I saw a post on Facebook yesterday by a photography website called Lightstalking. It was a nice little piece about photographing wildlife in an urban setting and one of the comments that struck me was the following: "Be trustworthy. Although any wildlife photography is about being as unobtrusive as possible, wildlife at 50 mm is about intimacy. It’s impossible to do that without getting close. Be prepared to spend quite a bit of time together before you start shooting. Accept that sometimes an animal doesn’t want you to come close(r). After all, being trusted by a vulnerable animal is somewhat of a miracle". So when I went out for a walk today to photograph birds at Clearwater Beach, FL, I was mindful of this advise, especially since I was planning to use a 14-42mm lens.... and needed to get up very close and personal. I took a lot of photos of seagulls and other local birds but wasn't able to get up close enough to anything for a good shot. Everything just flew away as soon as I took the camera out. I felt like I had failed the "intimacy test" with the birds of Clearwater so I put the camera back in the bag and headed home. But like many things.... when you stop trying too hard your luck changes. As I was walking back home I saw a white Egret near the shore. I slowly walked toward it. And as I got closer and closer.. and closer.. I couldn't believe that I was being "trusted" enough to get within 6 feet of this beautiful bird! It felt really intimate. How did I get so lucky? This Egret just stood there steadfast...almost begging me to come closer. Well, as the Lightstalking piece said, it really helps to be patient and "unobtrusive". But I should note that it also really helps when there is a tasty little bite sized fish dangling off a fishing line just a few feet over your shoulder! Turns out that some kids were fishing off a nearby ledge and had caught a fish just as I was walking up and moving in on the Egret. Maybe the Egret "trusted" me but I think he was really looking for a quick and easy dinner. Yep, miracles happen.... especially if you are in the right place at the right time! (see http://www.lightstalking.com/urban-wildlife-photography).
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I thought I saw a Pirate ship...when I was barely 6! Today I saw a Pirate ship...I'm nearly 66! The adventure continues...Clearwater, Florida 1/24/12 Although my ship hasn't come in just yet, my Florida adventure, now in its 4th week, is going well. I've been able to turn a few sand dollars into dollars, and have started work on some new paintings! The drive south to Florida was fun. The road was clear, the diners on the back roads were awesome, and there was BBQ and churches everywhere! One place had it all....BBQ and church in the same building! And I had a chance to spend some quality time packing trivets with my Georgia staff (i.e. family) along the way. Although 5 AM set-ups come early the snowbirds have arrived for the season, the crowds have been good and the shows have been fun. The first show was in The Villages in central Florida... one of the largest and most active retirement communities in the world. I'm happy to report that even at 85 years of age one "never seems to have enough trivets"! So the trivet business is good here in Florida. Viva la trivet! If you are down in Florida this winter please check out the show schedule and drop by one of the shows. Dan In the early 1950's my family used to drive down to Florida for the winter. We drove down in our 1949 Kaiser Frazer. So when I was packing up the old Jeep today I was thinking about those winter trips, which were mainly on the secondary roads south from Pennsylvania, before the Interstate Highways.
Tomorrow I'm driving down to Florida for the winter.... to paint and do a few craft shows. And I think I'll take a few back roads ...maybe I'll find a Stuckeys along the way. If you are going to be in Florida during the next few months please drop by one of the shows. http://www.danjohnsondesigns.com/shows.html I like to paint and I like to photograph things. And I sell reproductions of both my watercolor paintings and photographs. But people sometimes look at my paintings and say something like...."wow, I really thought that was a photograph". I never know quite how I feel about this. Was that a compliment? Does my work just replicate (in paint) what a photo can do better? The painting vs. photography issue is, of course, an old one and "photo-realism" in painting has often been awarded second hand status. Technician vs. artist, etc. And in the new world of digital photography things get even more blurred. With a good camera and minimal photoshop skills you can take a nice photo and then "create" a watercolor painting! Actually, its "easier done than said"! In spite of all this I'm still interested in the relationship between painting and photography and I've been experimenting lately with this "mixed-media". Here's an example: I recently did a watercolor painting of river stones, in black and white tones. I dropped a few "real" partially dried leaves on the painting and then took a photograph of the combination. Here's the result: I like how the shadows add color to the b/w painting. I'm working now on adding "real" objects to a watercolor painting of fallen leaves.
One often hears the expression “Now that’s a perfect photo-op”! To overstate things a bit, Sunday, October 30, 2011 was maybe one of the best "snowstorm photo-ops" since the Civil War, which apparently was the last time an early Nor’easter this big hit New England. Nearly 3 feet of snow in some places! On the day before Halloween! Unlike almost 3 million people who lost power due to the storm, I was lucky. I did not lose power… only cable & internet. So it was pretty hard to feel sorry for myself when the sun came out on Sunday morning. I got up early, grabbed my camera and went outside. The first thing I saw, just outside my front door, was a bed of roses…covered in snow. I shook them off a little, took a few pictures and went for a walk. As I walked to the park, tree limbs were scattered everywhere... pulled down by the weight of the snow on the leaves. In late October we are so used to seeing the leaves blowing across green grass, not stuck in snow and ice. Even the green leaves got stuck in the snow before their time. . Leaves and limbs are not quite as pretty, however, when they fall in the wrong places. Tonight is Halloween. I guess you never know whether nature will bring a "Trick or a Treat" (or both)! P.S. Internet service is back. It was nice being “off-line” for a few days! If you are concerned about how Maine's landscape is changing daily, check out today's news!
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/international-appalachian-trail-gets-ponsor-hip-upport-from-first After posting my Happy Feet story this summer I couldn't resist sharing today's penguin news from New Zealand. See the story. http://animaltracks.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/20/8411051-a-good-yarn-knitters-make-sweaters-for-penguins-after-oil-spill http://www.danjohnsondesigns.com/1/post/2011/09/happy-feet.html) I decided to drive up to my cabin in Rangeley, Maine this week to paint. Specifically, to paint leaves. Its just about the end of “peak season” in the Rangeley area and there is no better place in the world (at least in my world) to catch a brief glimpse of New England’s fall colors. So I couldn’t wait to head up the back roads of Maine to Rangeley. I first drove up to Rangeley with my son in the summer of 1999. A few months later, in the fall, our family bought a cabin on Rangeley Lake and we had our first view of this beautiful area in the fall as we drove up Route 17, now the “Rangeley Lakes Scenic By Way”, which runs from Rumford/Mexico up to the Rangeley Lakes area. I always look forward to this stretch of the trip, the last leg of a 4-5 hour drive. The bumps in the road feel like a free wheeling country roller coaster ride. We saw our first moose on this road and have hiked on the Appalachian Trail which runs nearby. At its peak the road passes through the “Heart of the Land”, one of the most beautiful scenic views in the state of Maine. But on this trip I nearly drove off the road. Just a few weeks before the mountain views were spectacular…. ready to pop with color. But now, driving up Rte 17, in Roxbury, I saw a huge “dagger” on one of the mountain tops! It was a massive wind turbine! And then I saw a whole vista of wind turbines… looking like alien swords piercing the entire landscape. After more than a decade of seeing nothing but the mountains from this road, I was now looking at the Wind Turbines of Record Hill, a Project (I later learned) that was now going forward full steam. I pulled off the road, nearly hitting a bicyclist, and took a few pictures. I thought about the wind turbines most of that evening. I knew that there had been some controversy over the installation of turbines at Saddleback Mountain near the Appalachian Trail a few years ago but so far nothing has happened…at least as far as I know. I knew nothing about the Record Hill Wind Project. But the next morning at the Rangeley Library it didn’t take long to find some basic facts and a report from the State of Maine on the Record Hill Wind Project, see http://www.maine.gov/dep/bep/2010/03-18-10/RH%20-%20DEP%20scenic%20excerpts.pdf In the conclusion of this report it was noted that … ”the Project has been conceived and designed to have minimal visual impacts on scenic resources within the study area. The Project will not have an unreasonable adverse impact on scenic values and existing uses of scenic resources of state or national significance” This was not quite my reaction on first glance at the wind turbines. And my guess is that it is not what is being experienced by many of the locals in the area either. And if my cabin was just a few miles south I too would be facing these noisy and flickering turbines as I paint, hike, canoe, garden, and chop wood. Maine takes pride in having some of the most beautiful, quiet, and unspoiled countryside in the United States. Is there a state at risk here? We may get the answer in the years ahead if the tour buses stop coming to see this “unspoiled” countryside of Maine. I spent the better part of a day at the Rangeley Library reading about wind power in the State of Maine. I generally try to keep politics out of my news/blog but when something hits you this hard you simply cannot ignore it. On my drive up Route 17 I saw someone outside adding an addition to his house as the turbines were sprouting up overhead! And I later watched a video of a family in Aroostook County, Maine, who have spent most or their life’s savings on a retirement home only to find that they are now trying to sell their dream home because they can’t sleep due to the noise and the “flicker” of the wind turbines put up near their home. But then this is not my backyard. I’m “from away”. I’m just here to paint leaves. I should be thinking of all the local jobs that come along with these projects, how it helps the local economy and the energy resources of the State of Maine, etc. But I’ve read enough in just one day that suggests that these jobs are generally short term, 6 month construction jobs that do not impact long term unemployment and that Maine may not, in fact, really need the minimal amount of energy provided by these turbines. Truth be told I am also embarrassed at how little I really know about the pros and cons of wind power turbines in the US. I should be more educated about this important issue. They have been around for a while and I’ve seen them on the landscape from California to Maine. But it has never been so disturbing to me. It is going to be hard for me to ignore them now or to pretend they are not there. They are nearly in my own back yard. I certainly don’t have any answers. But I am reminded of a few lines from Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind” …”how many years can a mountain exist Before it’s washed to the sea? Yes, ‘n’ how many years can some people exist Before they’re allowed to be free? Yes, ‘n’ how many times can a man turn his head Pretending he just doesn’t see? The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind The answer is blowin’ in the wind. From Bob Dylan, Blowing In The Wind There are a few expressions that you often hear from potential customers while selling art and craft on the street. One of the most common expressions is "I'll be back". As art and craft vendors, we call them the "Be Backs". Most of them move on, find other things, and don't come back. I once met a craftsman who had a little contest at an art fair. He gave all the Be Backs a card with a time and a number on it. He placed a duplicate card in a bowl and told them that if they came back at that time later in the day there would be a drawing and that they could win one of his items if their card was drawn. I don't know how it all turned out but I thought it was a clever little ploy to get the Be Backs back! At a show in Newburyport, MA this past weekend I was reminded of this when I heard some folks say...."I'll be back..."I want to do the loop first"..."I've got it in my brain now"...."she has a Yankee Swap coming up so we will definitely need to come back and get that"...."I'll be back...I won't have to carry it around that way", etc.
But there was one little girl, about 10 years old, who saw one of my tulip paintings as she and her mother were driving down the street behind my booth! She was also a painter and she convinced her mother to stop, park, and come back to see the tulip painting. They both liked it and said they would be back later and asked if I would set it aside for them. I did. At about 5 PM, just before the show was about to shut down... they came back.... and said that as they were driving out of town they remembered that they had forgotten about the tulips! They hit the brakes, turned around, came back and bought the tulip painting.... just as I was starting to pack up. You gotta love the energy, persistence and honesty of some kids. I hope she paints some flowers when she grows up too! And you just never know these days. The elderly folks who needed a "Yankee Swap" gift might see my work again back at home... as they slowly cruise the internet... without having to "be back", "do the loop" again or even "carry it around"! |
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