middle-of-the-night inspiration

Freighters sing tonight;
their serene calls amplified
in the fog-drenched air

Last week the weather on Lake Michigan was a little too spectacular for early June. Summery, hot, beach weather mostly, with little wind and a bug population that hasn’t gotten out of control (yet).

My friend and co-worker came to the lake to stay and work for the week, and we set up shop at the dining room table and made the most of the lovely view, working when we needed to and breaking when the outdoors beckoned. I’m used to being alone here, but it was nice to have a reprieve from the quiet, especially after work. We had plans to have dinner out one night, maybe a lunch, too, but it was just too nice to bother to leave the beach. So we didn’t.

One evening, the fog rolled in and stuck throughout the night. I left windows and doors open because it was warm enough for it, and was awakened at 4 a.m. to the sound of a freighter’s foghorn, steady and gutteral, in the otherwise still night. Soon after, another foghorn in a slightly higher tone; a duet of call and response. There was no picture to take, so I wrote a haiku.

These are the things that make my heart swell. The night sounds, the morning dew, the sunset colors, the ever-changing lake.

Today the power went out and I couldn’t work for almost two hours. A minor annoyance; an enforced break to walk the beach. A neighbor’s generator hummed, but otherwise there was quiet aside from the birds and the bees, which seem busier this year than ever.

I’m thinking a lot about what there is happening when I have a camera in hand. Sounds, mainly, or a mood or feeling in the surroundings. Last evening I shot of roll of 120 film in the meadow, mainly of the seeded goat’s-beard puffballs dotting a small section of the meadow near the road (these look like giant dandelions that have gone to seed). The goat’s-beard shared space with other grasses and some rich purple sweet pea. It was another windless night; gray and dull skies, warm and a bit muggy, sweet-smelling and earthy. I could hear an occasional low growl of thunder from a storm out over the lake, but louder than that were the bees–near hummingbird sized bumblebees, working around me, a din of their buzzing. I added to my mosquito bite collection, getting fresh bites on my hands as I worked. One of the resident eagles soared overhead and disappeared.

I took notes so I would remember these things–the things that you wouldn’t know by looking at one of the pictures from this roll. The things I might not otherwise remember when this film is developed in a week or two.

This is what I want to explore. Can I impart the sounds, or a smell, or my heart bursting, or the pinch of a mosquito bite? Can I infuse these other-sense things into an image?

Mendocino, highway 1, and three beds

I am always so grateful for a few days off of work and a complete change of scenery. Even more grateful to spend that time with the person who knows me best, outside of my family. My best friend Kelly and I went to Tuscany together the year we both turned 40. At that time we made big plans for our 50 trip, thinking our lives would be so knitted up that a big trip would be easy. But life doesn’t ever seem to work that way and so in August we booked a short October trip to California with a drive up highway 1, Mendocino, Napa Valley wineries, and Airbnb. It didn’t disappoint, and we’ll just have to hope our lives let us put together something a bit longer for the next one. We also decided that decade trips are too far apart. Where’s the guarantee that we’ll be around in a decade? Every five years from here on out.

Of course I brought cameras, but I didn’t take as many photos as I expected, which is totally okay because sometimes you have to document and sometimes you have to experience, and I did more experiencing than documenting.

We spent our first night in a bed in a house with a treacherous driveway in Mill Valley and then started the drive north to Mendocino on Wednesday morning, taking our time for stops along the way.

Is it terrible that I can’t remember now where we were half the time? Talking and laughing and driving and navigating… all those things took precedence over taking notes about where we were or what I was photographing. Rocks, ocean, coastline, view from atop a cliff. There is no shortage of this along California’s western edge. I’d never seen California’s coastline until this trip and I think it’s safe to say that 1,000 times wouldn’t be enough. It’s breathtaking.

Every time we came around a corner and I would gasp at the view, Kelly would say “hang on, it gets better.” I loved the fog and these rocks somewhere on the coast as we got closer to Mendocino.

our cabin in the woods, Mendocino

The first night in our cabin, we drank a bottle of wine Kelly bought and saved from our trip to Tuscany a decade ago (it aged beautifully), which we paired with local cheese we bought on the way.

We went to a lovely little yoga studio in Mendocino one morning and then spent the rest of that day outside, first at the Point Cabrillo light station and then further north to a park where we hoped to see sea lions (we could hear them in the distance, but we never saw any).

I think these pink flowers are amaryllis belladonna. They were everywhere, and so pretty!

I liked this view from the light station in black and white.

I think this was just north of Mendocino… we pulled over as the fog was going back out and I saw these foggy rays through the trees.

We drove up to the Avenue of the Giants on Friday, taking in the sights at various turnouts along the way.

I don’t get carsick (thankfully), but I can see how some people can probably never, ever drive or be a passenger on that route. Twists and turns. Hairpin turns on sharp inclines and steep descents. Narrow or no shoulders. Mostly no guardrails. Literally, a sneeze could send you plummeting over the edge. Maybe I’m being dramatic, but I was both awestruck and completely terrified. Fortunately Kelly is a confident driver and she did all the harrowing stuff while I got to mainly drive the inland, far less harrowing, routes. Yay for that.

 

Saturday morning we left our sweet little cottage in the forest and drove inland to Napa Valley, where we stopped at one vineyard, ate lunch at another, and then ultimately landed at a third for an absolutely magical tour and tasting. This was where I experienced rather than photographed, and I could kick myself a bit for that because the light and the grounds and our tour guide and the wine was just all kinds of magical.

After dinner in wine country we made our way back to Mill Valley for our last night in bed in a third stranger’s house. We had just enough time Sunday morning to make a few stops to view the Golden Gate Bridge in a bit of haze and too bright sun before getting to the airport. And that’s it. Too few details, I know, but experiences and laughter. So much laughter. That’ll do. Until our next trip, anyway.

 

Pervasive fog

We woke up to a fog yesterday that never diminished. It blanketed my riverside town and persisted even into the early hours of this morning. Today calls for more rain and fog, I guess the result of unseasonably warm January temperatures.

I don’t think I’ve touched my digital camera in more than a month now–maybe longer. While I did shoot a roll of black and white film yesterday, I wanted some images I could see right away, so my DSLR went into my bag. My friend Jane and I drove to some of our favorite local natural spots to wander, get muddy, laugh, see things through our foggy lenses.

Don’t believe what they say about 50

I’m serious. Just don’t.

I just turned 50, and after a week of surprises and a big gift from my brother and brother-in-law and all the stars essentially aligning to create some kind of crazy halo–I swear it–right above my silver-tressed head, my husband threw me one bang-up of a party.

The people I love came, one all the way from Chicago. My best friend cleaned bathrooms (that’s love, cleaning someone’s bathroom). My dad came. My two dearest friends helped me clean and put cheese out and and helped bake and laid everything out on the table just perfectly and were both like tornadoes (and I mean this in the best way ever). We had the best food. If we do anything right around here, it’s the food. We made some of it (cakes, cupcakes, orzo salad and quinoa salad, a Swiss chard erbazzone) and had some amazing stuff we didn’t make (samosas, savory and sweet pies, expensive cheeses) and oh I can’t even remember what else. Booze. Plenty of booze, and no scrimping there.

I will say in all honesty that my 50th birthday party knocked every other birthday celebration out of the park, although the birthdays my parents threw me in our basement when I was a kid, with balloons, friends around a picnic table, my mom’s cakes and pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey are a distant second (and a distant memory). You know what I wore? Bare feet, that’s what I wore. And no one even batted an eye. And a comfortable dress. I was totally myself. The invite said no gifts, but the gifts came anyway. Who deserves that? I didn’t think I did. But oh man, the love I felt has me fuller than a huge pasta dinner. It’s going to last all year, I know it.

50 is the new 30. 50 is the bomb. 50 kicks ass. I think this is going to be one hell of a decade.

I didn’t die, I just turned 50. No biggie.

COLEaboration, part one

I had an idea. Or, more of a spark of an idea. A vision, maybe.

I am near Silver Lake State Park, which is a section of land that separates an inland lake from the big lake (Lake Michigan). Legend is that after the Great Chicago Fire, this piece of land was deforested to provide lumber to rebuild the city. Now, I don’t know for sure if this is true, but what I do know is it a vast, open landscape of moving, shifting, shape-changing, tree-swallowing, rolling, blowing, lunar landscape-looking, absolutely stunning sand dunes that I find infinitely compelling to photograph.

Twenty some years ago I met a dancer in a geology class in college and we were instant friends. I had never even heard of modern dance, let alone seen it performed, until I met Margi and she opened my eyes to it. We lost touch after college (pre-Internet days) and got back in touch in recent years via Facebook. She teaches dance and has a 20-year-old dance company (The Dance COLEctive), which I’ve seen perform several times and have always left these performances a bit shaken up–awed and inspired and full and just wowed. So many beautiful and talented dancers and creative voices.

I had a vision of photographing Margi on the dunes.

Movement, dance, shapes, shadows, sand, the driftwood as architectural element, human and stark nature. I don’t generally photograph people unless they are incidental to an image, but I’m trying to get more comfortable with it (directing people is not my strong suit). And this vision persisted, so I asked. Not only was she willing, she brought up the word “collaborate.” That felt safer–it wouldn’t be just me experimenting photographically with a willing participant, but it would now be two people creating something artistic, an experience, planting a seed. So we finalized a date.

We spent the weekend catching up, laughing, drinking, taking photos, and comparing vision as I started the editing process. I found she was drawn to some of the images I might have dismissed, and I was drawn to some she would have overlooked. In general, though, we gasped at the same images as I uploaded them, which I took as a very good sign that we had some stuff we were both happy with.

color, or…

…black and white?

I think we have some of the same sensibilities, and while she has the artist’s vocabulary to describe these things, I am still working on developing that language, those senses. In these few days I learned just a little of this language as well as a new way of looking at movement that is more organic and artistic. What a weekend of inspiration, of rekindling an old friendship, of creating. I feel full. And again wowed.

This is just a little of what we ended up with. I am having trouble moving away from black and white edits for these dune images, but I’ll sit on them a while and let the ideas percolate.

There’s much more, but I’m still processing (photos as well as the whole collaboration process). I’ll follow up with another post.

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