shadetree407

i wonder, if down the road some fifty or hundred years, give or take, if mother nature will fukk mankind the same way mankind has fukked mother nature, relentlessly.

 

here i am, a hypocrit - i stand by mother nature and cheer for the hurricanes and melting glaciers to reduce mankinds population to smitherines, while at the same time, partake in the exploitation that fuels this collective rape.

 

where does the balance lie? i don't know.

is just another day,

that i wish that i was dead,

that way,

all of the pain would vanish,

like the day that the ripples on this lake,

stood still.

what makes this shot so powerful, to me, is not the asthetics or the composition of the photograph. it's the symbol of a house burning... more than just a house burning... a civilization burning... and the windows are empty - no human occupation.... burned themselves beyond the capacity for the land to provide for their numbers. it is impossible to tell how severe the drought was that is theorized to have driven them out of this area. what remains to this day is that nature is in command and if population goes on unchecked by virtue of man's inventions, in time, it does becomed checked and even checkmated.

 

and is this what we are essentially doing to ourselves now?

(this was written by my twin sister, in response to a pro-military type-A personality on another message board.... but it is SO fitting here, under the house on fire, that i had to re-post it)

 

I must clarify that when I speak of humankind's lack of responsibility to "the entire pack", I'm not just referring to fellow humanity. I am a Panentheist. To me, humans hold no elevated position in the big scheme of things but are merely a fiber within it. I don't limit it to discussions of despots such as Hitler and Pol Pot where humanity is attempting to gain power over another segment of humanity. I include the total disregard for all other life forms that we have a tendency to consider as beneath us in importance.

 

There are those that wouldn't think to kill another human, but will mindlessly destroy a rain forest to make 'room for the expansion'. There are those that would use the world's oceans as a dump for their excessive waste with no thought to the balance of marine life that is a large part of the health of those oceans. Or use them to test our war machines with no thought to the whales and dolphins that will die because of it. There are those that deem it quite proper to anihilate another life form if they happen to be in the way of sustaining our insatiable needs for comfort and supremacy. There are those that deem it necessary to have an 'elimination' of a portion of a deer herd because it happens to wander in your back yard and partake of your garden, never realizing that your garden is in their back yard! I could use up four pages of posting space citing examples. It's a mindset I'm talking about here. A mindset which you (the status quo), too, seem to hold. That the Earth and the Physical Realm was put here for the use and furtherance only of man.

 

I didn't mean to insinuate that a hurricane had an intelligence that zeroed in and targeted a specific area. I didn't mean to insinuate that a certain amount of cyclic weather activity was not in play. I meant to illustrate that if you wipe out the Natural purposes of a barrier island, don't complain because the storm damage reaches into the billions. I meant to illustrate that when you destroy acres of wetlands to build homes, don't complain when a tropic area turns into a desert. Or, if you can't feed your children, don't expect me to do it because you reproduced with the enthusiasm of a rat. Again, I could cite four pages of examples. Natural Law is a system, a Scheme, that cares not who or what attempts to work outside of it before the balancing kicks in. If you think that, that man will ever have the intelligence or power to override it, it is you that has a stunning disconnect from reality, not me.

 

And, if you think that is balderdash, I'm sad. And, all I can do is continue to save maybe just one big Live Oak tree. Or, rant and rave about the senseless killing of wolves from an airplane so that one more trophy hunter can hang a taxidermied head over their fireplace. Or, send what I can to bolster the fight to save the Arctic and the Polar Bears. Or think twice before I toss that litter out of my car window. Oh yes, I do drive a car. I never said we should go back to horse and buggy. But, we should most definitely temper progress with a purer sense of purpose and compassion for all life. The bigger and better and strength through numbers mindsets will be our doom. And, with all due respect, if you think not, I offer that it would behoove you to remove yourself from the proverbial ostrich position

 

it's been over two years since i made any prints in the darkroom. is my spirit dead, dormant, or lost in space? sometimes, i do wonder if it's easier to just take my life. i'm good at wondering and then i wander off into the woods to take more pictures. in my closet and in my mind they rest.

 

i wish i could recite the single stanza poem i wrote for this picture. oh where oh where did i post it on yahoo.

 

oh, here is is:

 

 

the jewel is cast below the full moons shadow...

and in her wisp a trace of tranquility begs to be forgotten...

the shadow advances as the earth greets the developing sky...

and the stars diminish in magnitude.

 

 

We see life before us as we enter from where we left and we think we have to go after it with a vengence. Set it "on fire' with ourself. Make our footprints in the shore and steer the ripples of our lake. As time passes the 'shadows' of our false perceptions and errant responses grow increasingly and we sadly lose vision of the jewel. Too late, we realize that it's our 'house', us, that is on 'fire' and the water to extinguish it is out of control in all our throwing in of rocks. We slide off the shore and sink into the depths gasping and remembering that jewel that was there all along hiding just behind the mountain peaks we felt the need to conquer, hoping for the smoke to clear so we can grasp one last look at what should have been and can no longer be.

i will be back at this lake by thursday or friday. i hope that she whispers sweet nothings into my ears. from there, i will lose myself for another 3 weeks carrying my home on my back while walking in my living room.

 

i get to cheat the first day - by hiring a pack train to take me and my gear up to what they call "the lip" - 5000 feet above kings canyon in 8 miles. i think if i did that myself, it would take me 2 days and 2 hours of muscle cramps to revive from that hot north wall of the canyon.

 

anyhowzzzzzzz... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 

later.... and thanks for the comment dan

what a gorgeous picture. my immediate impression was to click on it to see it in a larger screen size. it is beautiful and i would not change a thing. congratulations :)

need to return to this spot soon. very soon. and then head on up to a lake named marion. some things are easy to master. other things are not. mastering the ability to print comes with time and patience. it arrives when it becomes second nature to yourself. mastering yourself seems to arrive when you no longer have the need to prove yourself to yourself or to others. easy to say - most difficult to achieve. i'm still caught in a crossfire between wanting and wanting to not want. just why did i put up a few pictures on photo dot net anyways? to show myself? to prove something? to affirm some sort of need to be seen and recognized? probably yes to all three of these questions. maybe i'm forever a fool.

most people prolly will not like this but i'm gonna toss it out on

the table for a good carving up

 

i'm more interested in what it means symbolically to people who look

at it and also, if the symbolism changes when you mentally attach the

sub-title to the image.

 

thanks.

what comes-to-mind when viewing this abstraction?

 

next, how does the injection of a sub-title influence what comes-to-mind?

the universe is heaven,

is it not?

a flower ever unfolding,

without beginning or end in sight.

 

oh science tries to explain it all,

with big bangs and inflation,

i find it all so confusing,

and so i ask what color is this flower?

 

let me stand next to an oak tree,

on a cold winters day,

and breathe my misty breath unto it's bark,

oh dear oak tree, how did this all begin?

 

i hear silence,

the moist vapor leaving my breath,

lands onto the rough outer bark,

and i see it absorb into the skin of the tree.

 

she smiles and whispers into my ear:

 

when all is still i sing a song of silence,

when the wind stirs through my limbs i sing a song of melody,

when a storm draws near and tears away my older limbs i sing a song of rebirth,

when you breathe into my skin so tough,

i will tell you that your moisture is linked to my life,

in the most harmonius way,

we stand united,

this moment,

this place.

 

as i embrace this tree,

and a tear falls gracefully from my eyes,

this oak tree has taught me that we are one,

here and now,

this moment,

this place.

 

> Most of my critiques are more to the negative side due to the fact that photo.net is rife with backslappers that will shower "outstandings" down on any remotely above average image. I don't want that on my images, and I suspect that most serious photographers don't want it on their images either.

 

i have to agree with this. in fact, i wish that people didn't critique at all, unless it was solicited. too much of it becomes cheerleading or bashing with one person following the next. it would be nice if ratings were dropped entirely because they are really just a person's own personal opinion - and that can change with moods as easily as the phase of the moon.

one time, i chucked a rock into the middle of a pond. i was greeted with the ripples washing up against the shore and they touched my boots. then the ripples reflected back into the lake. not long afterwards, the ripples that went the other way reflected against the rocks on the opposing shoreline and, although diminished greatly in magnitude, they washed up against the shore and touched my boots only to reflect back into the lake. not long after that, the surface was again like glass. suddenly, a fish jumped offering me a whole new perspective on the reflections of waves and ripples. i picked up a pinecone, twirled it between my thumb and forefinger, and then walked away realizing that i had a choice to either drop the pinecone or toss it into the pond. may it grow into a whitebark....

 

...later on that evening, while gazing up at the stars, i saw the rings from the rock that i tossed into the lake. yes, they started out as rings and ended up reflecting into a new form determined the perimiter of the lake. no design. no premeditation. no plan of attack. simply cause, effect, and the energetic ability to do so.

thank you scott...

oh yes, the descending angel.

 

i can not remember what text i included with it however. not long ago is sometimes too long ago to remember it all. and then there are many things that have come and gone a long time ago that seem just like yesterday.

 

the mind does transcend time but is bound by time. what a paradox.

hello Jason,

 

i'd like to address this issue you bring up...

 

> What do we do without technology, now that we depend on it? My computer still crashes periodically, and I've given up any hope of repairing it too. Instead of seeking technological certainty, I make do.

 

i think this is exactly what we need to do. i have found that the addition of technology and all of the wonderful connections (and disconnections) that it brings into my life also causes me to become more spread out in the things that i end up paying attention to. in that regard, i end up spending less and less time in the darkroom and more and more time contributing to another compulsion. i never did tell you that i am a compulsive obsessive, did i? hehehehehee... well anyway, i do get spread out pretty thin and my photographic output suffers tremendously. not that it's a bad thing i guess, but sometimes, it does weigh upon my spirit that i do not tend to the things that my spirit calls for the most. with all of this technology around us, i wonder how many other people have fallen into it's prey - or have just switched the coloring of the passion of the hobby and gone with the flow? but what to do without the technology... i think that is easy to answer and i can already see that you have done it:

 

"Most of my time is spent playing with chemicals in the darkroom, or learning a new genre of photography (life in the cold hard modern urbanity). No novel discoveries, or landscapes, but more time spent in the light of the darkroom, working chemistry in the early hours of the morning."

 

> I have no energy for exhibitions, and thankfully can afford to decline all the ones which come my way. In 20 years maybe I'll let go (when time weakens my grasp of my own work) .

 

when i began photography, it was an inspiration most likely coming from one ansel adams after i discovered his books and the large format camera. "aha, so that's how he gets those images to look so sharp" i said to myself. it was also a love (one that has never left me) for the wilderness and what i can bring back from the wilderness to share with others. the mistake that i made which only brought me stress was the idea of taking it to another level stemming from this sharing idea that i had - that is, to make some money at it along the way. this idea put me into a print production mode and the more that i produced, the more bordom would seem to consume me. having a family to support also cut in on the quality time to spend in the darkroom. the only way that i could break away from this was to call it quits for awhile and take up something else. that i did.... but i still yearn to return to the old days where i can just make a print every now and then just for the "fun of it" and leave all other motivations completely out of the picture.

 

>>> Recently I read how Fay Godwin despises wilderness, in deference to the connections of man's mark on the landscape. No matter how hard I search amongst the ruins of urbanity, grace never flows with a rhythm as natural as that of a landscape's river.

 

agreed

 

>>>> Before my computer crashed, I received an email from you, with a densely woven symbolic and parabolic tale. It took me more than one reading to link the allegory; to grasp the poetry and to see beyond the concrete symbols.

 

forgive me but i do remember sending a few emails, but in the last one, i just can not remember exactly what it was about. i guess it was a good one since you say that you had to read it twice - and i am wrestling with myself trying to remember what exactly it was that i was talking about. i definately need a refresher.

 

at the present moment, i am spending time doing remodel work on the house. a couple of years ago, i took up model airplane building and flying. that is something that i always wanted to do since youth and it feels good right now to be doing just that. it's sort of like reliving a childhood want - but yes, the spirit of photography still weighs in on me and i think of it daily. i just do not know exactly what i want out of it and perhaps in order for me to return to it with full fevor, i simply have to pass on through the divorce of making prints for the market and the exhibit until the pull becomes so strong, that i return with the full passion that i had when i first started doing it in the first place.

 

>>>>> I tried working with a Wista field camera recently; it must be the least enjoyable experience I had. I thought I was losing my eyesight, trying to work the groundglass; suffocating behind the horsecloth, and collapsing screws, nipping my fingers with the plate hinges, and using my nose as an emergency support for lack of tripod ball-head tension. Admittedly, the idea of a field camera doesn't appeal to me as much as suffering with an unbearable monorail.

 

well, if that isn't a sign to use what you already know so well... then i don't know what is - yes, the square format seems to be it and i have found that when something is working well, there is no need to change. for me, the 4x5 has worked well and so i never deviated - only the scene on the groundglass deviates as well as what lies in my mind to express. i do continue to take pictures and add to the arsenal of unprinted negatives. the darkroom however is on hold.

 

>>>>>> My thoughts about posting here? I have a reticence to exorcise. I'll get to work it here. It may be the only thread, holding me to this website, other than the technical data - yet a thread I'm indebted to you for keeping alive.

 

 

thanks Jason, i'll keep contributing here. it's a good safe place at the moment. and gosh, there are just so many never ending wonderful images (setting aside lack of real life detail that an original image presents) that people put on this website. just amazing - one of the better qualities the internet has to offer.... but i do have to extrrapolate what any of these images look like in real life.

 

 

cheers,

 

Paul.

 

 

Nice composition Chris.

 

I noticed you named the R.Cyn. ruins "thunderbird"

 

Awhile back, i gave it the name "wings of perception"

 

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=1240717

 

 

funny how names take on similar form sometimes

 

:)

Hi Jason,

 

Yep, that has happened to me too. My email is currently experiencing technical difficulties. And unfortunately, eathlink no longer supports my browser. Apparently, if you do not update your software and keep pace, you end up getting dropped. I don't know why they can't make all of this stuff backwards compatible. Maybe cost IS the issue.

 

Anyway, since my email address got dumped and I am unlikely to go and buy a new computer operating system just so I can download the latest version of netscape, why not just use this message board (the morraine lake picture) as the place to meet? Nobody comes here anyways - not many that is.

 

Thoughts?

andy,

 

just use the google search engine and type in the keyword phrase "frozen lake & cliffs" or "ansel adams frozen lake & cliffs"

 

that should be enough information to lead you to the ansel adams print.

sorry, i don't sell my work anymore. i got tired of doing that.

> Someone posted the question about why the shot runs uphill. The ground does, indeed, seem to be not parallel with the bottom of the frame.

 

i saw this post earlier today and didn't understand what he meant by running up hill but now i do as i find myself having a good little laugh (actually, a large laugh). OF COURSE IT RUNS UPHILL because i was shooting the scene in the mountains situated on a gradual slope!

 

and thank goodness for terrain; just think how boring the world would be if all mountains were as flat as the tops of the oceans on a calm summer day.... unless of course, you like flat wetlands full of mosquitos.

here's the shot i was telling you about hugo. the digitalization really reduces the quality of the image but see if you can find several of the "starquake" star tracks...

http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/sierra_stardust/ detail?.dir=/a+visual+poem&.dnm=total+solitude.jpg

hugo,

 

you can have fun with that - you can say that he rotated the camera and then watch their brains churn away trying to figure that one out.

 

i remember at an arts & crafts show awhile back, i had this star trail image (looking west) and there were some of the star trails that had wiggles in them. the reason they had wiggles is because my film (keep in mind it's 4x5 square inches) does not lie flat on the film plate holder as the temperature changes. the film will tend to warp... and so the position of the film moves around with respect to the focal plane of the camera leaving star tracks that are not exactly linear in parts of the film....

 

but i didn't feel like explaining all of that so i just said this:

 

"you know that the earth has earthquakes, right? well, that star was having a starquake"... and they walked away thinking about starquakes - heheheheheheohahahaha

> When I looked at your photo a second time, another thought came to mind: the trees seem to be reaching, trying to follow the moving stars.

 

jeff, check out the post i left titled "ovals & circles".... i got more philosophical in that post and it's sort of in line with what you are saying.... as for the statement "we're doing most of the moving"... well, that kind of knocked the socks right off the "man is at the center of the universe" idea way back when - haha. Actually tho, we, the earth, the sun, the solar system, the milky way... everything is in dynamic motion collectively... so in that vein, we're not doing most of the moving but rather, are part of all of what's moving - the expansion of the universe.... yes, those trees do reach for the stars, especially the one called "sun"... the one that gives the trees the capacity to make their own food.

> This one does take the cake, though. You must have frozen your watchamacallits off, though. Even in the summer at the 8000 ft level in the White Mts. of CA it's not that toasty up that high, and it's still a good hike to the summit. When I camped there a few years ago I found I'd tied my tent to a tree containing a mountain bluebird nest within and spent some hours watching mamma and pappa bird taking turns catching insects for the brood. Sorry no pix, just memories. Including recollections of the cute "friendly" ground squirrels begging and stealing our food along with the signs warning us that they may have been carrying rabies. Ah, the joys of camping in the mts.

 

 

it's these memories that matter the most sometimes... many of which the camera can never do justice for... or even catch for that matter. as for it being cold up there, well, yes, it can be. but the day i took this shot, it was a rather pleasant indian summer day and did not get all that cold at night. also, the temperature in the morning when i went back to the camera to turn it off may have not caught my perception, as my mind was more focused on getting over to the camera before any sunrise alpenglow started to "blow out the sky" in the negative... so i was walking rather quickly. i do remember, that after tearing down the camera and walking back to my truck, it was not all that cold tho. i took the picture in the patriarch grove just under 12,000 feet.