How To Cope With Holiday Stress

In an ever-faster-paced Twittering world Christmas has become, for many, complicated. Even the Mayo Clinic recognizes what a stressful time this can be. Lucky are those able to tune out in the midst of a holiday crowd.

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Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his choice.—Dave Barry

Oh, for the good old days when people would stop Christmas shopping when they ran out of money.
—Author Unknown

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.—Oscar Wilde

Out-Of-Office

I'll be traveling for a few days, but fortunately have my choice of several excellent secretaries in my absence. Cricket pleaded seniority and so all comments and requests will be directed to her until then.

Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.
—Jeff Valdez

The Thankful Photographer

Today is the day symbolically dedicated to overeating and endless football giving thanks. In no order of importance, here are a few things photographers may be thankful for.

1. People Who Share Their Knowledge & Inspire Us

Teachers, mentors, bloggers…and other photographers.

2. The Internet

For the capabilities and possibilities it offers.

3. The Camera Equipment You Currently Own

Take an honest look at the contents of your camera bag and see if you don't find an embarrassment of riches inside.

4. The Camera Equipment You Wish You Owned

Camera companies make the models they think we want (power windows and heated seats), and sometimes they're right.

5. Computer Prices

Terabytes have replaced megabytes, at the same (or lower) cost. Monitors are high-resolution color, included with your purchase. Powerful software is built-in. Remember the Mac Plus?

6. The Freedom to Self-Publish

I'm doing it right now. There's never been a better time to get a soapbox blog. Or print a book.

7. The Digital Evolution

For bringing creativity out of the darkroom and onto the desktop.

8. Traditional Image-making Technologies

For keeping the game in perspective, and offering alternatives.

9. Software Developers

For making 1s and 0s do magic.

10. THIS SPACE RESERVED…for you.

Be it a special place, or person…remember to give thanks more than once a year for those things that make photography a special passion.

The Morning Paper

Dawn arrived today in typical late-November style. Shifting layers of fog filled the valley, moving silently over dark hillsides as tall clouds caught the first direct sunlight and gave back traces of subtle colors, with the wild approval of passing geese. These last moments before sunrise are one of my favorite times of day, and it coincides with the delivery of our daily newspaper.

When I got to the paper box I noted that the potholes on our gravel road are becoming substantial in size and depth, and I expect the county will send a road-grader out soon to smooth things over.

It's too bad they can't patch up the problems our newspapers are having.

Monday's paper has always been the runt of the week, but this is sad. The classifieds must be with the comics (my wife took those to work), but they've shrunk to six pages…people advertise their goods on eBay or craigslist now…and there aren't many Help Wanteds, either.

The sports section has been pared too, but it's still second only to the main section, and they get the majority of photos. We do love our games. Most of the news in the main section, by the way, was on the internet yesterday, except for local weather conditions, features, and late-breaking stories. I know this because that's where I read most of it.

The most disappointing section of the paper is local and regional news. They'd cut it to three pages if that were possible…I guess there just isn't much happening in town now.

Probably, everyone's inside reading the paper online.

The Dust Bath

An American bison (Bison bison) rolls in a wallow in Yellowstone's Lamar Valley.

Reflective

There won't be any fine afternoon light coming in the kitchen window today: the weather's awful. But it's Oregon, after all, and unless you fall off your bicycle (and drown) everything's as it should be.

Yesterday, before this mess arrived, a decorative prism in that same window caught the light and projected it onto a leaf above the sink.

Hurricane Vent

Norris Geyser Basin is one of Yellowstone Park's most active and interesting thermal areas…there's a lot of hissing and bubbling going on. Sitting quietly on a hillside overlooking the Porcelain Basin, Hurricane Vent is overshadowed by its flashier neighbors. Yet, with a thin blanket of steam pushed around by morning breezes, there isn't a place at Norris I'd rather be.


The basics: earth, wind, and a hot fire down below…the water temperatures at steam vents can easily exceed 200 degrees Fahrenheit.

Ready For Winter

To poke a wood fire is more solid enjoyment than almost anything else in the world. —Charles Dudley Warner

The Ghost Goose

The road from Mammoth Hot Springs to the Norris Geyser Basin passes two small Twin Lakes, North and South. Fog is common most mornings, and on this day I was lucky to capture a ghost goose as it lifted off from the North.

Fading

North of Livingston, Montana, a barn resists the tug of gravity…but not for too much longer. The day was bright and blue-skied, but I've employed Photoshop to interpret what the scene felt like: fading, and mostly forgotten, a snapshot in time.

Might As Well Jump

I was watching oak leaves fall by the basketful yesterday and got to thinking about words. Like the leaves, too many to count. A couple came to mind for no apparent reason.

Fall was first, perhaps because of what I was seeing, but my mental movie then skipped to a forever hapless character in pursuit of his ever-elusive target, and that got me to thinking about todays' time change, which (as I explained to the cats as they waited impatiently for breakfast) is remembered as fall back.

Hot on the heels of fall was jump. I've got a tune by Van Halen on my iPod, so David Lee Roth came at me in mid-air, but I was able to move quickly and avoid him, and go on instead to the noted photographer Philippe Halsman, also a master of suspension. Halsman's subjects were many and famous, and the photographer employed what he came to call jumpology during portrait sessions. "When you ask a person to jump, his attention is mostly directed toward the act of jumping and the mask falls so that the real person appears." Out of that practice came Philippe Halsman's Jump Book in 1959, featuring (among others) a spry-looking Richard Nixon.

The Photography of Vivian Maier

Hummingbirds in our area normally begin migrating southward in early September, but we leave a single feeder hanging outside the kitchen window until November just in case. Yesterday morning we were rewarded when a female arrived for a fill-up: she stayed for several hours, alternating between a cotoneaster shrub and the feeder. I'm glad my wife looked outside when she did: otherwise, the tiny bird would have remained undiscovered to us.

There's a parallel between our feathered visitor and those talented photographers who remain anonymous during their lifetimes, their photographs unseen by the public until one day after they're gone someone happens to look in exactly the right place, and there they are.

Vivian Maier (1926-2009) is one such photographer. Her work would have remained hidden, too, but for John Maloof. John is a Realtor® in Chicago, a writer (he's co-authored a book on Portage Park with Daniel Pogorzelski, available from Amazon here), and a photographer. He was at an auction searching for historical materials when he purchased Maier's archives. "I was looking for old neighborhood photos for a project. I saw negatives of Chicago and purchased them because they were interesting, and also I was hoping to find local images…there were no local photos but I did have a great find."

That included over twenty thousand negatives (mostly medium format) and, amazingly, nearly one thousand undeveloped rolls. "I'm down to about 600-700 rolls of 120 film now (12 or 24 expsures per roll)," he says. "They're Tri-X, from the 1960s to mid-1970s, and require a couple of minutes longer to develop. Some come up faded here and there, but, all in all, they're salvageable. It's been exciting and still is."

The greatest excitement, however, is the quality of Maier's work. John has started a blog to showcase her photographs and, as he learns more about it, her life and times. A visit is well worth your time.

Don't Look Down

Zion National Park is unquestionably one of the most scenic and inspiring locations in the Southwestern United States, providing endless opportunities for outdoor photographers. And, in places, it can scare the (insert a favored word here) out of you. The trail to Angels Landing is, by most accounts, the worst of these (seven hikers have died here since 1983).

Photographer Jeff Tangen visited Zion recently and made that perilous walk, which he's chronicled at this link. If you get nervous viewing the photos—don't say I didn't warn you.

The Home Field Advantage

There are exceptions, but I believe it's true that someone who lives in a place comes to know it better than a traveler who's passing through. The resident's advantage is time: weeks and months into years devoted to discovering, at their pace, the character of the place. The short hours a visitor spends there may yield surprises, if they're lucky, but little depth.

I'm reminded of this whenever I browse a bookstore on my travels, because their calendar racks are invariably awash in a cascade of beautiful photographs of the local area, the kind I didn't shoot because the weather was awful, or it was the wrong season, or the weather was too good (no clouds). My efforts, next to all this glossy work, seem pitiful (I don't buy the calendars: who needs a constant reminder?).

A case in point is photographer Lisa Wareham. She lives in Butte, Montana, which you know from previous postings I recently visited. Just when I was starting to feel satisfied with the photos I'd taken there I stumbled on Lisa's Web site…go there and see for yourself how one photographer (who's lived in Butte for twelve years) gets immersed in a place and eventually, with time and hard work, produces an insightful and interesting body of work (the photos with this post are hers.)

Yellowstone Morning, Artist Paint Pots

Red Leaf Envy

I've been flitting around internet photo sites this week looking at dozens of fall color photos from the northeastern United States, the Midwest, Maine, et cetera, and I have a bad case of Red Leaf Envy. Oregon is mostly an evergreen state, a few aspens, cottonwoods, and larch notwithstanding, but you have to really snoop around to find reds.

Trick Or Treat?

For adults, Halloween is mostly a take-it-or-leave-it event. While stores are frighteningly full of hideous costumes and brightly-themed decorations, it doesn't get you out of work like real holidays—even Columbus Day can do that (my wife is sleeping in today to prove that point). Unless you're a witch, or a little kid, who cares?

And if you live at the end of a dark, creepy driveway (like we do) you may not get any children to come and ring your bell at all…the wind sighs, lightning flashes, and the night passes uneventfully.

I asked my wife what she remembered best about Halloween and of course it was that big bag of sweets she harvested from her neighbors. What did she do with her treasures? Well, DOH, you pour it on the floor and take stock of your haul, what else? Some things are so obvious.

It sounds just like editing photos, doesn't it?

You fill your monitor (or light-box, if you're an unreformed filmaholic) with as many frames as you can, sit forward in the chair, and…Somebody put an apple in my bag! A mistake, definitely. Hey, six Three Musketeers! Now we're talking.

Do you look for tricks, or treats?

Forces of Nature

The Arnica Fire in Yellowstone National Park was started by a lightning strike in mid-September, and had charred less than a hundred acres when we arrived in the park's Lake area. Two days later the blaze had strengthened and would eventually build to over ten thousand acres, disrupting the travel plans of park visitors but giving photographers a chance to see a unique pairing of force.

Move the cursor over the image to reveal controls for viewing the slide show.

Comfort, Restored

Early in our trip we over-nighted at the Grand Union Hotel in Fort Benton, Montana. Among the comforts once again offered by the historic establishment are a fleet of inviting leather chairs.

Photographed in the warm glow of afternoon, this one adds elegance to the second floor, next to a slightly dusty piano.

A Frame of Time

The question can be asked, why photographers choose to set up their tripods at a ruins when another, newer structure waits a mile farther up the road.

Answers will vary, but unless posted with KEEP OUT signs a ruin is more appealing for several reasons. Two of these stand out in my mind.

It has nothing to hide, and is usually open for inspection right down to the foundation. The intricacies of its decay are fascinating.

It tells wonderful stories to our imaginations, with characters uniquely our own.

I fell under The Spell while rounding a bend in the highway in southern Saskatchewan, near Rockglen, diverting quickly over a fading path to the graying homestead. Grasshoppers popped through tall grass and weeds but it was otherwise a silent scene, the location on a slight downhill out of the winds. A yellow plastic bucket intruded on the sense of timelessness, and there was no way to know when the house was last occupied. I was again struck by how small these prairie houses are, although it's really not surprising. Comfort and convenience hadn't arrived yet when this place was built. Nor had electricity.

I took away what I could in a half-hour, leaving other treasures behind for the next photographer, and mice, to discover.

Along Highway 12

From Wikipedia:

Vananda is a former unincorporated village in northwestern Rosebud County, Montana, USA, along the route of U.S. Highway 12. The town was established in 1908 as a station stop on the Chicago, Milwaukee,
St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, then under construction across Montana. The railway used Vananda as a water stop for its steam locomotives, and built a small reservoir near the townsite to ensure an adequate water supply.

Although the land around Vananda attracted numerous homesteaders during the decade following the railroad's completion, the region proved to be far too arid and inhospitable for intensive agricultural use, and by the 1920s the town was in decline. The railroad through the area was abandoned in 1980, and Vananda is now a ghost town.

The Vananda townsite has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

My hopes, whenever I hear ghost town, invariably end up in the ditch alongside chip wrappers and plastic bottles, and I'm sorry to report that little remains in, or near, Vananda. The day we passed was gray and moody, underlined by a stiff, unwelcoming wind. No one was around, not even a curious dog. A fence and padlocks kept the curious away from the brick school building, the sole reason I'd stopped.

We moved on, slowly. A short ways down the road I found further dereliction and was grateful for the subtle colors. In their awkward, abandoned positions both trailer and bus appear resigned to the fact that their time, like Vananda's, is long past.