Wicked Halloween

Detonations

PHOTOGRAPHER’S JOURNAL:  Driving over Connecticut’s hills I am entranced as the line of trees on each side of the road swells as I approach and pass, and I have had the recurring delusion that I am in the midst of an unending fireworks finale. 

The road between Warren and Kent is of special beauty, and the angle of the sun at sunset as it lights the trees around numerous ponds offers photographer’s a ready made palette from which to compose. I spent over an hour making photos here yesterday, and it was not my first visit this fall. 

While I was shooting from my tripod another photographer appeared. We exchanged greetings. He had spotted the pond, as I had, from the roadside. He made sure he was not in my field of view, explored angles, took a few photographs, and left. These are services the Kent Land Trust, which protects the pond from development, have no idea they provide to people they never meet.

Phantom Way

PHOTOGRAPHER’S JOURNAL: Concrete piers, marching across the swamp, a phalanx of mourners in close formation or at rest like headstones. We know from those who came before us that once they carried a cable system for harvesting ice from Bantam Lake to keep perishables cool through long summers to the final harvests of Thanksgiving. It was part of the routine of life, and through much of the year this alley was busy with traffic.

Monument Mills Water Tower

PHOTOGRAPHER’S JOURNAL: A rain of yellow leaves drifts, twirls, drifts again across my window. Autumn’s call has never been so insistent. One of the first places it drew me was to Housatonic, MA, where I photographed early yellows from within the ruins of an old Monument Mills textile factory. I processed several color versions before turning to black & white. In the end, I thought I liked it better. I wonder what others think.

Habits of Mind

NOTE: For those who ordered copies of Brass Valley: The Fall of an American Industry, at the Washington Art Association, the latest information I have is that a large shipment of books will reach the U.S. on Oct. 22. I still have a limited number of copies which will be on sale at the upcoming book presentation / signing at the library in Meriden on October 20. As soon as I have the books, I will make arrangements with Washington Art Association to notify those who placed orders there. Thank you for your patience.

PHOTOGRAPHER’S JOURNAL: Habits of mind– Where do they come from? How are they connected to learning? to culture? to genetics? to individuality? What is their relation to spontaneity and ecstasy? to style?

Today we are Information Technology people. When we kept the wheels of 19th and 20th century industry turning we were machinists and machine operators and mechanical engineers. At another time or another place we were stone cutters. The thriving culture is fertile, innovative, and we become our tools.