Figure 1 – Reflections in blue glass, Natick, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2018

Over the holidays, I took the image of Figure 1 with my IPhone 6.0. It shows reflections in a blue glass art object. The piece had curves in multiple directions, which created great complexity in the reflections. The significant point is that there colors do not represent interference patterns, as for instance with an oil slick, but are, in fact, the distortions of various light sources and objects reflected in the glass. Look closely and you can even make out the photographer with his black wool cap and arm raised with camera bottom center and just to the left. You’ve always got to play with this kind of image to maximize the ideal perspective. Here the perspective creates a sense of flow, where the light seems to cascade downward.

Figure 1 – Eastern Bluebrd male, Sudbury, MA Dec. 30, 2018. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

I consider myself quite blessed that each winter the Eastern Bluebirds, Sialia sialis, visit my backyard trees and feeders. This passed weekend there was quite a flutter of them and I took advantage of a wonderful winter sunlight to capture the image of a male with deep blue plumage.

There is a majestic, thrilling magic to the bluebird. I feel content and complete each year when they return to my feeders. It would be too simple to talk to you and offer up quotes about the bluebird of happiness. To birders of my generation the expert field guide were always those of Roger Tory Peterson (1908-1996) – drawings not photographs. So let me share instead the words that Peterson chose for his epitaph, which really defines why people are so drawn to the avian world.

“Birds are the most vivid expression of life.”

Canon T2i with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens at 310 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/500th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – You are so in my space. (c) DE Wolf 2017.

It is New Year’s Eve. My cat Cloe has informed me that if there is to be an ultimate “Animal Face” for the year 2018, it is to be she. So Figure 1 is a portrait of Cloe, the sweetest most loving cat that there is. Well, I am just a bit prejudice, of course.

Cats are the world’s watchers. They have infinite patience. A vole got in the basement this year, and Cloe camped out by the door to the basement not for hours but for days. As a result they are rumored to be knowing and wise. They are featured in several science fiction works as guardians of the universe.

I’ll end this year with a quote from Winston Churchill that pretty much says it all:

Figure 1 – The View down NYC’s Fifth Avenue from 84th Street. (c) DE Wolf 2018.

I took the image of Figure 1 over the Thanksgiving weekend. It is the view down Fifth Avenue of New York City from 84th Street. I was focused at the time on the wonderful cloud patterns and their accentuation using the IPhone’s dramatic “Noir” filter. Soon gone will be the generation that remembers the classic Wratten Deep Red A Filter! However, on work-up, my mind turned to Edward Steichen’s fabulous gum bichromate over platinum print of a century ago of the Flatiron Building, with its deep blue tones. So I took on the digital task of cold toning this photograph. Perhaps I went too far. But I really like the moody Stonehenge effect.

Figure 1 – Fossil Turtle at the AMNH (c) DE Wolf 2018.

Today it’s turtles again. This time something new, a marvelous fossil turtle and a photograph that I took at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City with my son. It is archelon ischyros which lived during the late cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) and is estimated to have weighed 4500 pounds. As a result it is believed to be the largest sea turtle species to have ever lived.

This image creates new meaning, namely that the eye sockets are the window to the soul.

And inevitably we have Ogden Nash’s poem “Fossils.”

Figure 1 – American toad. Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, May 20, 2016, Sudbury, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

Here is one of my favorite “Animal Faces” images, taken with my IPhone while lying on the ground at the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge. It is a certain demonstration of the IPhone’s close-up abilities. And it continues the saga or question of animal consciousness. The toad was well aware of me and frozen in an “if I don’t move, you won’t see me” position.” Such reptilian eyes, so well adapted to trigger its tongue to shoot out at the sign of a passing insect. But other than that we rightly or wrongly attribute the look to be one of empty vacancy. True or not we cannot be certain. But we must remember that this little toad can trace its lineage back to Hylonomus lyelli, the first reptile and the first animal known to have fully adapted to land life about 315 million years ago, during the Late Carboniferous Period.

Figure 1 – On the Brink, Natick, MA, December 2018. (c) DE Wolf 2018.

We appear to be poised on the Brink of the Great Recession of 2019. Orange causes aside, it makes me reflect. Silently and slowly the great Amazon of the 19th Century Sears Roebuck has been on an irreversible decline, like any dinosaur hopelessly and irrevocably facing the path to extinction. Last year our local Sears went for months without its escalator, as if puzzled whether there would be any point. I sensed otherwise. The escalator was briefly repaired. But then the second floor was shut down and the escalator removed. Treated like fools, we were told in giant signage that there was to be a newer and greater second floor. But in the end, as was inevitable, we were told that the store was to close, symbolic of the decline of brick and mortar stores. All items went on sale, employees on notice! And now the final blow even the hangers and manikins are being sold.

The manikins have been stripped of their heads, and their their clothes, like a great slave army up for sale! Yes the economy is on the brink, and everything is on sale!