Snow storm zen

 
Sometimes the most magical place to be is not a place, but a moment in time.
Like about 1 AM, Sunday night.

The freak march snowstorm had settled in for the long haul and was quietly heaping white on every bit of branch before it could melt off.  Flakes were sleeting past the streetlight, which was providing enough light to turn a wide swath of snow-covered street softly golden.  The low level of light provided an almost perfect level of low contrast between snow, sky, and branches.

So I unearthed my tripod and set it up in the safety of the porch.  I then proceeded to make a series of long exposures.  The length of exposures added to the silence of the neighborhood made for a rather meditative experience.
It feels weird to take a long exposure with a camera, because pictures are normally so instantaneous.  My shutter is capable of opening and closing far faster than my eye can blink, and yet here I was quietly able to have a conversation with myself while waiting for my camera to finish exposing a single image that may or may not have been ruined 10 seconds ago by an inadvertent jiggle while I pressed the button.

Enough talk. Here's the pictures:

vacation photography: photographing for myself

The mornings were so beautiful, so serene.

My family has outgrown our old vacationing spots the way a plant outgrows a pot.  So a family meeting was held, subcommittees were formed, and a new location was found.  We ended up renting out an entire retreat house in the southern part of the state.  The retreat house used to be a rich doctor's house, complete with lake, hiking paths, pool, indoor and outdoor game rooms, and at least 6 bathrooms. Heaven.

The only hitch was that within 5 minutes of my group's arrival, the power went out, and staid out for the rest of the long weekend.  It was part of that storm at the beginning of July that knocked out power in several states.  However, the stove was gas powered and so was the hot water heater.  So we staid on.
We turned the un-powered refrigerators into large coolers by adding bags of ice regularly.  We played games or talked by candle light in the evening.  To combat the heat, we took cold showers and went to the pool. A lot.
It was rather like luxury camping.

The only battery that didn't give out on me was my camera's battery.  I'm so glad it held through.  I took pictures of my family, mostly of my two Hutchinson neices because I rarely get to see them together for enough time to get a decent picture.  Also Catherine was frequently in a good mood, showing off her twinkly eyes and brand new smile.

However, I have a special love for the pictures I took for no one but myself.  These were the early morning pictures or early evening pictures, full of gently atmospheric greenery, and almost opaque early morning mist.

my favorite field

There's a certain field off of Frederick's Pike that I have a minor obsession with.  Something about the way it changes through the seasons, and the way the colors of it change from watercolored dawn, through high contrast noon, onto a golden lit sunset, where the trees are just strips of black etched into the exposure.
I photographed it a couple of times around Christmas, capturing it during its winter dormancy.
I've visited it once this spring, but have yet to get out there at dawn to see how that changes the greens and yellows.  This is probably because I hate getting up early.

Its mood changes so much.  Also, last time I was there, I tried to capture the creek that was running parallel to it.  However, it just looked drab and dirty in all of the pictures.  However, with the advent of spring, it has an interesting ochre yellow cast, from reflecting the spring foliage.

I love the detail in the netted branches of the trees.

Black Velvet and a Little Girl's Smile

Last week, I did a short portrait session with my sister Mary.  She needed a good picture for a work related website.
It was late, and I was feeling lazy, and I knew I only needed one good shot.  So I whipped out my favorite go-to backdrop: black velvet and a tension rod.

After a little silliness...

 well, actually a lot of silliness...

 ...we got the pictures we wanted.

I love black velvet. I love the way it looks in a picture
Black velvet just looks so classy every time.
It soaks up light, so that all you get is a pure, unadulterated black wherever it is, and beautiful detail wherever it isn't. You can swaddle babies in it, and just get their adorable arms and legs and squidgy faces.  You can put someone in front of it in a black shirt, and they will instantly look artsy.  If you put a woman in front of black velvet in a black shirt, they always end up looking like an opera singer: all soul and possibility.

It's only downside is that it's a little fiddly to get a "hair light" or "back light" to work properly, because the velvet won't bounce any light onto the back of the person.  For all of you I just lost due to the usage of technical terms, a back light is the light that, when you're lighting a portrait, lights the back of the person to add definition to the edge of them and separate them from the background.

Black velvet is also killer for taking pictures of objects.
This is Mary's most recent project, a crocheted recieving blanket for our nephew, who is due any day now.  She forgot to take a picture of it before she gave it to me to put in a package, so I took a few for her.

Lovely, no?

Speaking of things wrapped up in dark, velvety beauty, here's what the moon looks like tonight:

Let us go in; the fog is rising.

Reportedly, those were Emily Dickenson's last words.  How very obscure, rather like both fog and Dickenson herself.

There's a lovely fog on tonight, lingering in the streets from this afternoon when it silently settled into the river valley.  I'm sure it's not lovely for the people driving in it, who are all moving extra slow like the whole city is in one enormous funeral procession.  But it's lovely for me, and my camera.

I couldn't resist.  I went out and took pictures while the light was transforming from an underwater-afternoon light, to a unworldly evening light, punctuated by glowing tungsten and florescence.
The mist made even my neighborhood look dreamy, which is no small trick, as it's a mix of abandoned homes, unkempt rentals, and owners trying to keep up appearances.

I wended my way towards the river, expecting to find it quite dreamy in the fog.  Instead, I found it next to impossible to see at all.  It just disappeared into one quiet meditation in Middle Grey, rather like a Whistler nocturne.  The camera actually picked up more detail than my eye could without straining. It was...beautiful.

The pictures have a temperature to them: the same misty cold that was seeping into my sweater while I was taking them.  So grab yourself a cup of something warm while you peruse.

I thought about adding little notes, saying things about where each picture was taken, or what I like about them, but it seemed rather besides the point.  I mean, the whole thing about fog is how disorienting it is, how each familiar place and object is rendered strange, sublime, and unreal.

Now I'm off to pour myself a steaming cup of chai.