Figure 1 – Winter ice, Lincoln, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2017.

My “ice walk” in Lincoln, Massachusetts with my son on the solstice was very satisfying photographically. At one point I trudged off the path and through the bush to capture some winter scenes of the marsh in a state of semi-frozen. Here is the first image that I took, which I was very happy with. This is truly as it looks and even more truly why we live in New England – that and the intimate understanding that the land and seasons in Massachusetts give us of the pursuit of liberty that began on a bridge not so very far from the site, where this photograph was taken. I have stood by that bridge on the April anniversary of the battle and as the chilly wind blew in my face developed both an understanding and a true respect. There are ten rights in the Bill of Rights.

I am driven again to quote Henry David Thoreau. He and Robert Frost are the quintessential chroniclers of winter in New England.

“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.”

Henry David Thoreau Journals,  August 23, 1853

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 100 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/400th sec at f/10.0 with no exposure compensation

Figure 1 – Ice along the path on the eve of the winter’s solstice. (c) DE Wolf 2017.

I am looking toward spring, but there are obstacles both physical and metaphorical. The biggest one is winter, which the calendar suggests is going to hang around for a while. Figure 1 was taken on our Winter Solstice walk in Lincoln, Massachusetts. At one point the path was a solid sheet of ice that had been undermined by draining water and which had collapsed into this tangled mass of broken ice. Needless-to-say we paused to photograph it and then steered judiciously around it.

This is Thoreau country – this site is just a few miles from Walden Pond. The eagle in its gyre could easily see both. Thoreau is never far from our thoughts, especially in winter. He gives expression to the fierce independence of the Massachusetts spirit. We are the heirs of his spirit.

“Why do you flee so soon, sir, to the theaters, lecture-rooms, and museums of the city? If you will stay here awhile I will promise you strange sights. You shall walk on water; all these brooks and rivers and ponds shall be your highway. You shall see the whole earth covered a foot or more deep with purest white crystals . . . and all the trees and stubble glittering in icy armor.”

Henry David Thoreau Journals, October 18, 1859

Figure 1 – Sunset on the winter solstice, 2016. (c) AB Wolf 2017.

Happy New Year to all my friends and readers of Hati and Skoll. Thank you all for your continued support and interest!

It has become a tradition here at Hati and Skoll to speak in the New Year about two things: the tabula rasa (the blank slate) and paths. Reminded again, about world events it is hard to think this year about blank slates. There is just way too much excess baggage, just too much moral turpitude on the planet. As for paths, we continue to have them, there are a multitude of options. We can follow Michele Obama and choose the high road, you know, just as our mothers taught us. But …

Anyway, I do not mean to be so glum. I am sharing today a photograph taken on the winter solstice not by me but by my son. It shows the slippery path to light. I am one who hates the darkness of winter and it is important to me that I do not have to wait until the solstice for the light to increase at night. Here in Boston the earliest sunsets occur on December 15. Thereafter, the minutes of light are taken off in the morning. It is a quirk or vagary of celestial mechanics.

So astronomically we are on the ascendance. Let’s make that metaphoric and follow the admonition of Mark Twain to “Dream other dreams, and better,” my friends. It is ultimately in our power.

Happy New Year to you all.

David

Figure 1 – Silver Christmas Balls. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

I have gone in search of Christmas and I have brought my Iphone along to record the moment. It is an odd year in America and has been since the election. There is a glum resignation that has proven grinchlike and the malls and houses just don’t seem decorated in the usual optimistic way. I will except from that the hot air figures that people place on their lawns: the santas, the snowmen, the nativity scenes. I mean a blow-up baby Jesus is just the thing to ring in the season.

But I decided to wear a positive attitude and see where Christmas lay hidden this year. I smirked as I passed a store with a tee-shirt saying “I’m grumpy today and only speaking to my pets.” That was just as i felt and I thought of my cat who had greeted me this morning with a meow, a kiss on the nose, and a request for an ear rub. There was a little boy with his father, both all dressed up. They were headed to have breakfast with Santa. Many years ago my father and I encountered Santa at the Automat. All of this points to the obvious fact that “Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus,” I have seen him at the mall.

“and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.  May that be truly said of us, and all of us!  And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!“

Yeah, Yeah! Hmm, I am not there yet! But I did find and delight in the little silver balls on a silver Christmas tree of Figure 1. I like the IPhone for its ability to get in really close, and it is an important point that you have to get in close in photography and in life to avoid the distraction of unrelated background. As with all things, I went to see if Christmas can be found, or at least, is explained somewhere on the internet. There I found this from humorist Dave Barry, which seems very much to leave Dickens to the side and gets very much to the point,

“In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it ‘Christmas’ and went to church; the Jews called it ‘Hanukkah’ and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say ‘Merry Christmas!’ or ‘Happy Hanukkah!’ or (to the atheists) ‘Look out for the wall!”

Figure 1 -Hand silhouette, IPhone photograph, (c) DE Wolf 2016.

I took the image of Figure 1 a few weeks back. It is an image in a store window that is trans-illuminated – essentially a shadowbox. The hand is meant to be a backdrop to a collection of clothing and hand bags. I have chosen it to be the subject of the photograph. I like the elegance of the pose and the purity of the black and white. It is quite literally a “black and white photograph.” It is striking that a hand alone can portray a dramatic sense of animation and beauty. The absence of color and, well, the rest of the body creates a hint of mystery about it. We wonder what exactly is the meaning of the pose. And at another level, we look down at our own hands to figure out exactly how the thumb had to be placed to be absent from the shadow. You will notice also that there is a certain ambiguity of the edges. You know that they are sharp, but somehow they seem not quite right, as if they are fuzzed out. This I suspect is a combination of optical illusion and digital aliasing. It seems like the hand of a ballerina or more precisely of classical Indian dance, of which I learn that there are eight traditional forms. The eyes are meant to be the “window to the soul,” but here the expressing hand takes over.

Figures 1 – Spuds. IPhone photograph. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

Figure 1 is of spuds, fingerling potatoes to be more precise. It is, needless-to-say taken with my IPhone during a boring moment buying vegetables at the local farm-stand. What is appealing about potatoes photographically is their surface textures: cracks, bumps, crevices, and eyes. Eyes indeed, because that is the other point. They seem to take on magical shapes. The large one in front I imagine to be a fish or better still a manatee. The double tusker at top is certainly a walrus. And the curly one in the middle is perhaps a ghost. And, of course, the most appealing point of all is that we get to see the magical in the most mundane.

Figure 1 – IPhone portrait of Steve. (c) DE Wolf 2016

Figure 1 is of Steve, a bull mastiff who visited our offices this morning. Despite my aversion to cute and cuddly animal pictures, his face was so wise, knowing, and wrinkled that it seemed to demand me to photograph him. The IPhone did an amazing job of capturing the texture on his nose and the hairs on his face. He was very interested in my pants legs which carried the smell of my cat, and I think that I offended his sense of politeness, the sacred canine-human pact forged so many millennia ago, when I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cellphone instead of a treat.

Figure 1 – Music of the spheres, IPhone photograph. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

I wanted to share another IPhone photograph. This is simply a pair of folded paper spheres. In actuality they are white Christmas ornaments. I think that I am getting better at framing with the IPhone, an acquired skill, and I cannot complain enough about all the images that people post on Facebook with tilted poorly composed perspectives. Once you get the hang of it, it’s not really that difficult. I also think that some image processing is critical, particularly to be able to crop, set levels, and apply a curved look-up-table to the image. Of course, I also like converting first to black and white and then sepia toning. And this takes me back to the opportunity of this image – one of my favorite themes to explore – the pure tone-on-tone, white-on-white. The IPhone offers the advantage of being always with you. It is also more innocuous. While I don’t see any posted restriction, places like the local shopping mall may frown on DSLR photograph.