This photo is a pastoral to me, it captures the chicken on the garden wall in the shade, and the animals grazing behind them in the sunlight. By showing us the true light in the trees and fields, it offers us a different perspective, a calm and peaceful one. The infrared works best against a backlit world. The animals are almost embraced by the pasture.
This is one of my favorite farms to photograph, especially in the afternoon, I’m drawn to the gate and the two old barns sitting out in the field. I took my infrared converted camera there on Sunday afternoon and I saw the farm in a new and different way. The camera sees the light, it sees what the eye could never see.
I do not like images of me and never used to permit them. When I became a photographer myself and took so many photos of others, that was a conceit I had to drop. I was visiting my friend George Forss in the hospital today and he was with Donna Wynbrand, the artist and George’s long-time companion.
While I sat talking with him, she sketched me as she always does. Donna is not comfortable giving her sketches away, she keeps them in notebooks, but she let me take this photo with my I phone. I was startled by it, as I always am, but I also liked it.
When we look at photographs of our self, or sketches, we sometimes have to take a deep breath and say, this is me, this is okay. In a sense, I winced at this sketch, in an another I was kind of drawn to it. I think this is who I am now, and every time I accept that, I become healthier and stronger.
The news I heard was grim.
George Forss, the famed landscape photographer and art gallery owner and friend, had been rushed to the hospital. The reports were grim – blood sugar over 400, radically enlarged prostate, severe urinary infection, intense digestive troubles. I dropped everything and rushed to the hospital myself today, George is a treasure, just a few days ago he e-mail me photos of the UFO’s he spotted while celebrating the Summer Solstice.
I was worried about him, I have been to see him in the hospital a few times, the reports are always grim.
When I got to the hospital, I discovered that all of the reports I had heard were true.
But that was two days ago, George was healing, doing beautifully, up and yakking, sitting with his partner Donna Wynbrandt and was getting ready to get home. George is an ethereal being, he lives on another plane. Not only that, he jumped up out of bed and handed me his newest work: “Preliminary Statement: George Forss’ nine step youth enhancing regimen. He was, he said, looking for a publisher.
George asked me if I had studies the UFO photo he posted last week on his blog, I said it looked a bit like the moon to me, he said I wasn’t seeing it properly. I agreed to look at it on a bigger screen, he said it was obvious to everyone.
How are you? I asked. “Great,” he said. “I never felt bad, the doctor just looked at my blood and told me to get to the hospital as quick as I could!” Donna was busy sketching me, George and the nurses. A nurse came in asked George about going home.
“Were there steps to climb?,” she asked.
“No,” said George.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Is there anyone at home to take care of you,” the nurse asked.
“Sure,” said George.
“No,not really,” I said. And so it went for about a dozen questions. I went out into the hallway with the nurse and we had a private talk about George. He is a brilliant photographer, I said. And an experienced UFO investigator. She took notes. A social worker is coming to visit, it was decided.
I sat and visited for a while. Sometimes I think George really is an alien, he seems indestructible, immortal. I have rarely seen him looking better, and he was full of himself, talking about alien encounters, photography, UFO’s, books. He was joking and flirting with the nurses and lecturing me about alien life. Also peppering me with questions about my infrared photography. Wow, he said, I bet that would spot some UFO’s.
Some of the “Nine Steps For Youth Enhancement,” soon to be a book, or perhaps a movie.
Step Two: “Take a picture of yourself in the nude. You have to do this by yourself. There is no need to ever show it to anyone…”
Step Five: “Stop your snappy and quick Blossom Type evil smartness. This is your pride and is not good for you or your well-being…”
Step Number Six: Do not be so preoccupied with sheer perfectionism. This will make you ill so much that you can become a Martyr…”
Step Number Eight: “Be purely happy. Do anything you can to attain this state.This is especially true if you are an older person…”
Step Number Nine: “You need a fanciful Ra Ra to succeed in the modern world. Do not think that this is not so. Did you just declare that all my steps here are nonsense?..Do this: you need a day off. Take a real day off ever seven days. Don’t do any Rat Race stuff. This must be a day when you will be as selfish as you want. Let the True Self explore this day with you.”
I think George will be home by tomorrow, that’s what the nurse said. I am amazed that so many complex health issues were resolved in 48 hours, and that George was looking fresh as a daisy. But I shouldn’t be. After all, he said, the aliens are watching out for him. He and I are planning to do a portrait of him in his darkroom as soon as the tubes come out.
Our friend George Forss, the famous urban landscape photographer and UFO investigator, was rushed to the hospital and is undergoing treatment for a long list of things. “Old man stuff,” he told me this morning, but it sounds a little more dramatic than that. I’m heading to the hospital to see for myself what’s going on.
George is a photographic genius, and a wonderful human being and friend. I have learned so much just from knowing him. More later. He is extremely tough and durable, but not know for taking good care of himself.
