I woke up this morning to an email from Yvette stating how she was looking forward to my updated posts. I must say that I have been thinking about this blog and how much I enjoyed taking a break from writing. However, with her nudge, I decided to share a photograph I took that really pleased me from my time in Northern Wisconsin. I was considering how we, as photographers, tend to be drawn to the same image over and over again. After I took this photograph with my iphone, I was immediately reminded of an earlier image from the 1990's.
I poked around in my storage boxes and found the "matching" image. This earlier one was a "constructed" image which I set up (as opposed to the one I took this summer). I had such a difficult time in the darkroom dodging the sheet so I just made another print and tried the cut and paste method! Needless to say, this is the very first time this print has seen the light of day.
And then there is the quintessential boat. I have photographed this boat every summer and find it endlessly fascinating in its character and poetic possibilities.
In thinking about the change of seasons, our comings and goings, I thought I would share an amazing poem by Mark Strand...
From Dark Harbor
"It is true, as someone has said, that in
a world without heaven all is farewell.
Whether you wave your hand or not,
It is farewell, and if no tears come to your eyes
It is still farewell, and if you pretend not to notice,
Hating what passes, it is still farewell.
Farewell no matter what. And the palms as they lean
Over the green, bright lagoon, and the pelicans
Diving, and the glistening bodies of bathers resting,
Are stages in an ultimate stillness, and the movement
Of sand, and of wind, and the secret moves of the body
Are part of the same, a simplicity that turns being
Into an occasion for mourning, or into an occasion
Worth celebrating, for what else does one do,
Feeling the weight of the pelicans' wings,
The density of the palms' shadows, the cells that darken
The backs of bathers? These are beyond the distortions
Of chance, beyond the evasions of music. The end
Is enacted again and again. And we feel it
In the temptations of sleep, in the moon's ripening,
In the wine as it waits in the glass."
--Mark Strand
I poked around in my storage boxes and found the "matching" image. This earlier one was a "constructed" image which I set up (as opposed to the one I took this summer). I had such a difficult time in the darkroom dodging the sheet so I just made another print and tried the cut and paste method! Needless to say, this is the very first time this print has seen the light of day.
And then there is the quintessential boat. I have photographed this boat every summer and find it endlessly fascinating in its character and poetic possibilities.
In thinking about the change of seasons, our comings and goings, I thought I would share an amazing poem by Mark Strand...
From Dark Harbor
"It is true, as someone has said, that in
a world without heaven all is farewell.
Whether you wave your hand or not,
It is farewell, and if no tears come to your eyes
It is still farewell, and if you pretend not to notice,
Hating what passes, it is still farewell.
Farewell no matter what. And the palms as they lean
Over the green, bright lagoon, and the pelicans
Diving, and the glistening bodies of bathers resting,
Are stages in an ultimate stillness, and the movement
Of sand, and of wind, and the secret moves of the body
Are part of the same, a simplicity that turns being
Into an occasion for mourning, or into an occasion
Worth celebrating, for what else does one do,
Feeling the weight of the pelicans' wings,
The density of the palms' shadows, the cells that darken
The backs of bathers? These are beyond the distortions
Of chance, beyond the evasions of music. The end
Is enacted again and again. And we feel it
In the temptations of sleep, in the moon's ripening,
In the wine as it waits in the glass."
--Mark Strand