Sleeping Sleeping Bear

I was hoping to see the sunrise and only feel a breath of wind, but the day was otherwise. It may seem contradictory but the subtlety of a grey day has its own drama. I rounded the corner of Sleeping Bear Point where the bluff guarded a stretch of beach and there was a dramatic calming of the rolling waves. The colors of the bay that were broken by cresting waves just a dozen yards behind me, now lie in large sheets. Water and wind seemed to find a balance, cancelling each others voices on the shoreline. It was indeed a sanctuary. It was if the the bear was dozing.

Looking Behind You

As many of you know or may have gathered from my blog, I spend a lot of time walking the shores of Lake Michigan. I especially like the shoreline around this time of year because the forces of nature are hard at work. Cycles of freezes and thaws push the sand and ice into fractured landscapes. Jagged ice crystals grow and then morph into smooth organic sculptures when the sun shines through them. So I was at the beach the other day, looking at that interesting edge where ice meets sand, when the shadows began to fade. A wispy cloud was to blame. I looked up to observe how fast the clouds were moving, therefore gauge how long before my image defining shadow would return, but the cloud itself caught my attention. I had to do a 180 to follow the line of the cloud and see it disappear behind the dunes. My image was there — behind me. I should have known. When will I learn? I can't tell you how many times I've been intent on capturing an image at my toes when the real image was following me. Creativity is like that — always contradicting your current direction.

Michigan is in transition from Winter to Spring and I guess I'm feeling the tension. The battle rages — one minute it's Spring and the next it's Winter again. Maybe that's why I created this image. Can you feel the tension? There are always new sculptures along the beach as the ice breaks up and refreezes.

Old Barrel

You never know what the wind and the water will reveal. I guess that's one reason I like the lake shore so much. The sand can be sculpted into a whole new form in just hours. And not all that is revealed is pretty – at least at first glance. Of course I really don't like seeing an old barrel (with who knows what in it) appear from under the sand, but it's oxidized colors and the earth and reflected sky make for an interesting subject. And then there is the tension between organic forms and geometric forms. Wow — I'm getting to cerebral here. I just like the image — OK?
Hope you find it "interesting."

Sorry I've been gone so long but I've really been in a creative slump lately. I can always blame the weather. I think in the month of January we had 25 of 31 days at below normal temps — and for Northern Michigan that's cold. It's not that I'm a weather wimp. In general I can deal with the cold and snow but trying to deal with the weather and your camera system — switching lenses, changing settings, etc — it's tough. BUT really I've just been lacking in some creative enthusiasm. I happens to the best of us. I did read a good book though -- Blue Like Jazz. A real honest, refreshing, account of a person's life journey. As is often the case it is literature, music, or something other than the media that I work in that can get me out of a slump.
So I went to the dunes the other day to gather some images -- I heard temps were going to be reasonable and the sun was to be out most the day. I left home at 5:00 am and arrived at 7:30 and snow shoed up Sleeping Bear Point for a 8:00 am sunrise. The day didn't turn out to be all that productive as far as images go but just being outside and x-c skiing and shoeing was great for the spirit. Attached is one image that worked well -- although it's too much like other stuff I've done. I think I need to experiment a bit more to produce something more exciting.
See you SOON.

Holidays

I was hopeful that I'd have a little sun this morning as I walked the beach. When I woke up this morning at 6 am I could see stars out my bedroom window, but alas, the clouds moved in and I was forced to make my own sunshine. That's a good thing in some ways. When you are challenged to add some excitement to a gray day your creativity kicks in. It seems that a duffer decided to smack a bucket of balls into the bay so I collected his washed up trash and play with it on the pebbly back dune area at the park. A Petoskey stone and a single Christmas bulb found their way into the mix as well. A interesting mix of the natural and man made.
Anyway, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the Michigan Artisan.
Blessings and peace to you!

Bob

Looking Back

Sorry that it has been awhile since I posted but it's just that time of year — plenty to do and not enough time to do it. I should be out getting images of the winter wonderland but instead I wimped out and sat in my cozy office and started looking through bunches of old work. It's amazing how, when looking back, you begin to see things that you totally missed when the images were fresh. I'm convinced that distancing yourself a little (time-wise) from your work is often a good thing. When looking at images just a couple hours after the shoot I think your impressions are clouded by expectations of how those images should look. I certainly don't want to clear emotion from my work — it's important, but there is this block of thought about what I expected to create and what I was really able to capture that hampers good creative thought. I have a hard time explaining it. Maybe I need a little distance from this thought.
Anyway, I looked way back to my experience at Petrified Forest to put together this new piece from that experience. It was the last evening that I was there. I found this incredible valley not far off the main road and shot away. Colors, textures, drama — I like this piece.