Monday, January 25, 2010

Stakeout



Most of Thursday morning last week was spent up on Sleeping Bear Point. There are always beautiful grand landscapes to capture — which I did. Then after my traditional lunch — Surf-n-Turf (a hamburger and smelt) at Art's Tavern, I headed with a couple friends to a beach near the Homestead Resort. We walked the shoreline toward Pyramid Point but unlike our morning excursion there just didn't seem to be any interesting subjects. After the turn-around in the shadow of the point's tall bluff I decided to walk a few yards inland instead of retracing my steps at the water's edge. Sometimes the waves and wind place some interesting objects in the grass. I passed a section of beach that a local camp uses in the summer and noticed this group of stakes — simple, rusty, utilitarian, stakes. Probably there to hold up a volleyball net in the summer months. But I loved their simple shape and their interaction with each other and the shadows they cast. Call me crazy but this was my favorite capture of the day. Maybe not as impressive as the grand dunes with their windswept lines of snow and sand, but elegant beauty in my mind.
Next time you're out for a walk look for the simple beauty in things — especially in the person that's walking along side you.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Vertical Flow


Lately I've been getting these visions in the middle of the night. My brain starts sorting through a catalog of images from recent shoots and somehow a connection is made between images. As some of you may know or have figured out, many of my pieces are like weavings — they are multiple images that are worked together to form a new image.
I was going through some of my Porcupine Mountain images earlier in the day and there was one image that held my interest, but somehow the story wasn't complete. I think it was at about 2 a.m. the next morning that my brain connected an additional image. YES — that was the one that finished the story of the Big Union River on a stormy day. Rain was pelting the surface of the river — kicking up little fountains. The rising waters were picking leaves off the river's edge and carrying them downstream, and the wind was twisting the maples along the banks.
The one element of the image that's a little weird is that the tapestry is vertical but the motion is horizontal. I'm hoping viewer's imaginations can carry them downstream.

Blessings in the new year!