Elliptical

It's been a while since I looked at sculpture. Several years ago, the Katzen Art Center opened just up Massachusetts Avenue from me. It's about a quarter mile away. Have I been inside yet? NO. (Muttering. Shame. Embarrrassment.)

Finally, I went by and gave the exterior, complete with staircases, fountains, and sculpture garden, a thorough going-over. And I actually liked quite a bit of what I saw.

Can the interior be far behind?

After The Flood

I like to think this shows the aftermath of high water as Dürer might have portrayed it. If he'd had a camera. Okay, and a computer. WHATEVER.

Please make sure to look at the larger version of this, because it's all about the details.

A Natural Mess

Sometimes a walk in the woods doesn't reveal any pattern of orderliness. Nature is frequently just plain messy, disorganized, and chaotic. My footfalls through the forrest caused large, extremely healthy-looking deer to bolt springily away through the underbrush. There was little classically photogenic to be found in the grey and brown trees of winter.

Yet this patch of water, with its tangle of downed branches and dead leaves floating, brought me to a standstill. This too is beautiful. We are meant to spend time in environments like these: our senses are tuned to the patterns of light and dark made by tree trunks in afternoon light, and mirror reflections sooth our minds.

In Memoriam

To See What They Look Like

I believe it was Gary Winogrand who said "I photograph things to see what they look like photographed."

Even today, with the near-instant gratification provided by digital cameras, it is often a surprise to discover that the exposure you made winds up capturing something quite different from what your eyes and brain registered on the scene.

We don't look at one thing. Our eyes jump around in a series of saccades, changing focus and aperture on the fly, with our brains helpfully filling in the blanks with interpolated detail so that we won't see a bunch of mush. Cameras and lenses are much less creative, despite tremendous advances in technology.

I thus consider it something of a triumph when a photograph I take "comes out" as I envisioned it would. But I am always open to surprise: every now and then what appears is not what I expected, but something much more interesting.

Shattered

Life leaves scars.

Some Photographic Challenges

It wasn't all blue skies in New Mexico, alas. Heavy overcast and ultra-flat lighting made it hard to do justice to the magnificent landscape at Tent Rock. These two pictures barely hint at the sheer presence of this landscape.

Standing in the Gap



Tent Rock 'Village'