The Last Hurrah of Summer

I'm getting ready to visit family in the Northeast Kingdom over the Labor Day Weekend. I'm already dreaming of hikes, and ziplines, and late night fires with my sisters. Since we live all over the country, it's hard for us to get together sometimes, but it's all the more special when we're able to. I'll be taking all kinds of pictures. It helps me to distill the moment, capture it for all time. You have to love that about pictures, how a picture becomes so much more than a documentation of a thing. It brings back all the sensory cues and thoughts of the moment.

Pictures and Words



Remember this song from last week? Well, I've been thinking a lot about pairing words and pictures. Or lyrics and pictures. I liked the simplicity of the words, the images they conveyed, and this is what I came up with. A fun exercise, don't you think? What lyrics would you use?

Random

Do you feel it too? Summer slipping from your greedy grip as you try to grasp the last pleasures of summer? The day is starting a little later every day, and shadows are growing longer. I read this poem the other day, and it struck a chord with me. Do you feel it?

Obscurely yet most surely called to praise,
As sometimes summer calls us all, I said
The hills are heavens full of branching ways
Where star-nosed moles fly overhead the dead;
I said the trees are mines in air, I said
See how the sparrow burrows in the sky!
And then I wondered why this mad instead
Perverts our praise to uncreation, why
Such savour's in this wrenching things awry.
Does sense so stale that it must needs derange
The world to know it? To a praiseful eye
Should it not be enough of fresh and strange
That trees grow green, and moles can course
in clay,
And sparrows sweep the ceiling of our day?

~ Richard Wilbur

What the Water Gave Me - Florence + The Machine

I'm anxious to hear the new Florence + The Machine release ... here's a preview. It's kind of neat to catch glimpses of her enjoying the music in an unscripted manner, don't you think?

Happy weekend, folks!

Wandering

I took my new lens for a long walk tonight, hoping to improve on our understanding of each other. It turns out we have much more in common than I originally thought. The poor thing just wants someone who will listen, be patient and understanding. And it wants to see new things now and then, maybe be taken out for a nice dinner once in a while. I think we'll manage just fine.

More 50mm

I took a few more shots with the new 50mm lens today, and I'd  have more for you except the mosquitoes are out to eat me alive this summer. Oddly enough, I'm kind of fond of the blurry shot the best right now. It's hard to sit still and focus when you're being covered with mosquitoes!

50mm

After some persistent encouragement from a photographer friend, I finally caved and bought myself a 50mm fixed-focus lens. It's the lens of photography pioneers. It's also supposed to be closest to how the human eye takes in information, and surprisingly takes a little adjustment since the 50mm isn't a fan of auto-focus. Taking it out for a spin tonight, I was reminded of the lyrics of the 10,000 Maniacs song 'Stockton Gala Days'.

That summer fields grow high

We had our flower fever

We had to lay down where they grow

And so I did.

Black & White

I was talking with a friend of mine about black & white photography once, and she said (I paraphrase here), "I like black and white photography, but not just for black & white's sake. The image has to work BEST in black and white, not as an afterthought. I shot today with that in mind. I hope I did the concept some justice.

On Call - Kings of Leon

Happy weekend, friends!