Category Archives: Spring

black and white peony, square with raindrops 2010

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While it’s usually easy to make exposures — especially in some of the times of year when beauty is everywhere I turn — sometimes it’s hard to pick a photo of the week. Sometimes it’s like pulling my own teeth. Sometimes when digging through the catalog, everything looks good. And how to pick? Or sometimes nothing looks worthy. Why am I even doing this?

On Friday when I went pearl diving, I came up with this. I like it a lot. Seeing it in black and white helped pull some of the things I like about photographs: subtlety of tone and texture, dynamic energy in the composition, a poignant pointing-out of the passing of time, the bubble-like nature of experience and existence. This is why I’m doing this work.

update 8.3.2010: this print is now available for sale here

Part of a Peony: Crinkled Linen June 2010

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Peony Crinkled Linen

One of my favorite peonies over the years has been one called “Crinkled White.” I’ve even moved Crinkled White peony plant a few times as I’ve moved, which is tricky, because it is also one of the least vigorous peonies I’ve ever grown. I think that in the last move the Crinkled White didn’t make it here, back across the river again to Vermont. I ended up buying Crinkled Linen a few years ago, and I might even like this peony better. We’ve also moved here to a handful of huge, established, and unusual peonies, so we’re rich.

update 8.3.2010: this print is now available for sale here

Dandelion Fluff in Ranunculus

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We have a relatively new flower garden in ground that was only broken last year. It’s full of weed seeds, which ran away on us late last summer. This spring it’s a hand and back breaking job to pull the grasses, dandelions,  sedges, curly dock, queen ann’s lace, and others from among the flowers.

I was working there the other morning, with camera at hand, and it turns out that my best photos actually featured the weeds, with the flowers as backdrops.

It is a good perspective to have on Mind as well.

The following is a quote from Suzuki Roshi, from a dharma talk given in November of 1965:

“We say ‘pulling out the weed’.  We make it nourishment of the plant.  We pull the weed and bury the weed near the plant to make it nourishment of the plant.  So even though you have some difficulty in your practice….even though you have some waves while you are sitting, those weeds itself will help you.  So we should not be bothered by the weeds you have in your mind.  We should be rather grateful to the weeds you have in your mind because eventually will enrich your practice.”

update 8.3.2010: this print is now available for sale here

Old Barn, Spring Poplars, NH

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I started looking through raw images in my Lightroom catalog the other evening, and this image jumped out at me. I decided to try opening the RAW file in Photoshop to see what was what. Then I decided to search for the file and see if I already had a non-raw version of it. I found one, and the modified date was exactly one year ago! I guess this date just sort of feels like this here in northern New England.