The Material World Is a River of Change

The great departure starts today—soon, the Labor Day crowds will depart, and people will begin closing up their lake houses for the year. The people at the camp* across the street have two more months before their water is cut off for the Winter, and most of them will be gone by then.

But my, were there a lot of people in these parts over the weekend. Even people who barely ever use their lake houses must've been here. I got caught in a traffic jam in Penn Yan—so many cars lined up in front of a traffic light that I thought it better to detour around it. I could count on one hand the number of times that happens in a year.

There have been lots of changes around here since I moved here seven years and 17 days ago. The neighborhood is coming up in the world—many new houses have been built and a number of older ones remodeled and restored.

And here's another interesting change. Do you remember this picture?

It's a picture I took with my iPhone that we included in the "Mike's Miniatures" print sale, which consisted of prints from iPhone files, for those who were curious about that. At the time I encountered it, I wished I'd had a bigger camera and a tripod with me, but all I had was my iPhone, so I made do. (And by the way, as you're seeing it here is how it's best.)

This year I've been planning to look for the full moon nearest to Thanksgiving and be back at the same spot around moonrise, hoping to take a similar picture. But look what's just happened:

 Not only is there no cornfield there at the corner on the right, but they cut down the woods! The older woman who owned those woods sold them to the farmer next to her (he's letting her stay in the house for the rest of her life), and the new owner's judgment was that the land should be restored to its "original" state—original meaning the 1940s—namely, it should go back to being cornfield. There won't be cornstalks there till 2023, of course. But in November most of the trees will be gone.

Mulligans
The older I get, the more I think that It's Not About the F-Stop by Jay Maisel is the most important instructional book for photographers published in English. (Followed by On Being a Photographer, by Bill Jay and David Hurn.) It's all about how to be a shooter, and it covers pretty much everything important. "Shoot It Now" is something Jay thought was so important it's the second thing he says in the book. "Never come back," Jay says. "Shoot it now. When you come back, it will always be different."

Sometimes, though, you want it to be different. There are times when you know there's a picture there but you can't get it for some reason. The light is wrong, it's the wrong season, something needs to move out of the way—lots of times, photographers have "spots" where they sense a photograph is lurking, and they go back from time to time to see what things look like. And sometimes that does work. I've also gone back to try again when I blew it the first time—I messed up and didn't get the picture. For example, I took a photograph with the monochrome camera the other day of what has got to be one of the prettiest houses in Ontario County. And as a nice added touch, the owner was out front on a riding lawnmower. Well, the picture I took features a blown-out sky—very little recoverable detail—and there's motion blur in the lawnmower. So, a failure. It's okay; I have a feeling that one's a color picture anyway. I'll go back there again, though. To take a mulligan.

It's when you see the exact photograph you want and want the exact photograph you see that Jay's advice applies.

The farmer clearing the land did tell me that he intends to let that old oak at the corner of the field stand. There might still be a picture there when the full Beaver Moon rises at the end of the road this year; it won't be much like last year's picture, is all. I'll try to be there when that day comes, if I can, just so I can give you a report.

Mike

*"Camps" around here are neat little collections of well-kept mobile homes, stacked up in rows. It's a sweet deal—my neighbors pay ~$2k dues a year for a comfy 7-month abode with shared lake access. Many of them bought their places years ago for what are now great bargain prices, in the $50–100k range. You can't do this on many lakes in the Midwest, which have lake frontage requirements and limitations on building houses in back of other houses on lakes.

Book o' the Week

Fred Lyon, San Francisco Noir. "The version [of San Francisco] that Fred Lyon celebrates in his new book is a classic San Francisco full of smoky jazz clubs, neon lights in the fog and sharply dressed men and women stepping on and off of trolley cars. Made mostly during the 1950s and '60s, Lyon's images are big on atmosphere and style, and hit many parts of the city that visitors love." (PDN)

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Geoff Wittig: "Change is the only constant.

"I've been doing a deep dive into the landscape where I live, and in particular the area around the Genesee River that includes Letchworth State Park. I've hiked the park and surroundings for more than 40 years, and despite the 'preserved in amber' nature of a park, the forests and fields are constantly evolving. This year they took a big hit from very dry weather and a massive infestation of spongy moth (previously known as gypsy moth) caterpillars, so the woods are looking a little threadbare.

"A geography professor at SUNY Geneseo just self-published a book on the park with numerous maps and aerial survey photos dating back to the 1930s. It's astonishing how rapidly new forests overtook the previously cleared agricultural land making up much of the park acreage. And how quickly bustling small farm villages disappeared without a trace."

Albert Smith: "I really like It's Not About The F-Stop. I pick it up often for the little micro lessons that are easily digested.

"Regarding 'Shoot It Now' I was able to attend a lecture at a local College by Henry Diltz, a photographer that was in the epicenter of the Laurel Canyon scene in the late '60s and beyond, documenting the music scene and shooting many famous album covers from that era.

"He went out in his car with Crosby, Stills and Nash driving around to find a location for a shoot. They saw a well-worn house with a front porch. They ran onto the porch, the three musicians formed up and Diltz fired of a few frames. When the film was developed the photo was fine except that the three guys were not in the order that corresponded to the name of the group (CSN) which would be on the cover over the picture. They decided that since it was their first album and they might not be known, they should be in the correct sequence so people could identify the band members.

Nash, Stills and Crosby

"A couple days later, they got back in the car, went to the house to find... it had been completely razed. Everything was gone and they were gearing up to construct a shopping center. The first CSN album has the 'wrong' photo and people were mixing up the band members because of that inability to redo the error.

"Shoot it now, absolutely."

Comments

[psu]

I also have two favorite "how to" books about photography, one of which is On Being a Photographer, by Bill Jay and David Hurn. My second though is Mountain Light, by Galen Rowell.

[Marco]

You can always both shoot and come back, maybe finding out that the shot will be not only different but better.

A week after:

The first image was just some cheese waiting to be refined, the second tells a more complex story.
I remember that I learned (english is not my first language) the term "serendipity" reading a Michael Reichmann post.

[Dave]

Mike,

Good thing you had the iPhone with you that day! Maybe the corn stalks will offer an equally satisfying photo next year. At least the tree should be there (depending on what Mother Nature does before then).

[Jim Arthur]

The advice to “Shoot It Now” applies to the slideshow of weather photography that’s up on DPReview right now. I noticed that four of the pictures were made with cell phones and one with a bridge camera. The subject of weather demands that you get the shot when you can with whatever you have.

The slideshow reminded me of a day several years ago when I was driving into Tucson from the North as a monsoon storm cleared at sunset. The light and sky were so beautiful that cars all around me were pulling over onto the shoulder of the road to just sit and stare in wonder. I happened to have my 6D/EF100-400 sitting in the front floorboard so I got some nice shots of the mountains before the spell was broken but at the time, it never occurred to use the wide-angle on my phone. It was a cheapo phone but I would still like to have its wide angle view of that moment.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Recording the material world's "River of Change" is the job that photography, as a medium, is supremely best-suited to do. Whether from year-to-year or second-to-second.

As a small at-hand example, I do most of my own photography in the same locations. This is especially true of my own home high above Chicago's lakefront and downtown. A few years ago I began curating a gallery on my web site titled "From Here" devoted solely to images I've made out my windows over the years. Here are a series of four images made of the same spot of ground in a park:

2013, 2015, 2017, and 2019.

My own fascination with such images is that they can never be made again.

[Albert Smith]

The slide show that Jim Arthur mentioned can be found here: https://www.dpreview.com/news/9496992718/slideshow-the-shortlisted-photographs-for-the-2022-weather-photographer-of-the-year-contest

Some nice shots there, many with technical data and narrative on the the capture.

[Moose]

"The older I get, the more I think that It's Not About the F-Stop by Jay Maisel is the most important instructional book for photographers published in English. (Followed by On Being a Photographer, by Bill Jay and David Hurn.)"

' It's all about how to be a shooter, and it covers pretty much everything important. "Shoot It Now" is something Jay thought was so important it's the second thing he says in the book. "Never come back," Jay says. "Shoot it now. When you come back, it will always be different."'

For me, the first thing that sets Maisel apart is his endless interest and delight in the visual world. He makes photographs for the joy of it. The books and the recent documentary make that joy catching.

The second thing is his patience and persistence. He has almost daily shot the same subjects hundreds or thousands of times over decades, always intrigued by the changes.

The Jay, Hurn book is great, chock full of information, technique, wisdom, etc., but, at least to me, lacking the joie de vivre in the acts of photography that Maisel exudes.

And Maisel's books are visual feasts! A book about photography without photos as a top choice? Nah. It's Maisel's Light, Gesture & Color next for me.

Not for the nuts and bolts, but for the process of finding and creating photographs that are pleasing and meaningful to the photographer, and thus likely to others, I'd recommend, in no particular order:

The practice of Contemplative Photography, by Karr and Wood,

Why Photographs Work, by George Barr

The Tao of Photogrpahy, by Gross and Shapiro

Moose d'Opinion

[Robert Stahl]

To the fine book recommendations already made I would add the
following trio: Seeing Gardens by Sam Abell, Photography and the
Art of Seeing by Freeman Patterson, and Ernst Haas Color Photography.

[Mark Sampson]

Mike,
I have to say that I still love your moonrise photo. I'm glad you're showing it again. Would it yet be possible to purchase a print?

[I have extras of the print of Sara looking out to sea, but I don't think I have any of the Thanksgiving moon picture. I'll check though.

No, I don't have extras of that one. Sorry. --Mike]

[David Stubbs]

Don’t photocrastinate!