Maria and I took the three dogs and we went out into the deep woods not too far from our farm. I brought my new Achromat Lens, a difficult but brilliant child. I’ve never had a lens with such a complete mind of its own, it cares nothing for what I am thinking or doing and even less for the many modern conveniences of digital photography.
I am but a vessel, a means of transport, the lens takes the photo it wants and does with it what it will, life a gifted and angry adolescent child who has just discovered how dumb his father and mother are. I am the bumbling idiot flipping dials and changing ISO’s and cursing. We went on our usual path, nearly overgrown with brush and ferns from the summer rains.
The Achromat liked the brilliant afternoon light that shot briefly through the forest as the sun began to set.
The canopy is thick, and the forest is in shadows, but there are places where the sun comes through like fire, and Achromat liked the rays and picked up the rich colors that lit up the forest. Maria and the dogs walked ahead.
I came home and had my nightly reading of the Kabbalah, and what is the first thing I opened to?
“The Greatest Path,” a meditation on love.
“When you desire to eat or drink,” says the Kabbalah, “or to fulfill other worldly desires, and you focus on your awareness of love, then you elevate that physical desire to spiritual desire. Thereby you draw out the holy spark that dwells within. You bring forth holy sparks from the material world. There is no path greater than this. For wherever you go and what ever you do – even the most mundane of activities – you serve love.”
Looking at this photo, I think I was on that path today, my lens saw it long before me.
We accompanied Connie on her afternoon walk at the Mansion, part of the physical therapy regimen she has been working on for weeks now. Maria put Gus on a leash and Red walked with me, he will not walk with anyone but me, not even Connie. Connie looked strong today, and clearly relieved to be back at the Mansion.
Morgan, the Mansion case manager, walk with her and Maria.
Sylvie receives letters from all over the country now, several weeks ago, she came to me, upset, because all of her letters had been inadvertently destroyed.
I tried to reassure her, telling her there would be more letters.
A number of them were from Houston, and other parts of Texas. This morning, she watched the news from Texas and cried, she felt badly for the many victims there. She was further upset because she could not answer the letters from Texas that she had received.
She wanted to know that her friends in Texas – her words – were all right, and she wanted them to know that she cared about them and was worried about them. She felt guilty, I think, and very upset at the thought that they might think she didn’t care about them.
I lost the letters, she told me, “could you tell my friends in Texas to write me again, so I can answer them and know that they are all right.” I said of course I would, but I cautioned her that it might be difficult for some people in Texas to get my blog right now, and for them to get to the post office and send letters off.
I’m sure they would write you again, I said, but it might take a while. Many homes had lost electricity, and many homes were destroyed.
She said she knew. Sylvie and I have a closeness that is hard for me to define. I think we simply trust one another. Sylvie can be strong-willed, even difficult, but she has a heart full of love and a great sense of integrity.
I could feel her anxiety over this.
I had his sudden impulse that Sylvie ought to put the request in her own words, and I asked her if she wanted to do a video to her friends in Texas, and she jumped at this opportunity, she said she did. Sylvie always wants her portrait to be taken. I thought this might help her feel that she was trying hard, and she is.
Her words touched my heart. So I recorded a brief video to help her feel easier, less guilty and less anxious. When it was done, she said she felt much better, and I could see that was true.
So come and meet this remarkable woman with such a big heart, who has battled mental illness for much of her life, and who lost the love of her life more than once. Sylvie knows what it means to suffer.
If you are from Texas, or Houston, and you read this and are safe, and can write and post a letter to Sylvie, that would be great. If you can’t, I will explain that to her, we know how difficult it is there now.
People elsewhere should feel free to write her also, if they wish. You can write Sylvie c/o The Mansion, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.
Today, I resumed Gus’s training as a therapy dog, it was his fifth or sixth visit to the Mansion. He is calm and at ease in the building, easy around the people and the way they move. One problem Gus has as a small dog is that he is small, and many of the residents can’t reach down to pet him or hold him.
So I ask each resident if they want to hold him, and if so, I pick him up. At first, Gus squirms, not sure what he is supposed to do. I have to make sure his nails are clipped and that I am close to hold him, the skin of some of the residents is sensitive and can easily tear.
Someone – me or them – has to hold him firmly for a few seconds until he settles down, and then I praise him and reinforce the behavior. Connie had a good grasp of this, she wrapped her arm around him, and in a couple of minutes, he sat quietly in her lap, almost falling asleep.
More and more, his periods of calm and quiet are getting longer as his attention span grows, this is the time to really teach him. He was in three different laps today and stayed calm in all of them, I had to hold him firmly in place once when some noise attracted him, but this was a quantum leap over the last visit.
He is realizing that this is work, and that he needs to be calm and still. I think he has the potential to be a great therapy dog. I think it will take more work and supervision and reinforcement but I am confident about it, he is a great and focused dog, he pays attention, is intelligent, and loves people.
I’m going to step up the practice sessions, this is the age, Gus is four months old. Connie is doing very well, she took several walks today, more on that later. She has at least 10 large plastic bags filled with books, gifts, food, yarn, letters and photographs sent to her at Saratoga Springs Hospital and the Wesley Rehab center. She was reading them all day, determine to get through them and answer as many as possible.
We were calling her the Queen Of The Mansion today.
The Blue Heron is an important bird for me to photograph. It is said to symbolize self-determination and independence.
The legs of the Heron are symbols of balance, and they represent an ability to progress and evolve. The long thin legs of the Heron reflect the idea that you don’t need great massive pillars to remain stable, but you must be able to stand on your own.
“The Great Heron” photograph is one of those rare turning points in the creative life. I
It is a special kind of photo, I sensed it the minute I took the shot.
It was made possible in part by a new and somewhat controversial art lens I am trying to learn to use. George Forss, my great friend and one of the most famous photographers and printing specialists in the world, has agreed to print up to 50 signed and limited edition copies of this print.
Maria has agreed to sell them online and also at our October Open House as part of her art show. we’ve already sold nearly half of the 50 photographs that will comprise this limited edition.
This morning, we met with George at his art gallery and saw the first small test print (above) of the 11 by 14 archival paper prints he is in the process of making. George has an amazing feel for photography and for art, he runs an art gallery in our town.
He said he didn’t want to touch up the photograph at all, he thought the colors worked extraordinarily well together and gave the picture a very different kind of feel.
He said the comparison people were making to Monet was very real. I am not about to compare myself to Monet, but I love the comparison.
George is the most gifted photographer I have ever met and his words are important to me. He said the photograph was “extraordinary” and that it was also perfectly composed. Praise always makes me nervous, but George is the real deal, I am in awe of him – he is a true genius and there is an otherwordly glow about this photograph that is exciting for me.
George’s photographs of New York City in the 1970’s and 80’s are breathtaking. Ansel Adams called him a genius.
So I’m very lucky to be collaborating with George and Maria on the prining and sale of this photograph. The photograph costs $110 collars plus shipping unframed. Maria is including the prints, if there are any left, in our Columbus Day Weekend Art Show.
I very rarely sell photographs, I would rather give them away online, but this time, I thought the photograph was very special, and I also wanted to raise some money for our trip to New Mexico in October, our first real vacation. I was mesmerized by the Blue Heron, one of the most beautiful birds I have ever seen.
But the photograph is more than that, as it happens.
I took it with a new and very different art lens called the Daguerrotype Achromat 2.9/64 Art Lens, built on the model of the first optical lens every used in photography. It is a challenging lens, there are no electronics, no auto focus or image stabilizer. Some people loved the lens, many people didn’t. Older people especially wrote to say the softer focus it reminded them of their own struggling eyesight.
I love the idea of using the world’s first optical lens to take some photographs, the lens softens the colors and has a sort of magical feeling to it.
I head from a number of self-described “older” people who said they didn’t care for the lens because it created a soft focus. The world is a fascinating place, I am an older person – I turned 70 a few weeks ago – and this is one of the most special pictures I have ever taken. And I love the softer focus.
The lens has its own mind, and I took 20 different shots of the Blue Heron before he (or she) got sick of me and flew away.
We are committed to the 50 print limit, George says he will have prints ready for shipping in about two weeks. If anyone reading this is interested, you can e-mail Maria at [email protected]. And thanks.
The Blue Heron now has some mystical meaning for me, I have never taken a picture that sold so quickly to so many people.
In the book “Animal Speak,” Author Ted Andrews writes that the ability of the Heron to stand in water on those thin legs enables them to follow their own path. Most people will never be able to live the way heron people do It is not a structured way, and does not seem to have a stability and security to it.
Security is, though, a matter of perspective. There is security in heron medicine, for it gives the ability to do a variety of tasks. If one way doesn’t work, then another will. This something that heron people seem to inherently know.
I didn’t know there were heron people, or that I was one of them. But it seems that I am. I’m grateful to have caught this image, lots of luck involved there, and happy to sell it.
It has already helped to bless our trip to New Mexico, I can feel it.
