Tag Archives: skyline

Prior to visiting Idaho for the first time, if anyone had ever told me that I would love it there…year round…I would have called them nuts.  I’ve been visiting Idaho for a few years now and it keeps getting better.  We just returned from a few days in Boise and McCall and I’m already looking forward to going back!  It doesn’t hurt that I experienced a few photographic firsts on this trip: my first bald eagle, my first hummingbird, and my first overnight shoot.  But as you’ll see, Oliver (Serene’s nephew), stole the show. Many thanks to Serene’s family for planning such a great trip and inviting me to join them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My nephew, Josh, and I took to London for the 2013 holiday season.  I was so thrilled to take him on his first trip to Europe.  He was (almost) as excited to be my on-call photographic subject for 10 days.  You can tell by his expression, right?  Let’s do it again, Josh!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In moments of self-awareness, I can acknowledge that one of the reasons why I gravitated so strongly to photography is that I love to remember.   In moments of self-honesty, however, I can also admit that not all of my remembering is good for me.  I can’t remember (har har) what set this train of thought into motion last fall, but I have been thinking about this in the context of lots of things going on in my life since then.  Lots of questions come up.  When do I transition from fondly reminiscing about the past to mentally setting up house in it?   When does trying to reference a lesson learned transition into reliving and wallowing in a negative experience?  How often is history rewritten in my head?    Does it all keep me from moving forward?   And, of course…why?  I made a list of what comes up for me when I think about the past.  Ideas about myself, my childhood, my relationships.  There are plenty of dark spaces in those thoughts.  However, this series is meant to depict associations that are mostly joyful for me, although I have both positive and negative associations with them all.  I’m hopeful that this exercise might provide a segue into examining the shadowy corners.

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

  • LOVE this series. LOVE.

  • steph

    love love love the mouthpiece. i have, to this day, never heard you play. but i love that you love to remember, as i do too. and i’ve asked myself similar questions. it’s hard for me to know where that line is between remembering and regressing, and i find that on any given day, the same memory might affect me completely differently. sometimes that memory is easy, just factual history, while other days it’s heavy with emotion. i think my emotional response to a memory, especially one that isn’t consistently light and fun, largely reflects what else is going on in my life, and the danger for me is when i let my current thoughts/situation influence my perception of the so-called reality of the memory. suddenly i fail to see all the shadows, and focus only on that tiny glint of sun that at the time didn’t offer any light, warmth, or life. but in my altered perception, i’ve glorified it.

    without our memory, our lives lose meaning. so even though remembering can sometimes keep us in a rut, i’d rather wallow in a memory than have nothing in my memory at all. and one thing is certain – everything changes, so the wallowing simply cannot be interminable.

    i think you’re very self-aware. and very vunderwool.

People who have seen my work before know that I love to experiment with stitching.  And HDR.  And split-toning.  So why not all three at once?  For this image, I used a Canon 16-35mm lens.  The final image is actually a stitch of 6 images taken while swinging the camera in a rainbow arc to create the severe distortion (pausing for each exposure, of course).  Trinity Church stands in stark contrast to its  much taller lower Manhattan neighbors.  Its also surprisingly peaceful, despite its proximity to Wall Street; just entering the courtyard felt insulating.  I worked a few blocks away in the late ’90s, but never set foot inside until this year.