Bunch of Squares

A bunch back to back quick because making money to live takes time away from light…

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Waiting for the Sun

Time stands still, Winter Solstice 2015, County M, near Blue River, WI

"Color is the deeds & the suffering of light." Afternoon of the shortest day, Winter Solstice 2015

"Haven't I seen you round here before?" Gone the way of the lead sled, Hgwy 61, WI

Watch the skys, Central House Hotel December 2015.

Time waits for none

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phonography album of questions

Fall fireworks in a small town

WiscoSouthern engine slicing light

Rear of the Central House Hotel, home of the Gideon Bible & purportedly haunted. Priceless hotel bar.

Big Bayou Blue Heron, St Petersburg Florida

Cracker range, old Florida, Marion County

Entrance to Bald Bluff trail, Boscobel

Spring storm across the cornfields, Hgwy 18 W. of Cobb, Wisconsin

Cleaning up my phonography files. Square format Instagram edits- filter paintings would be a good description for these digitally mediated images. Thinking about creating a squarebook to see what language suggests itself as a narrative. Slicing light and putting it to paper now has an entirely different measure of process than in did carried out in darkrooms. And using a phone for capture…facility and facile have the same root. I find myself constantly measuring the weight of my intentions and quality of my focus (not just the lens’) as the fluidity & diversity of digital photographic media makes the significance of all images slippery. And the quantity immense. Thousands of instant images. Transitory. Unrooted, non local, a-historical, protean. Meaning runs off the surface, deliquescent, Daliesque.

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Wreathed, Wisconsin River Bottoms

After an early season, single digit deep-freeze, SW Wisconsin warmed up into the 40’s this weekend. Those kind of rapid temperature swings over a day or two produce heavy, gorgeous fog in the river bottoms. The winter river’s austerity, creaking ice, tufted marshes and the wet, black boughs of submerged trees swaying against the grey cotton skies produce a kind of reverence for a wildness we cannot know, from which we postmodern humans have been divorced and remain, most of the time, estranged. Therein the deepest yearning lurks as our starved eyes feed on the wilderness we’ve lost.

WI River Bottoms, December 2014

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Madison PhotoMidwest, WI Book Festival, Alec Soth & Paul Vanderbilt

Head’s exploding with stars after yesterdays trek to Madison for Paul Vanderbilt’s Wisconsin Academy Watrous Gallery exhibit Archive as a River, & WI Historic Society panel discussion of his work, which coincided with WI Book Festival, PhotoMidwest, Filter PhotoFestival, FlakPhoto, MMOCA’s Alec Soth exhibit, “From Here to There” and an arts reception at the Madison Public Library featuring FlakPhoto’s curated exhibit of new Midwest works & photo booklist based on MPL’s collection. And Filter PhotoFestival’s new artists’ photobooks display. Great smart visionary creative talk, people & works. This #mindmap of my notes tells some of the story this morning. Here are related links that tell the rest of the story: WI Book Festival , Photo Midwest , FlakPhoto ,  Filter PhotoFestival , MMOCA , Paul Vanderbilt Exhibit , Alec Soth , Madison Public Library Bubbler Additional random images from the day along State Street follow below. These are as shot, manual,  no post editing, Canon T2i DSLR w/ 18-135 EFS

Downtown State Street in Madison

Passing By I

Passing By II

MMOCA Intersection

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Cowculus

Cows and calves are out on pasture everywhere now. These mommas cast a calculating eye upon me, especially the one huge with calf on the right. Hidden among them is the bull, preoccupied with his duties.

Cowculus, Stitzer, Wisconsin

After staring at each other for an hour, these beasts seemed almost radiant with life, entirely present in a way that comes rarely to us, without meditation, yoga or prayer. Chew the cud mantra… all on a glorious, warm, sunny day, the most simple gift so gladly presented and received.

Cowculus II, Illuminated. Stitzer, Wisconsin.

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Muscoda WI, Memorial Day weekend

We drove over to Muscoda on Hgwy 133 Saturday to go to St Vincent’s Thrift Shop. I knew there were several sites / sights in this small river town that I wanted to frame and to think over. Memorial Day weekend always gets my attention anyway. Makes me mindful of what gets taken for granted in the backgrounds of our daily routines. There are the buildings, commerce, highway, past and present colliding. The road signs to tell us where we’re at. And then there’s the flag(s) speaking louder than anything else this weekend.
Here’s a couple of shots taken downtown at the intersection of Hgwy 133 & SR 80; I was testing smaller f-stops, using a remote release with the camera tripod-mounted and longer exposures, ISO 100. One’s “as shot”, the other’s post processed to adjust contrast and saturation. I need a better monitor for editing; this laptop’s color profile was balanced with a Spyder Pro, but I’m still not convinced that I’m seeing what I need to. Would appreciate knowing what they look like to you. Cheers.

Memorial Day weekend, downtown Muscoda, WI

Memorial Day Weekend cruiser, Hgwy 80 & 133

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Roadhouse, Fennimore Hilltop

I’ve driven past hundreds of times, in all light and weather, trying to catch what this old roadhouse is mumbling. Yesterday I thought someone, maybe a country workcrew had sprayed the grass in front with fluorescent blue paint. When I stopped later that afternoon and walked up close, the blue revealed itself to be wild violets. Like a chunk of the sky blow down at the feet of this abandoned dream. (Photo is RAW, no post-processing except resize for web and copyright txt.)

Abandoned roadhouse, trailers out back, April 2014 SW Wisconsin

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Overture Center

Madison WI’s Overture Center reminds me of a smaller scale version of NYC’s Guggenheim Museum. The shell-like spiral staircase and open atrium are irresistible to the lens. Quick post this morning, additional images to come:

From the third floor of the Overture Center, looking down the main staircase.

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Wisconsin Spring Thaw, 2014

Warm weather finally has the SW Wisconsin rural landscape stretching out and awakening after a long, frigid winter’s hibernation. There is a particular kind of washed clean, sharp feel to the air, and the landscape’s earth toned color palette and bare lines offers an austere, unadorned vision. a pure line of sight. Hope and endurance speak as the earth’s still bare bones warm.

Hgwy 18 and County T, near Fennimore Wisconsin

Whose house was this at the intersection of Hgwy 18 and County T, Grant Co, Wisconsin?

Saunders Creek after the Spring thaw, Boscobel WI 53805

Highway Lookout, Grant Co Wisconsin, Spring 2014

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