infuse the shoe story with a sense of humor, fun and quirkiness, then you'd also dial my number. You either liked my work, or you didn't.

Notice that I wrote dial and call, not text, email, or Facebook message. This was the late eighties and nineties. You spent a lot of time on the phone back then.

If you wanted something very straightforward, just a really simple, conventionally lit shoe, then you'd dial someone else's number. There were people who did this very well. It would behoove you to call one of them.

The photographers who did this really well had some things in their studio to help them. They had rolls and rolls of white seamless paper. If memory serves me correctly, it came in 9-foot rolls and 5-foot rolls. It would be propped up against the studio walls.

The photographers would unfurl the white seamless and they would have a perfect, clean, anonymous surface for the product shot. They'd employ multiple light sources and these reflector cards.

I might not have been a fan of white seamless at first, but I always loved reflector cards. I like to think of my still life photographs as very beautiful, but what my audience didn't see were the reflector cards, propped up at jaunty angles, sometimes precariously, around the perimeter.

I'd check carefully to make sure that none of them were in the frame. There was nothing more embarrassing than having a gorgeously crafted photo with a reflector card peeking in at the edge. The reflector cards were genius at getting rid of the harsh shadows I hated. If a corner of the photograph were receding into a dull shadow, the reflector card would bring that right up. If I wanted the texture of my crushed velvet or handmade paper backgrounds to come forward, instead of stuck in the murky shade, the reflector cards would fix that situation.

When I was first starting out, I refused any assignment that did not meet with my creative vision. After a while, I realized this was silly. Sometimes an art director needed something straight forward done very quickly and all the other photographers they liked were booked. I'd do the assignment on white seamless. It was fun being so minimalist once in a while. It was fun getting that product to look like it was floating in whiteness. It was fun earning a paycheck while pursuing more high-minded work.

I took ballet lessons for many years. I was not destined to be an elite ballerina. Still, I learned a thing or two. When I enter a room so quietly and gracefully that I startle people, or notice my ears over shoulders over hips carriage in a mirror, I always say the same thing. You can take the girl out of ballet, but you can't take the ballet out of the girl. And so it is with photography.

I haven't done still life photography for clients for a very long time. The pictures I take now are very different. I'm usually outside.

I'm writing this on the heels of a very snowy winter. I think it's over, but I can't be sure.

I was going about my day about a month ago. I was walking outside from one place to the other. I was noticing some lovely things happening with freshly fallen snow. I took a moment or two to examine the flowerbeds near my building.

The light was very calm and even due to the cloudiness of the day. This was very pleasing. I took some photographs.

As I was riding the train, the experience had a sense of the familiar that was hard to put my finger on. Later, it came to me while I was doing something else. The experience I had in the flower beds reminded me of commercial still life photography. The entire winter reminded me of commercial still life photography. It reminded me of white seamless. It reminded me of reflector cards.

I like having fresh snow around for several reasons.

Things that are beautifully shaped might fade into the background of grey and green and brown when there isn't snow. When there is snow, many things get covered up. But the things that are lovely that are not covered up have a white sweep. They get to be the star. They get to be, in the 1970s still life parlance that much preceded me - the hero.

The seamless effect would only be apparent with brand new snow. Even if it didn't get dirty later, older snow takes on a more pebbly and granular texture. This patina has a way of announcing itself. It's great for some pictures. Just not for the ones I'm talking about today.

Soft, new, light, non-reflective, not dampened down - that is hero-making snow.

The diffuse, cloudy light that is so common in the winter is a gift. It's bright enough to agree with the iPhone camera at the same time that it is softened up and forgiving. It's even better than the translucent material called Toughspun that I used to put over my lights in three layers, as a professional.

The Hero

There is less color around outside in the winter. But there is some.  A good, outdoor, colorful subject in the winter is a sight to behold. It can be a good subject for me.

There is a bit of magic that happens along the edges of my photographs with so much snow around. Brand new snow is best, but any old snow will do. If there is enough snow on the ground it will serve as a giant reflector for my subjects. The shadows are filled in. The colors become saturated. There is better color separation. The snow isn't in the photograph. But it contributes.

I work quickly. The same gift of snow that pretties up my subjects brings harsh temperatures and cold fingers. I decide on things fast. Sometimes a strong gust will blow my photography materials around in ways that are hard to anticipate. I'm prepared to get what I need in one take. Variations are a luxury the winter doesn't always allow.

I didn't invent snow. I didn't invent white seamless paper, Toughspun, or reflector cards. I did connect the dots.  Sometimes you go to the photography store to get what you need. Other times it falls from the sky. It's in the recognition. It's in making your move before it’s gone.

 

The snow outside of the frame served as giant reflectors, intensifying the colors, softly filling the shadows and casting a brilliant glow.

More posts about photography:

After Careful Consideration

Old Friends

Flowers