July light fades a pink kiss goodbye. The worn one knows well not to believe the false promises softened in its pastel glow. Sirens of lies singing us onto the rocks of the forever young. Stay here forever and there will be no pain or woe. Life as it is with light moves on indifferent to any one plight or pleasure. For the Universal Powers have big work to do and none of it includes waiting on you.
We stand afield planted, seeded and watered to grow only to wear and wither in but an eye blink of Big Time. In our winking we open ourselves to the beauty of worlds both big and small. People, places, and things to make us whole and worth it. This warmth buzzes about in orbit to pollinate our lives with richness and love.
Then comes the crisis. The light fades stealing with it the freedom and innocence. It moves on unburdened as the oily peddler selling death in a bottle. Rooted the worn one wanes alone, naked and afraid.
I happened myself into an opportunity to shoot a Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM Lens for the first time on Saturday. Ho boy is it something else. This beast is the size of a grapefruit and weighs in at a hefty 2.26 pounds. You feel this lens. It’s a fine piece of engineering, and the chunk of glass within its blackened frame is prodigious. Everything about this lens means business. Cupped in your hands you feel every bit the seasoned photographer.
Its large size and weight is a well matched companion for the equally robust Canon 5D Mark III body. The pairing works well for me because I have large hands and enjoy extra weight as a preference. Smaller handed people not looking for a workout beware, as the heft may portend a limiting factor. I was in my element with both the weight and the ergonomics of the camera and lens combo. Though an hour plus of intense shooting left my right hand barking.
The image quality is where this beefy bad boy holds it down. I spent the entirety of my time shooting wide open, and I am beyond impressed with the results. Tack sharp, even wide open, killer bokeh, minimal barrel distortion, and fantastic color reproduction. Here you are only seeing a test photo made of my purple coneflowers, but this lens earns its reputation as a portrait lens. Rented for such a purpose, I used this lens on the beach to make birthday portraits for my dear friends’ one year old. We could not be more pleased with the results. Now I am left sitting here thinking I need this 85mm lens. Shut up and take my money, Canon.
Born of the Purple — 35mm | f/1.4 | ISO 400 | EXP 1/13
Last night’s sunset was a certified banger. A powered up sky show raining down pastel hues upon the green land in every direction. The pinks and purples filtering down from the 360 degree sky dome looked the work of angels. A moment in time to take your breath away and leaves your heart to skip a beat. Without question one of the best sunsets of 2020. A stunner, full stop.
Of course I was home cooking. Instead of getting bent and pouty, the sky faeries shared with me a boon. My front yard purple coneflowers were straight glamor posing in heaven’s pastel glow. The ethereal infusion amplifying the already magnificent colors of these flowering beauties. Excited and inspired, I dashed inside, opened my camera bag, and swapped my 14mm lens for my 35mm. With aperture set wide open at f/1.4, I squatted close to my subject and went to town making frames of my echinacea friends.
This had me amped. Ignoring the missed landscape potential, I popped off shots left and right. My muse looked a wonder under this light and she knew it. So I set about making frames with the intense glow of sunset backlighting the whole scene. It was sublime. One of those flow moments where time sits still—fostering maximum internal focus and presence.
A brief word on the not so intentional making of this photograph. There is another happy accident worth mentioning here: It does not take a keen observer to note this picture is out of focus. Low on light I had a sluggish shutter speed set at 1/13 of a second. As a general rule it’s a safe bet to keep your shutter speed denominator north of your focal length. In this case, sitting over 1/35 or so would be the play. That said, I am of a mind the lack of focus plays right into the strength of the scene. With light cast from a usually unseen parallel universe bleeding into our world if only for a moment. It adds something of a fishbowl effect and it is the perfect accoutrement to the tableau. It conveys the mood in a far truer way than I could have intentioned. Too often we do not see the world as it is. Sometimes sharp focus leaves us blind.
The lesson—missing out on a thing does not mean we lose a thing. Instead it gifts opportunity to see a thing in a different, more diffuse and loving light. We work with what we’ve got, and that is where we create the real magic to capture our forever.
Working Class Hero — 100mm | f/4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/1250
Dutiful honey bee plying her trade. Drinking her nectar and loading her pollen basket, she works with intent. With energy and purpose she minds her craft. Even alone the hive is on the mind. Her community needs her; needs her singular focus to feed and to provide. To sustain the group. Bounding atop pistils by day, she works the land spending hours at the harvest. Undaunted she holds fast to her task. Mindfulness dams distraction. Even the focused lens of the observer matter little to our indefatigable worker bee. She need not pay us any mind—she strives for the hive.
As ever, thank you, John Lennon, for enriching our lives with joy. Thanks for your classic song connecting to this lyrically inspired photo. A working class hero is something to be(e).
The Technician — 100mm | f/4 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/160
Photo making is a task I invest significant time. 2020 marks year nine in my photography journey, and what an unexpected trip it has been. Beginning as a desperate distraction from depression, it has morphed into a real passion spanning the better part of a decade. I look back and ask myself what has changed since such a somber beginning? How has my perception shifted since my early days as a lost soon-to-be 30 year old with little clue how to use a camera?
For years I thought of myself as a technician. An individual proficient in making appealing photographs. Something of a process driven camera operator churning out landscape and nature photos per the rules. Viewing myself as a proper photographer, let alone creator, took many years of inner wrangling. I was a guy who followed procedure and protocols to produce a good clean image. There was nothing more to it. Follow steps one, two, and three, and a good photo you will be. As ever labels and semantics tripped me up, and I refused to think of myself as something more than a well trained individual who executes a task list. Anyone can do this, and creativity is no factor.
This view, pedantic and self-limiting, was a silly exercise. Over time I eased up on these pointless restrictions. Why put myself in a box? Or the better question, why exclude myself from other boxes? It’s foolish. After several years I grew inured to the photographer label. Being called a photographer didn’t leave me vexed and uncomfortable, with a furrowed brow looking over my shoulder for someone else with a camera . We must accept what is.
Fast forward to the past few years, and I finding growing comfort traipsing into creator territory. Might I be creative? That’s all cool and artsy sounding, so can it be true of a self-professed technician? Here I submit my writing as evidence. Even though my clear renown, such as it is, is as a photographer, it is my writing that brings the most intrinsic joy. This creative act is far less natural to me than making photographs. There is no technical process for me to follow. No clear roadmap for success. This is a wholly feel-based enterprise, and I am certain that leaves learned readers with a proper taste for grammar cringing.
English class was not my thing as a youngster, and this remained the case throughout high school and college. I showed neither promise nor interest in writing. And yet, for the past few years, it is far and away my favorite form of personal creative expression. The words I write to accompany each photograph I share means more to me than any photo I make. Do not get me wrong, it feels great to have a photo meet with broad community appeal. Those likes, shares, and thumbs up feel good! But nothing pleases me more than a person talking about what I wrote. This praise removed the technician from the uncomfortable box he placed himself in. So allow me a giant thank you to every one of you who takes time to read and resonate with my words. Your time and attention is a gift amidst this tripped up world, and I thank you all.
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.
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.
Flowered Sun | 100mm | f/3.5 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/320
Looking close and slow upon a flower is a practice in patience with which all should partake. Particularly true to heal closed hearts and open stagnant minds. It is both window to the soul and outlet to the universe and it unveils the underpinnings of nature’s truth.
Take this nascent echinacea blossom. Still early in its development, it will soon blossom into its wonderful purple array. Yet here, in this moment of transition, if we look close we see the vast universe mirrored atop a small flower. With my first glimpse this blossom has the look of a sun. Star powered energy pouring forth from a solar atom foundry in its energetic prime.
Or is it teasing us with the esoteric nature of spacetime? The pliable fabric Einstein predicts by way of his theory of General Relativity? The spiraling spires trigger my imagination. I look and I ruminate. I see space curving and folding in response to mass. I see the universe as it is—all atop a flower in transition.
Or do I look only but upon a flower? Should it be so than it would all be worth it for the beauty of the world sets forever before us.
There is regal majesty in the echinacea’s journey from bud to blossom. With the subtlety and finesse borne of fine stock she transforms with noble grace. Gentle petals work outward—a green coronet becoming the crown befitting her station. The purple coneflower corona hits its zenith only to unfurl to its full purple petal. Long and lithe this flower never loses the splendor of its most perfect roots.
