W.A.A. Award

I'm pleased to announce that in the recent juried show at the Washington Art Association, my photograph, "Made in America" won 2nd place and a cash prize. Information about the show can be found at: http://www.washingtonartassociation.org/exhibitions/membersshow/thewinners/

Downstream

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL:

Upstream Music

Upstream, 

rivers 

begin

as 

raindrops. 

They fall, 

splash, 

gather in puddles, over

flow into rills 

and creeks, 

runnels and freshets,

minnows and frogs,

beetles and waterbugs,

scarabs and butterflies, 

they tumble down cataracts, 

cascade along brooks and bubbling 

streams that wind through woods and meadows before 

becoming rivers surging white in spring rains, racing, spilling over 

waterfalls, 

where they pause.

In deep pools where trout lurk

they carry on the fugal singing

ever downstream

or along the gulf stream

or upswept

in an airstream 

in fogs and clouds and drops of rain

born at thirty-two feet per second per second.

As they fall they gain momentum

surge and coarse through

the industries of our kind

and whirling gusts 

in the maelstrom of

whatever's next.

We are their children

and long to honor them

as we desecrate their shores.

Rimmon Falls on the Naugatuck

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL:  

Nawkatunk

The first settlers 

followed the tracks 

the native people used

that followed the river

they called, "Naugatuck."

It was the easy way 

through wilderness boscage 

where native people hunted and fished 

and where settlers soon built mills, 

developed expertise in brass and copper

and later rubber, 

and where imaginative people 

built what they imagined. 

When railroads shot up the valley 

like vines up a sycamore, 

opportunity drew laborers

sprouting families, churches and schools, 

social clubs and selectmen, 

societies and brotherhoods, 

sisterhoods and neighborhoods, 

unions and country clubs,

parties and alliances,

relationships that helped communities 

endure and thrive.

Huntington, Birmingham, 

Ansonia, Humphreysville,

Beacon Falls, Naugatuck, 

Mattatock, Thomaston, 

Wolcotteville, and Winsted became

the towns that made the world's copper and brass.

Along the river by Rimmon Falls

in the time before the settlers,

near where the brass mills used to be, 

its told, 

there was "this old tree," 

"Naw-ka-tunk,"

in the native tongue,

a sweet place in the shade

prized for good fishing.

Watch Your Step

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: 

Move to the Rear

Watch your step, 

Move to the rear. 

Hold on to the hand rails 

when stepping up or stepping down.

Please keep your bags out of the aisles. 

Don't crowd.

Let departing passangers pass.

Watch your step getting off. 

Move to the rear.

Good Ol' Jack

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL:  Would you buy a used digger from a raked gasser like that?

For the New Year No.2: Sweetheart

Beth Slater Whitson:  "Let me call you 'sweetheart.'  I'm in love with you."

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: I guess this series is devoted to the many ways our cars become us.

Remembered in Goshen

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL:  It was probably sometime in 2010, wandering in Goshen, when I discovered this farm. It was no longer in operation, and I spoke to the owner about his plans. There were men running earth movers in this field, but he said he intended to continue farming here though he lived elsewhere. He gave me permission to walk the property and photograph. He told me about the crumbling graveyard in the middle of the field behind me, and though I went back several times afterward, I never saw him again.  The detailing on the barn was crude, but I liked the bold proportions of the two cupolas, like no others I've seen. Because overstated, they work especially well in silhouette. The lower level was flooded, but the owner told me he hoped to save it.  When I went by this fall all the barns were gone.

I could have removed the power lines from this image and have done as much in other images, but such wires are a common feature of farmland, and I liked their relation to the local pole beside the barn. Was it put there in 1914 to bring the first electricity from the new Housatonic power grid in Falls Village. This was a family farm, and from the rambling sprawl of the house, I suspect it encompassed several generations. Usually I know something of the history of barns I photograph, but I know nothing of this one, and now it's gone. I must make a pilgrimage to the cemetery to see if the names are legible now.  

I can still hear one photo instructor asking me why I bother to take such photographs. I dunno.  I just do. Perhaps it's just for the record.

For the New Year

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL:  It's hard for me to believe that I've been making entries to this blog for a full six years, that this is the 973rd photograph I've posted.  My sole aim when I began was to challenge myself to a program of self-improvement by  committing to post a new photo daily (at least every third day) and to try to make each photograph better than the previous one.

The role of this written journal has evolved. It has always been a place for me to leave notes to myself and to record thoughts on photographic issues and to discuss what happened on the shoot.  More and more it has become a place for me to react in an expressive manner to the photograph posted and often to try to make photo and text speak as a whole.  The first draft of "Prison," was composed in these journals, and at least since then it has come to feel like a kind of failure when the text portion is less ambitious than the visual.  That new challenge has slowed down the production of new postings and has often played an, arguably, improper role in the picture selected for the day.  To remedy that, I resolve to forgive myself for more frequently posting a picture without any journal entry.

I will also recall that, "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom," and will forgive myself in advance the foolishness of my excesses. I will repeat Blake's words thrice daily to inoculate myself against the arrogance of foolishness.

A final issue occurs to me regarding this blog.  The daily stream of photographs created by a blog has its own story-telling rhythm. It is totally unlike the experience of looking at images in an exhibition or in a photo book.  Daily posting is less tolerant of images that rely on their context with other images to exert their full meaning.  By posting a single image at a time, every image seeks autonomy.  That's part of what makes producing this blog a valuable challenge for me.  However, as in the images shared from travels, and as I look toward books, I sometimes feel the need to post supporting images, images that fill in a bit of background to the larger story.  If in the future I make more supporting posts, the test for posting on the blog remains to try never to post an image that I would not enjoy framing, hanging, and looking at on my wall.

Many thanks to all those who look and/or read sometimes, all the time or from tim to time, and especially thanks to all those who occasionally send word to tell me what they thought about or especially liked or would like to see differently.  So begins year seven.