Figure 1 – Cloe the aristocat watching Shakespeare’s Richard II. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

Today I thought that I would share a family photograph. My cat Cloe and I were watching Shakespeare’s Richard the II the other night. She is quite the aristocat and Shakespeare aficionado! There is this famous scene, when Sir John of Gaunt portends the folly of Richard’s actions and the terrible effects they will have on his blessed England. This was delivered with great emotion by Graham Crowden, and Cloe stood up mesmerized by face and voice. Hence the photograph of Figure 1.

This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,–
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

William Shakespeare, “King Richard II”, Act 2 scene 1

Figure 1 – Pine cone bottom showing clockwise and counter clockwise spirals. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

I was struck by the wonderful symmetries of the pine cone in Figure 1. This is a classic example of growth among plants, indeed in all of nature, where the Golden Ratio and its marvelous spirals dominates. It is everywhere, even buried, in approximation, in photography’s “golden rule of thirds! The golden ratio relates to Fibonacci series. 

The Fibonacci series of numbers is 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8,13, 21,34 etc. It’s fundamental property is that each number in the series is the sum of the previous two numbers.

Now for the pine cone in Figure 1, you will note spirals that twist outward in a counter clockwise fashion. Here there are 13 of them. While these spirals dominate your eyes and perception, if you look closely you will also note that there are clockwise spirals. Here there are 8 of them. As is almost always the case with pine cones and such natural objects, such as sunflowers, the two numbers 8 and 13 are consecutive numbers in the Fibonacci series. Ain’t nature wonderful? Seriously however, this kind of growth is a consequence of the way that nature grows and packs petals. The golden ratio and its spirals follow the Fibonacci series and are ubiquitous in nature. 

Figure 1 – Child’s lost patent leather shoe, Salem, MA, November 2, 2019 (c) DE Wolf 2019

I was walking home on Saturday from my favorite coffee shop and came upon the little child’s patent leather shoe, of Figure 1, lying just as I photographed it on the Essex Street cobble stone. It was an appealing, well-worn, object; so I paused to photograph it. The point is obvious. The shoe has an associated story that we really don’t know, but fill in and imagine the details. Is it an artifact of the Halloween Night revelries? Was the child being pushed along by her parents or was she running just a bit too enthusiastically? How angry we’re her parents at the lost? How deep was the financial loss?What did they do to keep the child’s feet warm? Was the child embarrassed and contrite? So much meaning in a little shoe.

And then there are the associations with lost things. The child was once so proud of her shiny little shoe, and now it is lost separated from its mate and owner, condemned to be lost, like childhood itself! This like the “Lost Boys” of “Peter Pan.”I was initially amused that on Instagram the photograph was liked by a lady who specializes in photographing lost things. But I realized that, in truth, there is a certain element of meaning in these objects and that, in reality, objects and their associations are the most ephemeral of qualities. Only antique shops restore significance, and no antique shop would offer just a single shoe. 

Figure 1 – Young woman, rocks, and the sea, Winter Island, Salem, MA, November 2, 2019. (c) DE Wolf 2019

Number One, people, welcome to the stupid time change! Hiss boo!

That said, after three days of raininess, yesterday was spectacular, bright, breezy, and sunny. It was the epitome of a New England autumn day, and we headed out to Salem’s “Winter Island.” “Winter Island is one more wonderful place to bask your soul in the glories of the sea. 

Halloween has inspired me to overcome over caution and do a little more “Street Photography.” Figure 1 is the result of one of those inspired moments: a beautiful young woman in exquisite profile, a basking sun, rocks, and the sea. I snapped a couple of images quickly and was most satisfied with this one. In doing it up, I was surprised to find that I actually needed to dim the brightness. It was just a bit too dramatic and too high in contrast. The sunlight remains the central factor in the photograph, and you may notice just a bit of vignette shading to emphasize it.

Canon T2i with EF70-200 mm f/4L USM Lens at 113 mm, ISO 800,  Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/640th sec at f/6.3 with no compensation using patterned metering.

Figure 1 – A haunted house for the Day of the Dead, Salem, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

Halloween is finally over in Salem, MA. Some would say good riddance! The night’s festivities were fun. People in some pretty great costumes happily wandering the streets! Having fun; that is the key.

It is the Day of the Dead, and, arguably, it may be a moment to be frightened by something, perhaps, paranormal. The term I believe is an oxymoron. But we may take one last look at the “haunted” house of Figure 1. Do You see ghosts? Are they real? Are they created from within our own minds? I suspect in the end that the ghosts and demons that haunt us are of our own creation.

It is a bright, beautiful, colorful, and windy day here in Salem. It is the same terrifying world yet.

Terrence this is Stupid Stuff

A. E. Housman

The world, it was the old world yet.

I was I, my things were wet, 

And nothing now remained to do

But begin the game anew.

Figure 1 – Still life: Japanese lantern flowers with lavender, Salem, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

Today’s image is going to be just a simple still life. These are Japanese lantern flowers, Physalis alkekengi, arranged with lavender. So it both looks and smell good. It his the perfect color combination of Halloween coming to a crescendo! The image was, of course, taken with my iPhone. I experimented with stylizing it in PRISMA, but in the end decided to leave it as a simple photograph.

Figure 1 – Wingaersheek Beach panorama, Gloucester, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

When I was up at Wingaersheek Beach in Gloucester, MA a few weeks back, I took one of those iPhone panoramas to text to people. Tonight I thought that I would take a look at processing it. It is shown in Figure 1. I don’t think that it is the greatest of photographs, but I was struck by several points, perhaps worth sharing as a lesson of this kind of very wide angle photograph.

The image, to me at least, has a nineteenth century feel. The day was very gloomy, as is the photograph. There was an incessant and dramatic wind. The photograph speaks to absolute solitude, stability, and silence. The wide angle is probably close to 90 deg.- extreme! The foreground, the expanse of sand, is exaggerated, and I love it! The horizon seems so very distant as is the little spit of open water. Over all, I feel like the image was taken on Mars, or at least some alien place, as if it was taken from a Rover Explorer in a crater surveying the surrounding edges. And judging from the houses on the left and the people climbing the rocks on the right(both innocuous objects in the image), we have discovered life on Mars, well maybe not Mars, at least Gloucester then!

Figure 1 – Mackeral Skies, cirrocumulus clouds over Salem, MA, October 25, 2019. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

The sky here on the North Shore of Massachusetts often takes on dramatic aspects. As a break from Halloween, I’d like to share the image of Figure 1, which shows what I believe are cirrocumulus clouds forming what are referred to as a  Mackeral sky. “Mackerel sky and mares’ tails make tall ships carry low sails.” So goes an old mariners’ rhyme, referring to skies of rippled cirrocumulus clouds that resemble the striped scale pattern of a mackerel. While the pattern was striking in and of itself, I thought that it would benefit from stylization using the PRISMA program.