It would sound pretentious of me to say my teacher called this my "first
masterpiece", but so be it.
Subsequent attempts at getting beautiful women to pose for me have
been catastrophic.
Waterfall, 1975
I'm lucky to have taken this early in my "career". I see it as
a metaphor for life, and have drawn on it for inspiration many times.
That, in life, we go through stages, adapt in each stage......
That each stage passes..... transition is turbulent, the outcome uncertain.
Eventually, through a million different ways, we all reach the same
place.
This is normal.
(This was downstream from "old man's pool" near the summer camp I went
to as a teenager.
A very poor negative but perhaps one of the best prints I've made from
it, further enhanced by the miracle of Photoshop)
Garden Fence, 1978
Stairs, 1987
Blackberries/Wall
1988
Hey, I should have been at work, I was on my way back when.....
Weeks later it was all "cleaned up" and painted. Probably not by the
homeless guy who lived in a box nearby......
After Catherine pointed out the fish and bait, I didn't care for it....but
it has been popular.
Indian Beach
Ecola State Park
Cannon Beach, Oregon.
A clear November afternoon.
Water Supply
The pebbles at the bottom appear as a view into another dimension.
The earth's sparkling viscera.
It's still early on a friday evening, I'm finished with service calls on
the coast. It was/is my custom to bring enough supplies with me that I
take just about any road that looks like it goes farther into the woods
and if I get lost, I won't be in too bad of shape for a day or so. (This
is more difficult with my laptop and GPS now.) Anyway I turned off this
fairly major logging road after going over a bridge. I always look for
water. A stream usually. A road followed the stream for a ways and then
a small turnoff appeared that went down to the water. There was a small
dam in a most serene scene.....moss everywhere. The sun glistening at just
the right angles....
paradise.
After acclimating myself to the surroundings, I dug the camera out.
Hmmmm. no extra rolls. BUMMER, 4 exposures left in the camera. Well, the
pressure was on. One of the most beautiful places and time, and I could
only make 4 exposures. There would be no "bracketing", each image had to
be right the first time.
I'm balanced on a couple rocks, tripod in the water, peering through
the viewfinder when.....
It became absolutely quiet.
Even the birds became silent. I looked up, around, chills up and down
my arms and spine..... SURE I'd see a burning bush, UFO or bigfoot.
.......when I realized.........the stream had stopped flowing.
Someone or something far away had opened up "the valve" for the weekends'
demand of water.
I made the exposure after regaining my composure several minutes later.
Note the rocks show a water level drop of about 4-8 inches, with only about
2 inches remaining in the stream. Unfortunately, the 4 negatives are somewhat
underexposed, this by far, my favorite.
Leaves, 2002
Another based on the premise that you can find something beautiful everywhere,
if you look hard enough.......
I stumbled out the door one morning - fog, hungover stupor inside and
out, when I saw this leaf on the back of my car.
I had to photograph it. I looked around and there were four more of
the same variety and I arranged them on the back of my car, thus. The visual
acid trip, is from photoshop, but I think not overdone. It did sorta look
like that.
