ImageGuy

December 27, 2007

Christmas Angels

I rose yesterday morning at around 6:30 and left my wife and daughter sleeping to go out and photograph the streets of Willimantic, CT again, but found nothing that really grabbed my eye on this day after Christmas. So I turned back toward Manchester and drove out through the countryside while I listened to NPR. I ended up finally stopping on this frosty morning, shortly after sunrise, at the Mansfield Center Cemetery. A beautifully preserved ancient burial ground with amazing stones.

cemetery 1

cemetery 2

cemetery 3

I used to do a lot of rubbings from old tombstones when I lived in Massachusetts. I admire the style and whimsical nature of the early carvers who crafted wonderful angels, death heads, birds and willow trees, and other symbolic pictorial representations on the old markers. And the cemetery at Mansfield holds some fine examples. These appear to be mostly from sandstone, which erodes over time, as opposed to slate, which tends to withstand the weathering better and was more prevalent in the areas around Boston. But the Mansfield stones have been well cared for and survive in extremely good condition.

cemetery 4

cemetery 5

cemetery 6

I strolled about the grounds admiring the craftsmanship, but also feeling the history. I love old cemeteries and can’t help but wonder about the lives of these old and young departed souls, their parts in building the communities, the children they raised and lost, the widows, the young soldiers, and the old farmers. The town’s leaders and professionals, and the unmarked graves of servants and paupers. Some were simply portrayed as “wife of”, “widow of”, “beloved son” or simply “father”. Others were more eloquently eulogized. The names so poetic that speak of history. Emily and Delia Salter; Rebecka Alpenwall, wife of Peter; Elithea Trumball, widow of William; Captain Samuel Storrs; and Zedekia Smith who died at 18 years old on May 21st, 1776. Probably a young soldier of the revolution.

cemetery 7

cemetery 8

Dr. David Adams, who died on March 26th in 1790 at the age of 59 was “Endowed by Nature with strong mental powers, which he greatly improved by reading and reflection. Distinguished for good sense, phylanthropy (sic), and patriotism. He was eminent as a physician. And died in hope of a happy memorial.”

cemetery 9

cemetery 10

cemetery 11

I strolled among these angels and felt their presence. I wondered and imagined and then I wished them well and left them peaceful under the frosty sunrise in the Connecticut countryside. I’m sure to return there, having met them now and feeling as though they have shared something with me. And for this I am thankful.

cemetery 13

Leave a comment

December 22, 2007

In the Deep Freeze

The season is upon us and even in the hectic craziness of all the shoppers and planning for the holidays, things begin to slow. I feel like I can take a deep breath and just lay back a little. Working for a university has its perks in that I get all next week off and a few days beyond. Although my wife is expecting me to work on our bedroom after we return from Connecticut. So a working break. I also have a presentation coming up that I have to finish preparing for. At least I’m home. We decorated the house a little for my daughter’s holiday party last week, rented a hot tub, and entertained about twenty-five teenagers. We put lights up from the exposed beams in the living room and they keep the place feeling kind of festive.

house with lights

I sat in the hot tub last Sunday as the snow drifted down, almost stinging when it landed on my exposed arms as I laid back in the warm bubbly water. The hot tub jets were the only sound other than the waterfall down in the gorge. Geese flew quietly overhead and the last few oak leaves still clinging in the trees betrayed the breeze that stirred. I could smell the smoke from the woodstove inside and quietly meditated in the winter solitude. It was blissful.

waterfall

This morning I took Margot to the kennel to board while we are away. Fortunately she loves the kennel. Gets to bark herself hoarse. She’s loved the snow and buries her face in it, scrubs and rolls in it. The cats on the other hand get pretty stir crazy and ornery, fighting with each other and wanting to scratch apart the furniture.We’ve had a cold start to the season with more gray days than normal and a bit more snow. But white is the color for Christmas landscapes, so I’ll wish for a thaw in January. Wow, January.

icicles

Another year done. Seems like I just turned in last year’s tax returns and here they come again. Scary how fast the time passes as you age. Happy holidays everyone.

Leave a comment

December 16, 2007

ASD Benefit for Cystic Fibrosis

Those who read my blog regularly know that my daughter is a dancer. As a member of the dance team at Armstrong School of Dance, she takes several classes a week as do all the team girls, in all styles of dance. They are an amazing, beautiful group of girls.

ballet 1

ballet 2

Last season they reached their goal of a National Championship in competitions in New York City. This year they decided to focus their efforts less on competition and more on local performances and community service. So for a Holiday performance Karen Gorsky and her mother, Ann Armstrong, brought the Armstrong students to the Ithaca High School auditorium for a benefit to aid in fighting Cystic Fibrosis.

small kids

young w/ fingers up

dancers w/green and yellow skirts

Twenty-two separate dance numbers were presented by dancers from mid to upper levels in front of holiday decorations and sparkling lights and an exuberant crowd. The youngest performers who danced first, filled the floor in front of the stage to watch the older students as they leapt and glided gracefully across the floor. They raised over $6,000 for the cause and were a delight to watch. I commend all of them for their efforts.

Arabian Coffee

reindeer

lyrical with arms up

Cystic Fibrosis is the number one genetic killer of children and young adults in the United States today. It is an inherited chronic disease that affects the lungs and digestive system of about 30,000 children and adults in our country. A defective gene and its protein product cause the body to produce unusually thick, sticky mucus that clogs the lungs and leads to life-threatening lung infections among other effects. Today, advances in research and medical treatments have extended life for children and adults with CF. In 2006, the predicted median age of survival was 37 years.

wooden soldiers

cowgirls dance

jazz dance

I am so happy that my daughter has chosen dance as an interest and has committed to it with such passion. Dance, like many athletic activities, builds strength, flexibility, and stamina, tones the body and improves the balance and coordination. But beyond that these dancers also obviously build self-esteem, confidence, poise and grace.

team girls in black

little girls in green

kids in winter hats

They learn about team work, camaraderie and friendship, leadership, discipline, goal setting, and learn how it feels to be an integral part of the body of a performance. Everyone is important, and each one is valued. It’s a wonderful thing. I thank Karen and ASD for all that you have given my daughter over the years and for what you have done to help her to be a proud and beautiful young woman.

precision kick line

For everyone that reads here, I wish you all the very best for the Holidays. Thank you for being here all year with me, and for coming back so often. It means a great deal.

For more information or to make a donation to fight Cystic Fibrosis, contact the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, 6931 Arlington Rd., Bethesda, MD 20814, 866-347-2345. Or go to their web site at http://www.cff.org.

Leave a comment

December 5, 2007

Going Full Circle…

Link to my recent post which would not show up under “tags”.

Leave a comment

December 4, 2007

Full Circle…page 3.

Looking back at the year … chapter 3. (Go to page 1)

There were weddings…

wedding 1

wedding 2

wedding 3

wedding 4

wedding 5

There were native Americans…

indian dancer

…and Hindu brides…

hindu bride

…and all manner of beautiful people.

people 1

people 2

people 3

people 4

There was winter…

house in snow

tree branch

and spring…

willows

trillium

and summer…

tree with sun

geese

and fall.

fall tree

sumac and corn

And there was so much color.

Reds…

red flowers

apples

and blues…

white chair

blue sky

purples and greens.

irises

purple leaves

woods

Rainbows…

umbrella

shoes

sumac

and sunrises.

sunrise

And one beautiful red dress.

red dress

It was a very good year.

2 Comments

December 4, 2007

Full Circle…page 2

Looking back this year…chapter two. (Go to page 1)

There were flower pots…

pot guy

pot dog

fla pots

and flowers…

magnolias

collegetown

There were pictures looking down…

pool

tri-portrait

and looking up…

museum

awning

There was Willimantic, CT…

willimantic1

willimantic2

And the gulf coast of Florida…

seaside

fla entrance

banana trees

beach

and there was more….

1 Comment

December 3, 2007

Going full circle…page 1

It’s been almost a year since I began this blog. I started December 31, 2006. I wasn’t really sure, when I started, exactly what it would be or look like or where it would take me. What it has been is a surprise. I’m nearing 24,000 hits and have been averaging 200 hits a day for a while. I know by some bloggers’ standards this is barely being seen. But for me, every day that I top my best day is fantastic. I don’t know where all this traffic comes from. But one of my goals in doing this was to get some exposure for my photography. And it certainly has done that. So I guess one goal accomplished. It has been instrumental in getting me to photograph more. It’s like going to the gym. I need that push, that impetus, to make me pick up my gear and get out the door. And I’m always glad that I did afterwards. Another goal was to write more. At least once a week. I haven’t always posted on a regular weekly basis, but have been pretty steadfast about it. This will be my 57th post in a year so I guess I’m doing better than I had originally set out to do. I think the discipline of forcing myself to find a topic and write has been wonderful for both personal growth and training my writing skills. It has helped me to look back, to think about the past, and to set goals for the future. It has helped me to look inward, to examine my beliefs, to write about what’s important to me. And to share with others, my photography, my art, my thoughts, my history, my family, my opinions, my desires. To share these things with people I don’t know, and to come to know people that I hadn’t before. That has been the biggest surprise. Blogging has introduced me to a whole community of people from all over who share similar things. The desire to make contact with the world, the need to be recognized, to say I’m here and I have something important to share. And it has brought to my intimate space in front of this monitor a sense of connectedness to others who are incredibly human, and caring, and feeling, and wise. People who are willing to share their joys and their sorrows by allowing me to read their journals and know that my experience too is valid and understood and not uncommon. I want to tell all of you who read this blog regularly how much I appreciate you. How much I depend on you being there. And how much joy it brings me to know you read this and to receive your comments. Thank you all.

So the images on this post are a look back over the year. A look back at where I’ve been this year and what I’ve seen and what I’ve photographed. I’ll have to do this as two or three posts because, as I look at the images I want to look back at, there’s just too many to narrow it down to 15 or so. Photographically it’s been a big year for me. I finally got off my lazy butt and set up my photography as a business. I established a working relationship with a very good friend and photographer only to have it fall apart and lose not only the working relationship but the friendship as well. Very sad about that. I had an image from long ago noticed by a producer in California and picked up for use in a PBS documentary. I have a couple of pictures coming out in the next issue of JPG magazine. I’ve shot weddings, a bar mitzvah, portraits and performances. And I’ve made some pictures this year that I am very proud of. I upgraded my computer equipment to the system I’ve always dreamed of and have set new goals for the coming year to make my business grow. All in all, a very good year. Now how do I top this? Just keep shooting and writing and let it all happen I suppose. Thanks again to all of you. Here are some images from the past year.

I looked back at the past.

The grandfather I never knew.

W. M. Alred

Ithaca Gun, now defunct.

ithaca gun

aging trucks…

aging truck 1

aging truck 2

I shot at the boat yard again.

boatyard 1

boatyard 2

And continued my series on Ornamental America.

OA 1

OA2

OA3

OA4

There were performances…

play

banghra

and proms…

prom

dancers…

dance 1

dance 2

dance 3

and fireworks.

fireworks

and there’s more…

4 Comments

November 23, 2007

Back in Willimantic

We rolled in tonight at around six after picking up the dog on the way home. Home from Connecticut where we spend every Thanksgiving and Christmas. Thanksgiving used to be at Nana’s, my wife’s grandmother’s house. But since Nana died we have spent it with my mother-in-law in Columbia. We cooked the first couple of times, but for the last two years, she too has gotten quite frail and doesn’t seem able to cope with the hectic hub-bub of a big Thanksgiving dinner. So we take her out to eat at her favorite restaurant. Even there she eats like a bird and takes most of her dinner home to have as leftovers. My wife, daughter, and I are all vegetarians, so we don’t miss the turkey. I do miss sitting around the table with all the family, though. Both the brothers do their own thing, both the sisters are out of town now (not that we aren’t). So it’s just the four of us.

green wall

house and fence

river and trestle

I got up early on Thanksgiving morning and, while my wife and daughter slept, went out with my camera to cruise around Willimantic again. Since we are there at Thanksgiving and Christmas I seem to be able to photograph that town when there are few people on the streets and things are very quiet. It had rained during the night and the streets were wet. The temp was extremely mild for late November. Mist was hanging over the river and along the creek beds. The sky was cloudy but beginning to break.

factories on the river

run down house

yellow bldg with tree

Willimantic is a great town for street photography. At least the kind I like to shoot. There’s a great deal of ethnic diversity, a somewhat depressed economy, a nearby college, old neighborhoods, and historic buildings mixed with not so new architecture. It makes for great combinations and colorful material.

storefronts on main

YMCA wall

window arrangement 1

The town has a historic connection to frogs via the Windham Frog Pond. The story dates from 1754 when, after a long drought, the townspeople were awakened one night to a terrible noise. Fearing and indian attack, they took to the hills with guns. Finding nothing there they returned home, only to discover, the next morning, that the noise had come, not from the hills, but from what was left of the mill pond to the east, where, during the night, a fierce battle between the bull frogs for what was left of the remaining water had taken place.

bridge with frog

frog 2

window arrangement 2

The town is also known for its historic thread mills. So on the bridge spanning the river there are enormous frogs sitting atop thread spools. They also appear at other places about the town and seem to be thematic in countless windows and yards around the area.

small store

cat in window

porch

I love the visual aspects of this town. The juxtapositions and the contrasts. I did a previous post on Willimantic. I don’t know if it’s just different material than I’m used to, or if this town holds something special that I need to document. Whatever it is, I’ll keep returning, as long as the holidays bring me there.

red tree

Leave a comment

November 14, 2007

The Beauty of Nature’s Reclamation

After visiting the graveyard of rusting farm equipment a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been looking at those images and some others of a similar nature and marveling at the beauty to be found in deteriorating things. As we ourselves age we struggle to maintain our health and our youth. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry just trying to prevent ourselves getting old. And certainly care and attention given to ourselves and to those things we wish to preserve can prolong the life of anything.

Mr. Chimp

old house and car

rusting farm equipment

old doors

My house is nearing two centuries old, yet it’s still standing and giving shelter. I was amazed recently to see the body of King Tut opened and unwrapped for scientific analysis and how those human remains had been preserved after thousands of years. Astonishing! The museum where I work holds many objects that, as fragile as they are, have survived for thousands of years.

radiator and car

grill

tarp

But it’s those things that are left to the elements, that nature is working to reclaim, that interest me. Nature is marvelous that way, taking back what has been made by us from her raw materials. Stability only exists when propped up on the crutch of maintenance, and preservatives, and a good coat of paint. When left to fend for themselves, few things survive nature’s reclamation.

rusty door

peeling paint

rusty truck

Unfortunately, in our infinite wisdom and scientific achievements, humans have created some horrible things that would have been better left as raw materials. Nuclear waste, undissolving plastics, chemicals like polychlorinated biphenyls and DDT. Nature cannot process these fast enough to benefit us today. But perhaps in the eons ahead, when the human species has vanished from the planet from an uncontrollable virus or the asteroid that darkens the world or global warming or nuclear war or the next Noah’s flood, even these poisons will be, over time, consumed by nature’s great reclamation processes.

headlights

red dumpster

window with bars

In the meanwhile, as I walk about with my camera, I will continue to be intrigued by the beauty in rust and peeling paint and decaying wood and tattered fabrics. Just as nature has a marvelous way of creating beauty in the new born blossom or the gills of a mushroom or an amethyst filled geode, she continues to be as artful in the transformation of those things that are dying. Our autumn season is testament to the beauty of nature’s recycling. And all around us, she is gracefully taking back what belongs to her.

rusty building

3 Comments

November 4, 2007

Change will come, regardless.

Our world changes a little with every season, and every year. We have become a global community with exports and imports and interdependent economies. Grapes from Chili, oranges from Brazil, lumber from the Philippines, oil from Canada, almost everything imaginable from China. We are not the manufacturing nation we once were. Nor are we the agricultural nation we once were with the family farm as the backbone. Huge agribusiness and imports have meant the demise of family farms all over America. Land values have changed, tax bases and environmental restrictions have run up costs for family farmers making them less and less profitable. A lot of young people just don’t want to stay on the farm any more.

harvester

barn

truck 1

I am not a farmer. In fact I don’t even like yard work and gardening. But I live in an area surrounded by beautiful farm country. There are still many family farms around this part of New York, but it doesn’t take a lot of looking to see these farms slowly disappearing, falling into disrepair, or being replaced by developments of housing or shopping or office parks.

milk truck

When I first moved to New York in the 70’s I had a job driving a delivery van and running a warehouse for a small medical supply company in Rochester. Every week I would take a day to drive to Buffalo, Batavia, and Niagara Falls, and another day to drive to Geneva, Canandaigua, Naples, Penn Yan, and Bath. I got to see a lot of New York farm country through all the seasons and how beautiful this country is. Coming here from Georgia, I had no idea that New York was so rural.

truck 2

truck3

So as the world changes and we are propelled into this global economy, I wonder how long it will take for this to become a very different place from the one I first came to know thirty plus years ago. Change is inevitable. Just as I see the changes in my own face as I get older, or the changes in the Florida coast every time we visit my father-in-law and his wife, New York will change with age.

truck4

machine

We look back fondly at the things in our past that impacted us, made a lasting impression, romanticizing and putting a patina on those memories. I suppose we are always wanting to hold on to things as they were just as we want to hold on to our youth and not see those additional wrinkles that appear in the mirror. I got word last month that I’m going to be a great-grandfather. Boy do I feel old. And my knees feel like these rusting trucks sometimes. I think about retirement like most people my age, but figure I have at least nine more years before that’s even a hint of reality and especially with a daughter ready for college in less than two years. Sometimes I just want to put on the brakes, back up the bus. But time is linear and unstoppable, and we all will reach the end. I heard a great quote on Fresh Air the other day. “The saddest thing in life is wasted time.”

truck5

truck6

truck7

Change has no heart, no compassion, no memory. So live it to the fullest. Don’t let a day pass wasted. Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” If it must come, let’s make it good.

1 Comment

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: