Winter Solstice 2020
Cold Spring Pond, Southampton, New York, photographed on the Winter Solstice afternoon 2020
Borderland: New Work From Estonia
Just before completing a month's residency at CopperLeg Artist Residency in Vaskjala, Estonia, I had an opening for the photographs that I made and printed there. During my month in Estonia I made trips to eastern and southeastern Estonia, close to the Russian border. I was photographing the land and the people's use of it as well as the scars on the land from the abandoned Soviet era buildings.
At CopperLeg, I made a portfolio of silver gelatin prints in their darkroom. Additionally, I exhibited digital prints from both a digital camera and from an iPhone. Below are some of the images.
Borderland
Everything is Snow Covered and Frozen
There's been a couple days' reprieve between weather events. Yesterday, it actually got above freezing for several hours, and today it was sunny and cold. January light can be so blue and crystal clear. Everything stands out in sharp focus. Some one told me that it hasn't snowed this much in Southampton since 1925. Anything on the ground is frozen and buried in snow and ice.
Walking down by the bay beach where I live, I found a small patch of water that wasn't frozen; it's part of a small inlet and because of the big tide, it has remained ice free so far. I really like the pattern of the duck's feet in the snow. It amazes me that they can sit and frolic in that ice cold water, happily quacking, and flapping their wings.
Welcome to the North Pole...
...Well not really. But it sure looks like it in some parts of my immediate environment. I live on the South Fork of the East End of Long Island: it's a peninsula that sticks eastward out into the Atlantic Ocean. Now, hold your left hand out in front of you with your palm facing you. Look at the fore and middle fingers. I live about 3/4 of an inch on the middle finger from where your fingers form a V at your palm. Between your two fingers is the Peconic Bay, and below your middle finger is, of course the ocean.
I took the image below yesterday afternoon. I live right up the street from the Peconic Bay, this is what it looks like in January. Because it's tidal, and because we have a big tide here, there is alot of ice movement even when the salt water is frozen.
The other two images are from the ocean beach which is about a five minute drive from my house. Since it snowed earlier this week, it's been real cold with a lot of northerly wind. There hasn't been much thawing, and the wind has been sculpting the drifting snow. I've always loved bundling up and going out onto the beach and into the dunes for a couple hour's walk. Looking both at the ocean and especially the frozen bay, it's hard to imagine swimming in it in another five and-a-half months.
Another Foot of Snow
I'm house bound today, possibly for the immediate future. It snowed another foot or so last night, and with the high winds, there seems to be some significant snow drifts. Finally this afternoon, the sun broke through the clouds, and I went out to make a few captures. The little pond is on a golf course which borders my property, and it looked incredible in the weak afternoon light with just a little blue sky.
And this a piece of my gnarly wild cherry tree next to my driveway. I've photographed a lot of times in the past, especially with snow on it. I really like the sculptural quality of it and of this image.
Snow Trees
After the blizzard two weeks ago, everyone was a little edgy about the last night's weather prediction for 2-7 inches of snow. Before I went to bed, I stuck my head out my kitchen door and I quickly realized that this was going to be a mere dusting. When I awoke this morning, everything outside had a dusty white coating. I had a cup of tea as I looked out my kitchen slider. I watched the cat that we're cat-sitting checking out the new snow. So I picked up my little four thirds camera and screwed the tiny cine 25mm f1.5 onto it, and I went for a walk around my property. The bush and undergrowth is normally so thick that it is impossible to walk in many places. This is the only time of the year that I can easily access many of the nooks and crannies of my immediate environment. I made a bunch of captures this morning. I like this one because it's a good visual ambassador for what my immediate surroundings look like.
Okay, I took another look at the captures I made this morning, and I have to add this one. It's kind of like nature's way to saying, "don't give up hope in January, spring's just around the corner."
Snow Dune
As I mentioned in my last post, I've spent a lot of time wandering through coastal sand dunes in the winter, especially after snow storms. The storm we had a couple of days dumped a foot or so on Eastern Long Island. So, I made several photographs out in Napeaque, one of the few remaing, sparsely developed areas left between Southampton and Montauk. I especially like this one. If you want, you can see an entire portfolio of my early snowscapes from Plum Island, Ma. I've set them up as a separate tab under"Phatlandscapes" on my home page; just click on the Black & White Beachscapes link and follow the navigation buttons.
