... jacob came up from ohio for a visit ... i drove out to mount vernon to pick up him and jacqueline ... when i said to jacqueline, "you drive," a most astonished look came across her face ... what can i say, much as i appreciate my impala, it's not a motorcycle ... jacob's decided he wants to become better at photography ... putting on one of my teacher hats, the one that's got the word "demented" printed across the back, i handed him my 10-20mm zoom and said, "here's the beast you'll be wanting to master" ...
... at the taylor pond dam i found this leaf fresh in the stream ...
... we stopped at a little cemetery alongside the sandy river road ...
... dropping down close to the turf, this perspective looking through the cemetary brought to me a memory of the world trade center ... sad ...
... from weld we decided to take the unpaved road across the mountains to byron ... we got within less than a mile of route 17 when a "bridge out today only" sign forced us to to turn around ... we stopped at a rock pit where i showed jacob how when using an ultra-wide angle lens it's essential to think clearly about creating the illusion of depth in a photograph ... he listened ...
... this heap of crush stones fascinated me ... within a circle the size of my arms' reach, the earth displayed as if one were to take an expansive multi-volume "history of civilization" and go through it randomly tearing out hundreds of pages ... then, having first ripped each of the pages into many pieces and mixed the shreds together, poured the result into a tidy pile ... these rocks, even to my relatively untrained eye, were evidence of hundreds and hundreds of millions of years of earth's geologic story ... those that were sedimentary in nature were rare, most likely having been reduced to sand and very tiny grit, but metamorphic and igneous were present in uncountable forms—chunky grained pegmatites (last to form when magma solidifies) and fine to course grained granites, diorites, schists, basalts, even, if i identified them correctly, a few samples of gneiss ... wondrous ...
God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees,
and in the flowers and clouds and stars.
MARTIN LUTHER
... not far from the "biggest boulder in maine" we paused at one of my favorite "park the bike, swim, then stretch out on a big rock and dry" spots ...
... an old building caught my eye ...
... so many stories, like the peeling paint, layers and layers of life ... i thought of the rocks ...
... jacqueline had spoken of the "big move" she may be making in her life ... while jacob and i were taking pictures i peeked over at her ... remember my own life, the "big moves," i've an idea of the thoughts were crossing her mind ...
... spencer tracy jimmy durante (can you believe it was liz who corrected me), with his last breath, gasped, "the big w ... it's under the big w" ... how odd, to think of that, saying to myself, "ah, maybe it's x marks the spot" ...
... "step closer ... step closer" ... one of photography's golden rules ...
... a fern, in its growth mirroring the fabric of nature ... delightful ...
... even a plant knows to take a moment to appreciate ...
... my new 12mm f/2 non-automatic rokinon came in the mail ... immediately upon opening the box i started snapping pictures ...
... moving further along the 12mm's learning curve, i leaned over as far as i dared, stuck my arm out so that my camera was just above the surface of the pond, and snapped a picture of john ... he had hurt his shoulder and had asked that i join him on a little paddle so he could experiment with his range of motion ... at first i could feel his pain being transmitted through the canoe's hull, but, ever so slowly, the motion of the little craft became smoother until i was suddenly reminded of my father, and of how for him, too, paddling a canoe was seemingly as effortless as soft breathing ... the memory hurt, much, but only for moment, and then, it, too, became gentle ...
... the skill of focusing manually will take some time to perfect, or, perhaps better put, to be remembered, but i managed one relatively sharp close-up ... 12mm, as i said, which is why at less than a foot the flower seems so far away ...
... the first groleaus in the new world, well over three-hundred years ago, this was their lives ...
"Coup, bon vent,
mon sweatheart me le demande,
mon sweatheart est moi attente."
VOYAGEUR VERSE