Category: Photography

I like walking at twilight. One can think without being interrupted by joggers running past, plastic workout pants rustling as they rush by; or couples out for a nature walk, talking about anything but nature, looking anywhere except at a tree. Only the serious come out to the forest at twilight.

During one walk last week, deer appeared here and there all along the trail, starting with the two buck wondering in the bushes close to the trail as soon as I crossed the bridge entering the preserve; ending with several deer around a watering hole near the end — mere mists of gray against a night darkened forest.

At one point I was walking down a steep hill and a doe, startled by my sudden appearance, burst out of a bush right next to the road and started to run. For some reason, I called out to her. And for some unknown reason, she stopped, turned around and looked at me. We stood there a moment looking at each other until she slowly turned away and re-entered the forest.

I did meet a few people during this particular walk. One woman and I both paused at the same time in front of of a hillside, several deer dotting its slopes. We looked at each other and smiled — what more needs be said? At another bend in the trail, when I was watching yet another deer, a guy walked past and said quietly, “Pretty, aren’t they?” I answered, “Yuh.”

Witty repartee in the woods.

I went back to the trail today to check out the fall foliage. The woods were beginning to get colorful last week, but I wasn’t prepared for what I saw today. As I drove up old Highway 66 heading to the preserve, I almost wrecked the car when I drove over a hill and the forest unfolded in front of me all at once. Brilliant, brilliant color, everywhere. Scarlet, gold, orange, green, browns, and every nuance of shade in-between.

When I entered the forest, it was like being wrapped in the warmth of glory.

Surrounded by such vivid colors one almost doesn’t feel the chill of the Fall air, but today’s walk was cold, so much colder than last week. Because I was there earlier in the day, not many creatures were about; a few squirrels and birds, but no deer. Nature gives its treats out sparingly: deer or fall colors.

During the walk, I would stop under the large trees when the wind blew, and let the leaves fall down around me as one would drop a curtain around a canary’s cage to stop its song. I stood with upturned face as they fell, faint whispers of sound moving past.

Caution was required when walking today as the wet leaves on the paved surface of the trail made it very slippery in spots. I visualized myself falling, breaking something, unable to get out, calling weakly for help.

Well, no, this wouldn’t happen. I don’t break when I fall, I bruise a bit and bounce a bit, usually equal parts of both. And someone in plastic workout clothes would have come along directly; we could only hope they wouldn’t vault over me leaving me crying piteously in their wake.

However, the faux risk did give me the illusion of being “in the wild”.

Today at the watering hole I found a dismal dark muddy green pool of water. How different it appeared from last week, when viewed in shades of night time gray, circled by deer with white around their eyes and flicked on their tails.

A curious thing happened during that twilight walk — I saw one of the deer scratch its neck with its back foot. I know this is a normal thing to do, all creatures scratch themselves. But in all the times I’ve seen deer, I’ve never been near enough to one in such a way that it was comfortable enough to do ordinary things, and I could see them.

If I were a marketer I would say, “Yes ladies and gentlemen. You, too, can have peaceful moments, and be rained on by golden leaves, and look into the gentle brown eyes of a deer only feet away just for the low cost of…?” All this talk of money, and making money, when there’s so much around us and the only price we have to pay is a little of our time.

Next week when I go back the leaves will be mostly gone, and the sun will finally have its way with the ground. The deer will move deeper into the woods to forage. Too soon, the forest and the bushes and the pond will lie under a blanket of white, and all will sleep.

There’s something close and secretive about the St. Louis parks, an otherworldly quality that strongly appeals to me. Last week I took photos at Laumieir Sculpture park at dusk and I was the only person among the paths and the sculptures set in odd corners. Echoing my footsteps was the rustle of bushes and dead leaves from squirrels running from my approach. I knew the reason for the noise, but that didn’t stop the impression of a ghostly companion paralleling my movement in the darkening forest around me.

Spooky. A bit scary. Wonderful.

The photos used in The Parable of Languages are from Tower Grove park in St. Louis, an amazing place full of trees, streams, lily ponds, interesting buildings and odd gazebos, and faux ruins complete with lake and fountain — a true Victorian park. It was love at first sight, so expect more from Babble Meadow in the future.

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Jonathon Delacour writes about sentiment and freshman photographers:

When I taught photography, the photographs taken by first year students were—with very few exceptions—sentimental clichés.

As an attempt to counter this, Jonathon and the other photography department instructors posted a notice that banned certain subjects in photographs the students submitted, such as closeups of bark on tree trunks, toddlers with ice cream smeared on their faces, and nudes. Denied their usual subjects, the students were then forced to use their own imagination.

Sentimentality is more than dusty red velvet boxes and a baby’s lock of hair pressed between the pages of a book. At its worst, it is both a fake and a fraud, an attempt to package a thought, memory, or mood into something palatable to the general populace.

Ansel Adams was a master of the photographic technique, and generally held to be one of the best “nature” photographers of all time. Yet, lately, I’m beginning to understand Jonathon’s intense dislike of Adams’ work. When I view Adam’s photograph of Canyon de Chelly, I see technique and perspective, but the photo is flat, emotionless, safely consumable. It completely lacks respect for the spirituality of the location.

It is a photograph you can hang at McDonald’s.

Yet when Nat King Cole sings “I love you for sentimental reasons”, he isn’t singing about clichés and pop art. The song reflects the simple, honest love of one person for another, and the hope of shared memories in the future. This is the sentimentality that Loren Webster writes about:

Personally, I worry about friends who aren’t sentimental about their childhood, their children’s childhood, or their grandchildren. You’re supposed to be sentimental about these things, for God’s sake. Does anyone really think you’re supposed to be totally objective about your children? And grandchildren? You’d have to be a real Scrooge not to occasionally indulge the temptation to spoil grandchildren, wouldn’t you?

The tendency in art in the past was to paint the family, the ultimate symbol of life, in an ideal light: (One) Mother always smiling, (One) Father always strong, and the children always bright and sunny. A hopefully impossible vision for any family to meet. Today’s artist, in a burst of artistic integrity and honesty rejects this bland rosiness, and paints the family in the palette’s darkest shades — Father missing, Mother disturbed, Mother’s boyfriend abusive, drunk, and unemployed. And don’t even ask about the kids.

Yet, the pictures we paint of the darkness of family life are just as much a lie, a characterization as the pictures we paint of the positive — it is the worst form of sentimentality, that which is fraudulent and false and focused on making the work consumable, at least by today’s standards.

The reality is that the best of families have a little horror in them, and the worst have a little hope. Scratch life and you’ll find this everywhere.

I thought about this as I walked along a trail in Powder Valley today, camera in hand. I thought about how difficult it was for me to pick a good shot because it seemed as if I was surrounded by great shots. As a little experiment, I deliberately looked for bad shots, and when I found a good candidate, I would take a photograph of it, and of the scene directly opposite. What an eye opening and exciting experience this was — and disruptive.

What I want from my pictures, and my writing, is to somehow pull in my audience while simultaneously pushing them away. Sentimental? Yes. Non-sentimental? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Today’s photographs:

And sorry, Jonathon, but I couldn’t pass up this bark closeup. I think you’ll find, though, that it is anything but ordinary.