Courage to Grow — 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/250
Challenges move as a summer wind. Storm clouds smoke to the horizon. Roiling cloud tops bubble and push to the sky, a fierce beacon girded in unyielding white. It makes a stark contrast to the gray underbelly paved in turmoil beneath. An archetype of the inevitable, the storm will rise. The gust front heralds its great coming. A flush of wind and the onslaught gale meets to the crack of thunder, our souls left scoured in the windswept rain. Life and land buckles, the seas pick up, and our world holds fast.
And then, as if in an instant, the power yields. The wind sits, the clouds break, and the late day sun works through, driving a shaft of light to chase off the din. Passed is the storm; subdued fear left in its wake. The world wakes up—resilient and renewed. Bathed in rich light all is brighter, thoughts are clearer with purpose resolving in sharp contrast. Our spirit tempered and charged. Battered by the storm and buttressed by a resolve before unknown, left purified in the waters of renewal we find the courage to grow.
Of Land — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
I stand upon thee shaken and uprooted. Winds of change erode the tenets of false truths exposing past misdeeds naked and afraid. Rampant theft and wanton expansion laid bare. Am I up for it? Do I possess real strength? Am I worthy of the challenge? A force for good? Will I cling to comfort, run for cover, and drape myself in the familiar linens of false prophets? Or will I see Others, hear their pain and adapt? Land is stable, of this we know. Yet slowly, near imperceptibly it shifts and moves without stopping, transforming the long view into something new. Do I have the courage to grow? Of Land, surely He would know.
I Remember — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
I remember sunset. I hold her grace. I see her green her beloved salt marsh, festooning her summered wetlands with pastel gossamer. Knowing, she looks up at herself and I see. Centered in all this color I remember. I remember a heart that beats to new rhythms still comforted in the familiar embrace of the melody. I remember sunset. I remember why I am here.
To remain upright in the best of times is not easy. To remain upright in the face of turbulent times is an imposing challenge. Besieged and bombarded our roots tremble as we hazard to withstand an unrelenting barrage. When little is easy stress takes hold in response to trauma and toxic stressors undermine our stability. Yet we must stand. We must challenge ourselves to dig in, to strive and overcome. To reject the convenient inclination to devolve to our base selves and turn on each other. In so doing turning on our better selves. Ask yourself, am I taking care to take care? What do I need to remain upright amidst 2020’s withering fire of such unrelenting fury—both natural born and self-inflicted? Let us stand together in mutual promise to fortify and support our better selves, and keep seated the scourge who lies beneath. In this way we stay upright together, leaning and holding our brighter selves as one. And if you don’t want to hear it from, well, listen to Bill and Ted.
This Is Not Important — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
The moment is important. The movement is important. Tectonic forces shift as fault lines give way to the titanic pressure born of our nation’s original sin. Righteous activists are drawing back the iron curtain concealing a four century legacy of enslavement, oppression, colonization, segregation, and forced separation. A reckoning is upon as, and long may it reign until we address and redress the trauma, theft, and death wrought by racism is all its insidious forms.
Ignoring the moment is not ok. Denying the moment is not ok. Choosing to undermine the movement is active participation in amoral treachery and doles out tangible harm against our BIPOC brothers and sisters. This is the time to listen, to learn, to understand, and to empathize with our fellow citizens long denied access to the many freedoms we take for granted. This is not the time to insist in our righteousness and double-down on our own spoon fed, sugar-coated worldview with history written by the winners. I am a privileged cis-gendered heteronormative white man born in the United States in the late 20th century. I hit the birth lottery. Sure I have worked hard in life and struggled at times, but I’ve earned so many undeserved free passes because I look the part and fit a certain role. This is not ok, and to deny it is heretical.
So what am I going to do? I am going to sit. I am going to listen. I am going to learn. I am going to accept the painful stories our Black brothers and sisters are sharing across the internet. The issue of racism and the violence it engenders is being met head on, and I will not stand in the way of this challenge. In the United States we love to highlight all our past glory. I get it, I, too, am passionate about our founding mythology. It is long past overdue we spend equal time peeling back a hidden shame so unconscionable we built power structures to bury it. We ask of people to be introspective, to probe and understand our failings so we can address them, correct them, and grow. Why do we not apply this same logic to our national story? Denying America’s failings makes zero sense, and it only leaves us weaker and morally bereft. Worse yet, it leaves our most vulnerable and oppressed exposed and endangered—and in too many cases dead at the hands of those whom pledged to protect.
We are only as free as the most oppressed and disenfranchised among us. Freedom is a cudgel of oppression up until the moment it fully liberates and embraces us all. We must challenge ourselves every moment of every day to live up to our highest ideals. The self-evident truth that every person is created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Can we finally make this a reality for all Americans? And in the event I was not clear: Black Lives Matter. Full stop. End of discussion.
It is in evening blue light when the day’s last comings glow, ebbing slow each night as the final light of day goes. It is a soft kiss, a gentle embrace as day shares love with her partner night. For a few moments the two poles dance together, igniting passion in the pastel embers of yearning. It is devotion writ large, a passion play painting tenderness on nature’s most dramatic stage. Ensconced our lovers intwine but twice each day, and they are here to teach us whenever we choose to learn.
Were I to see into the future would I make this photograph?
Would we do anything were we to see it beforehand? More so, would we have in our possession the power to stop ourselves? When and where would we even want to?
Does our seeing a thing stop us from tracking it? Does our knowing a thing irrevocably change its course? Does its future sprout a new one?
How can we know when our future is here? When the heart lifts and the gifts are easy, and you well know a place you’d swear you knew before.
Out of Exile — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures
A weary traveller, chastened and humbled returning from isolation made his way out of exile to this sacred place of restoration and life. To the marsh he’d seen so many times before. The same marsh he’s photographed for more than eight years with dutiful care. To this holy marsh where centeredness and peace comes easy. It is at this place he bears witness to its cyclical grace of death and rebirth marked by its annual rise and fall. The comings and goings of its grasses, the arrival and departure of migratory sea birds, the summer flourish of bugs to feed the ecosystem, and all manner of life in between. It is the marsh of his youth that will god willing serve as the marsh of his golden years. It is the marsh to which he will always return when called out of exile.
Love and Lilacs — 35mm | f/1.4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/5000
Today marks 43 days at home. Am I hanging in there? Yes. Am I a people starved, in need of hugging and loving, and belly laughs with friends? Also yes. I wrote yesterday how all this time home has reconnected me to my macro flower photography roots. A blessing in all the isolated madness. Well this weekend my lilacs took their first step out onto the springtime stage. They are prepping for their proper debut this week. Before I trim them up to bring their unmistakable scent inside I will get my photo fill.
Instead of the 100mmmacro lens I went with my beloved 35mm. It’s a versatile lens, one that affords landscapes, portraits, and even a floral still life. It’s the lens you take along if you can only have one. She’s a show off, too; striking sharpness wide open. Allowing the photographer to execute dramatic bokeh balanced against areas of sharp focus. It’s a dream to shoot and super fast. All I had to do was frame up a pleasing composition in decent sunlight and let the glass do the rest.
Love and lilacs. Lilacs and love. Pink and purple pastel beauties surpassed in sweetness only by their unmistakable perfume. Dating back to the ancient world purple marked out royalty. It wasn’t long before they cornered the market in total. In many cases outlawing its wearing to non-royals. And the Byzantine’s, well they were flat out obsessed with the color. To the block quote:
The reason for purple’s regal reputation comes down to a simple case of supply and demand. For centuries, the purple dye trade was centered in the ancient Phoenician city of Tyre in modern day Lebanon. The Phoenicians’ “Tyrian purple” came from a species of sea snail now known as Bolinus brandaris, and it was so exceedingly rare that it became worth its weight in gold. To harvest it, dye-makers had to crack open the snail’s shell, extract a purple-producing mucus and expose it to sunlight for a precise amount of time. It took as many as 250,000 mollusks to yield just one ounce of usable dye, but the result was a vibrant and long-lasting shade of purple.” — History.com
Thanks to nature purple is for the people; no reserved for the privileged few who managed the singular feat of being born of a certain line. Mother Nature loves all, blind to class and caste, and bestows her regal colors across the lands of even her most humble denizens. Love and lilacs always win and her purple is ours to behold.
