It would sound pretentious of me to say my teacher called this my "firstmasterpiece", but so be it. Subsequent attempts at getting beautiful women to pose for me havebeen catastrophic.
Waterfall, 1975
I'm lucky to have taken this early in my "career". I see it asa 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 sameplace. This is normal.
(This was downstream from "old man's pool" near the summer camp I wentto as a teenager. A very poor negative but perhaps one of the best prints I've made fromit, 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 thehomeless guy who lived in a box nearby...... After Catherine pointed out the fish and bait, I didn't care for it....butit 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 onthe coast. It was/is my custom to bring enough supplies with me that Itake just about any road that looks like it goes farther into the woodsand if I get lost, I won't be in too bad of shape for a day or so. (Thisis more difficult with my laptop and GPS now.) Anyway I turned off thisfairly major logging road after going over a bridge. I always look forwater. A stream usually. A road followed the stream for a ways and thena small turnoff appeared that went down to the water. There was a smalldam in a most serene scene.....moss everywhere. The sun glistening at justthe 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, thepressure was on. One of the most beautiful places and time, and I couldonly make 4 exposures. There would be no "bracketing", each image had tobe right the first time.
I'm balanced on a couple rocks, tripod in the water, peering throughthe viewfinder when.....
It became absolutely quiet.
Even the birds became silent. I looked up, around, chills up and downmy 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 about2 inches remaining in the stream. Unfortunately, the 4 negatives are somewhatunderexposed, 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 andout, when I saw this leaf on the back of my car. I had to photograph it. I looked around and there were four more ofthe same variety and I arranged them on the back of my car, thus. The visualacid trip, is from photoshop, but I think not overdone. It did sorta looklike that.
