She stood on the porch under the grey morning sky, photographer’s eyes keen on the juxtaposition of silver and gold that greeted her on this, the final day of the natural year. The strong winds of the night before were still gusting high above the ground; a harbinger broom that had come through to sweep the leaves from the trees. What would normally have been a rather dull scene was oddly bright, for every horizontal surface was temporarily coated with the fallen leaves and her small world felt just a little larger as she looked up and was able to see more of the sky once again.
It was a warm morning, all things considered. Though she knew the behaviors of the wilds portended a long, hard and bitterly cold winter, for the moment, at least, spirits both corporeal and non- would find themselves in relative comfort as they geared up for the annual celebration. Indeed, the small backyard was filled with the usual ragtag assortment of furred and feathered visitors, all eagerly awaiting her distribution of treats.
She filled the big feeder, left a few small piles of nuts to minimize furball squabbles, took a few deep breaths of the sweet-smelling air, and with a small prayer of thanks went back inside. The house was still quiet and she could hear the wind as it sporadically reached down low to race along the street. It was all about the wind, she thought; quite rightly symbolic that it had come through with such cleansing power last night. This was the time for fresh starts, for new beginnings, and the near-naked trees represented in some small measure the nakedness of her circumstances. Circumstances not entirely unwelcome but, as is usually the case, change does not come easy and her recent losses, while clear signs of where she was headed next, had not come without emotions of the most tearful sort.
Having been quite literally too busy to eat for most of the past week, she decided to do something different this morning and put two eggs into a pan of water on the stove. It reminded her of her late grandmother; they had shared many happy breakfasts of boiled eggs with toast in this very house and it seemed fitting to start this special day that very same way. As if another sign, the eggs cooked perfectly and, though not one overly fond of bread, even the buttered toast was delicious. when she finished, she thought to herself that even the king’s chef could not have made anything more tasty, nor more suitable. She took a last swig of coffee and felt prepared to tackle the never-ending chores that awaited her.
Just then, the clouds parted and the sun made a brief appearance to gild the tiny landscape in beckoning brightness. With a mess of furballs vying for treats on the back porch, on a Saturday morning the temptation was too much. She pulled on a fleece-lined jacket, grabbed her big camera and went outside. Positioned off the porch towards the middle of the yard gave her a splendid vantage point to document the furry feeding fun. She was rewarded by the appearance of the tamest of the chipmunks, who was making its final, furious forrays to stock its burrow with foodstuffs before heading underground to hibernate for the winter. Bold as brass, it gave her a smile as it marched right up next to the larger squirrels and vacuumed up the smaller pieces of nuts right out from under their noses before hurrying off again.
It was a few moments in heaven. Too much time had been spent working and on other pursuits; with every click of the shutter she felt her Self moving cloer to its normal state of balance. To some, the day’s results would be “just some pictures of squirrels”, but to her they were a key part of her life’s work and each bushy-tailed life she recorded had, in so many ways both large and small, touched hers and thereby given her gifts both immeasurable and of lasting consequence.
“Just some pictures of squirrels” in many ways defined her and when she finished, it was with both a lighter step and lighter heart she returned inside to tackle the mundane housework.
October 31 2009 | Random Stories | No Comments »
The last month had been so hectic that something as simple as the laundry had been ignored until the day she realized she was wearing her very last pair of clean underwear. Wearily, she loaded the washer and later, even more wearily, she moved the clean, damp clothes into the dryer.
The next morning she made her way downstairs to the laundry room. Opening the dryer, she was greeted by a big, fluffy pile of white. She reached in and pulled out a sock. A thick, white athletic sock; her favorite kind. She found a mate for the sock and then pulled out a white t-shirt. Suddenly, she found herself smiling. This was another one of her favorite work-at-home “fashionista-not!” items and it occurred to her that it had been far too long since she’d worn them.
She pulled out a white pair of underwear, thinking happily that, at least for this early-morning moment, today was a good day. She’d be wearing her comfortable uniform of well-broken-in jeans with a clean white t-shirt and white socks; clothes that, to her, represented both simplicity and the fact she was able to work from home.
And somehow, it made the long day still ahead of her welcome.
October 31 2009 | Random Stories | No Comments »
She had caught the vaguest scent of the winds of change long before they had begun to blow. It was no surprise, then, when they arrived in earnest and her world began to spin, and then her world began to crumble around her. The devastating death of her familiar had shut her heart firmly against the possibility of further pain, and as event after event showed her more and more clearly the direction in which she was to head, she found herself moving towards it without hesitation.
For several weeks now, she had been actively searching for a new house. The one that best suited her needs and the one she wanted the most remained just out of reach, however, and now, cash poor, she cursed her lifelong habit of financial generosity. But it was what it was, she told herself; though no longer quite such an optimist, she still had faith she would end up exactly where she most needed to be.
And so it was that despite the utter, aching exhaustion of having worked an ungodly number of hours this particular week, the evening found her feeling rather happy. It was a quiet kind of happiness she hadn’t felt in a long time; if pressed to explain it, she would say it was as if great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. A great weight she hadn’t even known she’d been carrying. But she knew its source. She had made the decision to sell a valuable piece of old jewelry and had just sent it on its way to be repaired before being put up for auction. An auction that would be one of the financial keys to a new home.
She had felt little more than simple resignation for so long now that the evening’s touch of happy anticipation caused her to wonder if it might not be time to check the numbers of the little stack of lottery tickets sitting next to her computer. She bought them quite regularly, just one ticket containing one randomly-chosen number, but had fallen into the habit of simply setting them aside, ignoring the results of the weekly drawings. It had finally dawned on her that she preferred the possibility that she might be sitting on a small windfall rather than face the reality of seeing her dollar had been wasted.
One of her friends had recently teased her about it; reminding her that if she was holding a winner her life could become just as she wished, with no more worrying about how to pay the bills each month and no more aggravation from the demanding job at which they had met. She had explained her reasoning but laughingly agreed that it was rather stupid, for how much grief would she have saved herself by now if one was, indeed, even a small winner?
The hours passed and finally grew late as her thoughts continued; she glanced at the little stack of small papers. There was really nothing to lose and everything to gain, but she still couldn’t bring herself to go through them. She’d been disappointed so many times in her life; perhaps that is the price one pays for being an optimist, she thought to herself. But weary to the very core of her soul, she had learned to shy away from self-created disappointments, particularly when it was so darned easy to do so.
She turned off the computer, turned off the lights in the office and went to bed, leaving the little stack of small tickets untouched. And leaving her little bit of hope intact for another day.
October 31 2009 | Random Stories | No Comments »
“World’s use is cold, world’s love is vain, world’s cruelty is bitter bane;
but is not the fruit of pain.”
(Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
It’s cold. Bitterly, bloody cold. Of course, it is winter so cold is to be expected; far be it from me to complain. It does, however, make for some, shall we say, thrilling forrays to capture its beauty in photographs.
I broke down this year and invested in new, very heavy-duty winter boots. Hunting boots from Danner, with 1,000 gram Thinsulate, to be exact. They are a thing of beauty and I love them. But even they were no match for this latest arctic blast. They got a real test when we took a trip to the local nature preserve after the first in the series of snowstorms came through; an hour and a half in the sub-zero morning, my feet had had enough. Running and skiing don’t compare to standing around in deep snow so even these extreme boots are going to be stuffed with heated socks or something the next time we go out in such deadly weather.
Despite the cold toes, I was still thrilled to get out. There wasn’t much going on there in terms of wildlife, but I enjoyed shooting some landscapes of the snowy river, and the stretch of white-capped teasels was good practice shooting white-on-white.
We weren’t seeing much of the hawks during this time; most all the furred and small, feathered wilds were sticking very close to home. The red-tail did show up early in the week, and though very close to the patio I managed to nail it in the heartbeat it took for it to launch and then disappear behind one of the big pine trees. I had the camera set for a stick-picking shot and was actually very surprised to have gotten only wing blur here.
When sub-zero temperatures grip, the brief moments of intermittent sunshine begin to create fantasies of ice as the snow slowly melts off the roofs of the houses. Often, this light would come late in the afternoon, affording me the chance to indulge my artsy-fartsy eye and try to capture some of what is my personal favorite in Nature’s bag of breathtaking tricks.
And what would Winter be without a visit from the Travel Gnome? In drag.
As I write this particular piece, the bitter cold snap continues and I continue to chronicle the lengthing icicles, both on houses and furry tails. It occurs to me once again that living where there are four, real seasons is one reason that I’m never bored or at a loss for ideas to continue to work on my photography. I know that to some people, ice may be just ice, squirrels or hawks may be just squirrels or hawks, but as the natural cycle moves ’round its annual wheel, it provides a never-ending rotation of unique players, and each is worthy of attention.
And I’m both grateful and most often simply excited to be able to do this.
January 19 2009 | Photography | No Comments »
“Art doesn’t just happen by accident. It is about pulling out new tricks and trying new things.”
(Nicholas Meyer)
Returning to work after taking a real, true break over the holidays combined with our wonky weather again limits the time I can spend working on my photography. But I am bound and determined to put in more reasonable hours at the office this year and to continue to shoot every day.
Last week began with thoughts about the latest DGrin challenge and some bits of slantingly bright late afternoon light across the fireplace mantle reminded me of a still life I’d once considered but put on the “backup shot” list in favor of then-easily-accessible subjects. Now, with scant shooting time during daylight hours and a wide open challenge theme, it seemed a good time to at least try it.
My camera will meld multiple images together to create just one so I decided to use that little tool to take this shot. It’s a marvelous way to create images of fireworks but now each image had to fall onto exactly the same spot in each frame so it was a bit of work for me to get everything locked down solidly since my normal shooting style, even with the tripod, is to have everything very loose so I can move fast.
After a couple of tries, I got it. I also attempted using HDR post-processing to achieve the same effect since I’ve been wanting to play with that, but liked the in-camera merge much better.
It’s pretty and I got the light I wanted, yet I wasn’t entirely sure about the second candle (on the left) so decided to restage and reshoot the next day using only one. After contemplating the results, during post-processing I carefully turned the reflection in the mirror into black and white in order to create a more specific focal point in the scene and help inject a sense of drama.
Nice and clear and nicely brooding. But I wasn’t sold on either one for the contest. The next day, a return to grey and gloomy daylight, I decided to once again try some HDR post-processing on a rather mundane, wee bit of perspective out in the backyard. Once again, I didn’t like the results but I did like one of the images and again chose to do a bit of additional post-processing to desaturate parts of the image. It’s a technique I like a lot but don’t use often unless, as especially in this case, it adds to the story element of what would be an otherwise bland and rather nondescript photograph.
I suppose it’s a good thing that my personal photography preference leans towards documentary instead of fine art; at this point I was starting to feel a little unfulfilled and antsy. But I needn’t have worried; whoever it is that seems to think documenting the hawks and squirrels in the ‘hood is my prime directive decided to shift my jealously-guarded shooting time back to feathers and fur and so it was that on the one truly gloriously-lit morning of the week I ended up with some really beautiful photos of our local red-tailed hawk.
This promptly became my choice for the contest. It would eventually have some of the upper branches cloned out so as to simplify the focal point but to find every bit of clarity of which Matilda is capable ringing through delights me to the point of feeling vindicated in my persistent efforts to harness her considerable powers over the last year and a half.
Then the weather turned on us with a vengeance. Another big storm began to brew and as if in some sort of pathetic consolation, the pace at work also picked up, pushing my Muse temporarily off to the side. No sign of hawks, no time to wait for the furballs to perform any kind of unusual antics; I was left with just our very small and now very bleak landscape and to reflect it, went to black and white.
All day on Friday the snow came down. First in fits and starts, then a steady stream of flakes accompanied by bitter cold. The hawks continued to remain absent, but the furballs were out and foraging earnestly in case they’d have to hole up for a day or two. Bob had dumped the last of the small gourds into the garden, and the weather apparently signalled the squirrels it was time to open them. This provided me with some great photo ops, of course, but to my surprise, a crop of one photo down to an unintended focal point left me with what has surplanted the red-tailed hawk as my final choice for the challenge:
I could nitpick this image from a purely technical perspective, yet even when all the nits are summed up they do not seem to override its unique quality and subtle air of charming unexpectedness. More snow and a cooperative model allowed a reshoot the next day and I got what I was after originally:
Although technically superior, the same emotional appeal seems to be lacking. It doesn’t seem to tell a compelling story or perhaps it is simply missing the vague sense of urgency as is contained in the accidental version. And it’s not just me. The “accident” has received an unusually large number of (positive) comments from the daily photo community.
Who’da thunk it?
January 12 2009 | Photography | No Comments »
“This whole world is wild at heart and weird on top.”
(David Lynch)
An unusual year came to an unusual end. Since I’m on vacation and, finally, for once actually behaving as if I’m on vacation, I slept in later than is the norm on New Year’s Eve and casually padded into the kitchen to get my first cup of coffee. I took one sip, and then decided to take a peek out back. I don’t know what possessed me to do so other than perhaps instinct, but I was rewarded with the sight of the young red-tailed hawk perched in a rather fine position in the big maple tree of the backyard next door. And it was a splendidly clear morning with warm, early light beaming down brightly.
There was nothing else to do except grab Matilda and position her next to the window in order to guarantee getting at least one good shot since that early in the day the hawks are usually actively hunting and my stepping outside is cause for them to move on in search of more readily accessible prey. And to be honest, the angle from the window was perhaps better than I’d get outside since the hawk was sitting amidst a lot of sticks.
I opened the window and fired away. The hawk was undisturbed by this so having at least a good daily photo I donned my best Southpark attire and headed outside to try for more (and maybe even better). It was worth the effort. Turns out the hawk wasn’t going anywhere and I was able to get a great vantage point on it and snag some excellent shots using low ISO and a perfect f-stop.
My original intention and what would be my daily photo was catching the red-tail in the middle of a blink:
It seemed so serendipitious since it was, after all, New Year’s Eve and 2008 had blown past in what seemed the blink of an eye. But I was unprepared for what happened next. I thought the hawk was about to launch into flight so steadied the camera. Instead of flying off, however, it looked to be only trying to empty its crop:
And sure enough, emptying its crop was its intention, all right. However, it didn’t warn me it was about to empty the contents of its stomach, too!
Only one word came to mind. Ick!!! And then, just like any properly goofy youngster, it shamelessly let out what looked for all intents and purposes like one big, final belch:
With such a show, I was half surprised I didn’t actually hear something. Of course, the hawk was then quite pleased with itself and I’m sure that getting rid of the undigestible bits of whatever it had eaten did feel much better. I considered going next door to examine the pellet and see if I could determine what it had eaten, but it was cold, I didn’t want to bother my neighbor, and part of me was afraid I’d find it had feasted on one of the furballs so decided to postpone such exploration until later.
The young hawk continued to pose prettily, looking at me in sweet innocence, as if to say, “I didn’t do anything weird, lady!”
By now, I’d filled the card on the camera so brought Matilda in and went upstairs to pull off the photographs. While there, I took a peek out of one of the 2nd-floor windows and the unusual events of the morning were apparently not yet finished, for there, suddenly, on the other side of the big maple tree from the young red-tail, was perched the adult Cooper’s hawk! It was most decidedly a very rare occurrence for both these predators to be sitting in the same tree so I raced downstairs and grabbed the other camera, mounted the next-largest lens onto it, and promptly flew back out the door. By the time I got there, though, the young red-tail was taking off. As I watched, an even rarer scene then began to unfold in front of my surprised eyes – the adult Cooper’s hawk chased the young red-tail out of its territory!
I watched as the red-tail tried to maneuver through the trees; at first it seemed to be thinking simply reperching in another tree would be enough. But red-tails are nowhere near as nimble as the Coop, who is by design adapted to chase and catch smaller birds as they attempt to tuck themselves inside the safety of branches, so with the Coop staying so close on its tail, after making effectively a large, deep circle through the neighboring backyards, the red-tail had no choice but to finally lift and head out towards more open space in order to get away.
The adult Cooper returned not long afterwards, giving me only a stick-picking ID kind of shot of it. But to have seen it in fast flight, hard on the tail of the red-tail hawk was enough. It was surely quite the spectacular ending to this rather incredible year of up-close-and-personal encounters with our urban raptors.
January 02 2009 | Photography | 2 Comments »
“In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.”
(Ansel Adams)
The 12 days of Christmas have now come and gone, and while most folks spent them hunting for stuff to put into boxes, I instead followed my plan to get out of my box as much as possible and have to say now that the figurative stretching felt really good. Under an unusual blessing of deep snow that the more stereotypical cold Christmas Eve rains could not bring to a full surrender of a rare and true White Christmas, I found it both pleasingly challenging and somewhat frustrating to try to capture the holiday spirit. Not only the technical challenges of shooting at night when the artic blast that overstayed its welcome like a bad guest caused everything to freeze within moments, but simply finding suitable subjects was hard; likely due to the horrible economic conditions there were far fewer displays of the seasonal revelry than in years past.
But I think I managed to “make do” well enough. My first attempt was to head out for a short walk in the bitter evening air to tackle a polar bear, one of a pair that graces the front steps of a house in the front of the Woods:
The next day the big, bad, wicked winter storm arrived in earnest and travel, even on foot, was a treacherous and foolhardy idea. But I was lucky enough to snag the elusive adult Cooper’s hawk right in our own backyard:
A brief lull in the storm the next night allowed for a quick trip out to tackle one of the sights that was, in large part, the inspiration for my little project:
I ended up going back the next evening in order to catch all the lights turned on. By this time, the single-digit temperature and a wind chill that pushed that temperature down into double negative digits required serious bundling up for the short walk. It was a hoot, for it had been years since I’d ventured out resembling one of the kids on Southpark. As an adult, even when out skiing in -20° weather my winter attire was more, shall we say, fashionably streamlined. (The difference being, of course, your blood circulates a lot faster to keep you warm when you’re moving, unlike the stillness required to take photographs. This also put a new pair of Really Serious winter boots on my list.)
We awoke the next morning to be greeted by some much-welcome sunshine. The morning light was thrilling, energizing and brilliant but the wicked wind continued to blow fiercely, warning everyone to stay put. So it was only brief forrays into the backyard for me. And for the wild residents. I found my littlest wild fox squirrel friend waiting patiently for me to arrive with her foodstuffs, trying her best to bravely soak in some of the sunshine as the driving wind beat at her with drifting snow:
The starlings have returned en masse and while their lack of manners at the feeders is the bane of my existence, they are beautiful birds and so one high up in the pine tree gulping snow became my daily photo:
As hard as I try to avoid going out during the last, frenzied holiday shopping days, errands could not be postponed forever, so I took full advantage of the early darkness for some daily shoots, using the partially-opened window of the Jeep as a makeshift tripod. It is testament to why I so love my Wrangler that the engine runs so smoothly I could keep it on and therefore stay warm while shooting:
On Christmas Eve morn the frigid arctic front finally started to move on and the more normal Michigan holiday season rains finally began. The red-tailed hawk had been making daily appearances and, after having to be content with mostly stick-picking, to my surprise it glided into the trees in our backyard and actually stayed put for a while. I had to don a rain poncho and cover Matilda, but even so, by the time I finished the shoot, I was as sodden as the hawk with jeans wet nearly to my knees from standing and then jumping around in the snow. (I’ll leave it to your imagination and likely one of Bob’s blogs to picture my attempts to encourage the hawk to move on when the squirrels and I had finally had our fill of its menacing presence.)
On Christmas Day I prepared a delectable herb-crusted pork roast, Bob cleaned while I set a festive holiday table then picked up my mother, and the three of us happily ate our Selves into a very merry little stupor. After I took my mother home I stopped to take the last daily photograph on my list, as I’d planned it:
And so at last came the Morning After and The End:
Now that these self-made ”12 Days” are over, I look back and am very glad I set a goal with this project. I feel as if I’ve accomplished something more with my photography, and certainly there has been learning with each day’s attempts. Learning that will be put to good use in the days ahead.
Merry, indeed.
December 27 2008 | Photography | No Comments »
“Christmas time is here, by golly!
Disapproval would be folly.
Deck the halls with hunks of holly;
Brother, here we go again.”
(Tom Lehrer)
It often seems like the holidays become just another thing that must be multi-tasked and crossed off the never-ending to-do list. But no matter how you celebrate the start of “officiellement l’hiver”, I believe it’s important to take a moment to remember why we haul out the lights and eat and drink our Selves into a stupor of merriment.
There’s a silly joke about true friends being the ones who bail you out of jail, or sit beside you laughing about how much fun was had getting there. Though I understand and appreciate the humor and the sentiment behind it, such jesting at Christmas often sets off the echoes of a melancholy chord inside of me and I realize something.
Jail is not only a physical place, but it is also the chains we put around our hearts to shut out others. There is nothing worse than being exiled from the love of another person for it is a truth that the opposite of Love is not hate, but indifference. To be ignored, to be left alone, to be forgotten – this is perhaps our deepest fear.
Rudolph may have gone down in history, but it was because of his brightness that shone clearly through the winter’s darkness. Ok, so it was only his nose, but that shiny red nose is yet another small reminder that within ALL of us lie the seeds of the very same Light that was born in humble poverty yet grew to shine forth an eternal truth that has not dimmed even to this day. (Crooked politicians, lawyers, and most CEOs aside, of course.)
The message of this season has always been one of hope, and inherently contained within that hope is the wish for peace. The return of the Sun/Son, that which is crucial to our very survival, both physical and at the level of the heart, has always been a time of celebration. A time of recognition that when all is said and done, in the very deepest place inside every one of us we are all the same. No matter how you choose to see and express it, we are all Children of God and to return to the Light is to return to that innocence, that wonder, that joy of simply being.
“For unto us a child is born.” Each year the wheel turns, and as the world continues to lay in sin and with error pining it reaches these Halcyon days; in particular the one day awaited with a never-ending, collective thrill of hope for Him to appear.
Him.
A child. A child sleeping in the night.
From within our self-made jails, from within those chains of fear we hope.
From within our self-made jails, from within those chains of fear we pray.
But that child is you. That child is me. With breaking of each new and glorious dawn of every Christmas Day the birth we celebrate is our own, for hope and its inner core of peace is not something that lives outside of us, it is who we are.
My wish for each and every one of you is that not only today, but every single day, you find within you the Light of Love we now celebrate and that it shine from you onto others as brightly as the star that guided those three, oh-so-wise men to kneel at the feet of He who would manifest all our potentials in one single, short lifetime.
Each one of you is a gift. A beautiful gift of hope whom angels greet with anthem sweet, the babe, the Sun…the peace.
May you have a joyous, peace-filled holiday.
December 25 2008 | Photography | No Comments »
“Oh, the weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful.
And since we’ve no place to go,
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.”
(Sammy Cahn, Jules Styne, 1945)
Today we celebrate the return of the Sun, that ancient ritual acknowledging that no matter how bleak and dismal it may seem, the darkness will always give way to the light. It is a good thing to remember, this; particularly during these dreadful times where all things mundane are concerned.
As if in repudiation of these annual days of shortest daylight, our world is blanketed with a thick coat of clean, white snow. A bit unusual, but its reflective quality a welcome banishment of the otherwise utter blackness of the long, unrelenting nights. All illumination comes with a price, however, and we awoke to more falling snow, falling temperatures and high winds that will push those temperatures into the danger zone. It is definitely a day to hole up, whether you are man or beast or bird.
Knowing that staying home was going to be a likely and very wise choice, we decided to take advantage of the lull between storms and go on a little drive last night. Recent changes at work have finally given me reason to go to our downtown Detroit offices and while driving there and back the juxtapositions of holiday lights and the combination of old and new architecture had caught my eye and so were penciled in on my little photography project list.
We simply headed down Woodward Avenue, one of the main arteries into the city and a thoroughfare of great historic and cultural significance; not the least of which is that its mile-long stretch between Six and Seven Mile Roads was the first road in the world to be paved with concrete almost 100 years ago. As in any big city, there are places where plywood and graffiti cover the decaying ruins of neglect and poverty like so many dirty bandages but there are now more places where tender claim has been laid and life breathed back. Particularly as one reaches the downtown proper.
Woodward Avenue ends at the riverfront, where you can look south and see our northern neighbors in Canada; and as you turn onto Jefferson Avenue you come face-to-face with what was once the hope and pride of the downtown’s revitalization. The wistfully-named Renaissance Center, conceived by Henry Ford II is now the headquarters of General Motors, and the 5.5 million square foot complex still boasts the tallest all-hotel skyscraper in the Western hemisphere, the 73-story Marriott.
We turned around and headed back north again on Woodward, this time with the intention of shooting. Most of the road had been admirably cleared of Friday’s heavy snowfall, but a few places remained just nasty. The steam grates lent a properly urban atmosphere, though shooting through the windshield isn’t exactly the best way to go.
The picture I’d had in mind was best shot taken just south of Comerica Park so we pulled in there. This rather overwhelming ballpark that tries to give nod to both the old and modern eras of baseball sadly replaced the much-beloved and historic Tiger Stadium in 2000 though, ironically, Comerica paid for 30-years of naming rights then moved its headquarters to Dallas, Texas shortly thereafter. The enormous tiger sculptures are wonderful and whimsical (note the Carhart jacket on the main one); what tickles me most of all are the decorative lights – glowing baseballs held in the mouths of fierce tiger heads mounted along the exterior walls.
Directly across the street is the Fox Theater, originally built in 1928 and one of the first movie palaces to feature live sound. It is now Detroit’s main venue for Broadway productions.
But it was St. John’s Episcopal Church that was my reason for this cold little adventure. The oldest church still standing along Woodward Avenue, it was dedicated in 1858 and this marvelous example of Victorian Gothic construction of rubble limestone, trimmed with Kelly Island sandstone, has survived both expansion (the original chapel was too small from the start and so immediately reconstructed in 1861; the chancel was enlarged in 1892 to accommodate the organ console and choir and the original chapel taken down and moved 10 feet east) and relocation (the entire church was moved 60 feet backwards when Woodward Avenue was expanded in 1936). It is a tiny, almost surreal breathing space of peaceful beauty and historic grace amidst the commercial frenzy.
I think it was well worth braving the cold darkness.
December 21 2008 | Photography | 1 Comment »
“You can’t get too much winter in the winter.”
(Robert Frost)
It is bitterly cold outside. The new-fallen snow is deep and more is predicted to come down tomorrow, accompanied by even higher winds than those of yesterday’s storm and bringing with them the bonus of negative double-digit wind-chill temperatures. But it is fitting since tomorrow is the shortest day of the year, the Winter Solstice, that ancient celebration of light that ushers in the winter season.
But today, at least for a little while and perhaps in anticipation of tomorrow’s joyful candle lightings, the dank, overcast skies have given way to small blue spaces through which the low sun’s rays are shining brightly. The icicles hanging from every possible surface are dripping steadily on the southern exposures; from my vantage point here in the dining room I can look across the living room and out the big front window and see their bright drops and hear their soft tattoo as they hit the ledge outside.
It is a very pleasing thing, this quiet, light-filled moment. Though in the backyard the furballs are out in force, making up for yesterday’s lost foraging time and reveling in the warmth of the sunshine high in the leafless treetops. I was out there with them a little while ago, happy to see all of my most-loved cast of characters and taking advantage of the photo ops they provide.
I haven’t forgotten my little holiday project, however, and it was very late Friday night (or very early Saturday morning) when we went out to hunt down one of the sights on my list. It was after midnight when we got there (on purpose, certainly not because of the travelling distance) and I was a bit disappointed that all of the other small lights at this home were not turned on. But it is the tree – The Tree – in front of this house that in small part prompted my project so I fitted Matilda with the smallest (widest angle) lens, mounted her on the old tripod and trudged off to find a suitable vantage point.
The middle of the road here is often the best place to shoot the houses, and you’d think that at midnight there’d be no traffic. Not my luck. I caused a great deal of laughter from our local police when they came cruising by on patrol, clipping along at a speed that made us wonder if they were going to stop or run me over. In reality, they probably just wanted to get close quickly since from a distance and from behind I probably looked in distress as I knelt there in the road, oblivious to all but my goal of capturing the view in front of me.
But fortunately for Bob’s heart it wasn’t from the road that I was able to get the daily shot I wanted:
December 21 2008 | Photography | 1 Comment »
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