Another Perspective: Inspired Stone

I just wanted to give you all an alternate perspective on yesterday’s post about my hike with Mike (my husband) in Desolation Wilderness this past weekend. My husband started a blog a little while back to chronicle his love for the outdoors (specifically rocks and rock climbing) and photography. His blog is called Inspired Stone, and his most recent post is about our hike.

Although I know there is no way to not be biased, I think he’s a very talented photographer. He is also a scientist (in graduate school right now for Materials Science), so he has this extraordinary combination of scientist and artist (and outdoorsman) that come together quite nicely in photography. Check it out. There is even a very silly picture of me.

Natural November

The first day of November here in northern California, was a beautiful sunny day, and we thought it called for a hike—so we headed up towards Lake Tahoe for some natural inspiration. My husband (who is an outdoor guru) chose the location: we started out at Wrights Lake in the desolation wilderness and hiked up to two nearby lakes called Grouse Lake and Hemlock Lake.

What a gorgeous day—the temperature was just fine—t-shirt and pants weather with open blue and sunny skies. Perfect for lying on a rock and letting the breeze and sun carry you into a nap (one of my favorite outdoor occupations). The thing I noticed most was the expansive amount of quiet. I live in a pretty small city (Davis, CA), so I can’t complain about big city noise, but I must have needed the quiet because I really felt the luxury of it. Here are a few pictures that unfortunately, don’t really capture the feeling of walking outside in the quiet sunny afternoon, but isn’t that always the way.

Capturing Wind

I’ve always loved wind—it’s so transporting and sensual. It really fills almost all of your senses—there’s a sound, feeling, visual, and even smell. I would love to make art that somehow captured wind—I think the only way to really do it is with art that addresses at least hearing and touch—like some more contemporary pieces I’ve seen that really create an environment. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to walk into a room that transports you to a breezy summer evening? I imagine it would be dark, and there would be a warm breeze and the smell of some fragrant flower or cut grass. The air would feel a little damp, with the heat of day just lingering.

But maybe these things are best left to reality—why recreate this through art? Perhaps it would push the viewer (or experiencer) to understand what elements are at play, or I suppose just to let themselves be transported and appreciate the feeling. This could get into a much bigger philosophical discussion about the point of any art. I won’t go there, but I was just out trying to photograph the wind, with little success (especially with my silly digital point and shoot that won’t let me adjust shutter speed).

I’m not sure a photograph, or any two-dimensional art could convey the wind, or maybe the whole thing is in the viewer’s mind—if you create a vivid and truthful image or series of words that makes them conjure the moment, then you would have succeeded.

Lucky to be here

As much as I love traveling and seeing exotic places, there is something to be said for staying in the same place—riding the same stretch of road, walking the same loop—through all seasons. You begin to really notice things.

It was hot here this weekend—100 degrees hot, but this evening, the breeze came in from the coast, like a breath of fresh air. Riding my bike home, appreciating the breeze like I had never felt one before, sitting up, riding no hands (something I just learned to do this winter), I was glad to feel a bit cold.

And then, the clouds started to put on quite a show. I never get tired of looking at clouds, as you may well know if you’ve been reading here for a while.

The zen of dog walking

This furry beast is Lance, my high energy mutt. Some of you may already know Lance (from personal encounters, or from seeing him on this blog), but I will be mentioning him again today as my faithful walking comrade.

In fact, I must now point out that having a dog is the best motivation I’ve ever found for exercising. He is relentless—every afternoon when I get home from work (and even on the weekends) he begins to sigh and stir if I delay taking him out. And so, Lance and I walk (and occasionally run when I’m feeling extremely motivated) every afternoon.

Truthfully, I love to walk—I’m not talking aggressive power walking here, I mean I love to stroll slowly through the neighborhood looking up at trees. Next to writing in my journal, walking is the single best way I’ve found to think and calm down. It is a way of working things out while moving my feet, and being outside really puts things in perspective.

So, I got to thinking the other day, while walking in the fine Spring weather, a light breeze blowing white blossoms down onto the path, what if we all lived our lives from this place–from this calm place of walking slowly in the sunshine on a March afternoon, instead of living from the frantic place of trying to get the next thing done, trying to fit everything in? Wouldn’t our quality of life be so much greater? Wouldn’t it be so much easier to follow our hearts if we took the time to listen?

I know we all live from that place of pureness, at least sometimes, but the thought of living from that place all the time is inspiring and freeing to me. I am thankful to Lance for taking me out every day, so I can find it, at least for a moment. It helps me work my way through life, learning and remembering what matters. In the end, it’s all about sunshine, good company, and calm expansive thoughts.

Sunday Morning Walk

I was happy to wake up and see sunlight this morning after a rainy last couple of days. I am getting so spoiled here in California—more than three days without sunshine, and I really start to get disappointed.

So, I was ready to take advantage of the weather this morning, and with even more encouragement from my rambunctious canine Lance (who will pace the house, sighing until I take him out), the two of us set out on a run/walk armed with my pocket-size digital camera.

I had no intention of photographing anything in particular, but unsurprisingly, I turned my camera to the clouds.

What is it about the sky and clouds that makes me so captivated? I think I will soon have to ban this word from my blog due to overuse, but the sky is another infinite landscape, and I think I am bound to photograph it my whole life. It is open and expansive and full of possibilities.

Hello Bishop

I’ve been out and about quite a bit this season, hence the thin number of posts over the last couple weeks. But I took the art on location again this past weekend on a trip back to a former haunt.

I suppose photography is my portable medium. I used to be a lot more serious about it, but lately, I’ve just been taking along a pocket digital camera because I just can’t seem to shake the need to capture things.

Now, I’ve been writing on this blog quite a while, and I can’t quite remember what I have and haven’t said (and am a bit too lazy to search back through all the old posts), but before we lived in Davis, we lived in Bishop, CA, a great little town on the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Many people ask why we would ever have lived in such a place. Only around 3,500 people live there, and driving through, the town looks like little more than a selection of gas stations and fast food restaurants. Well, in as few words as possible, here’s your answer:

Sure, there’s not a lot of nightlife and quite a limited selection of jobs (part of the reason we decided to move-the jobs, not the night life), but quite frequently, I would look up at the mountains and feel knocked over by them. While living there, I also discovered that I love the desert. The tiny plants with their subtle coloring are endlessly beautiful to me, especially when they repeat and repeat and repeat across the valley, leading your eye to the mountains that seem to jut up out of nowhere.

I am endlessly inspired by nature, especially the idea of infinity—the wide open spaces of the desert, the mountains leading your eye up into a vast sky, and the ocean reaching out to the ends of nowhere. I like being able to feel the vastness of things—I think it allows me to get out of my narrow thoughts into something much grander.

More clouds

More clouds for you today, taken with my Holga, like I talked about in this post. I seem to be obsessed with the sky—this morning, riding my bike to work, there were these two jet streams zooming upwards and crossing in the sky, and I was mesmerized.

Actually, I saw this interesting documentary about the great photographer Alfred Stieglitz, and they mentioned a gorgeous series he did on clouds. They are amazing.

I am putting all of my cloud photos, and other Holga photos of everyday things, in this pretty little album my cousins got me for my birthday last winter.

The album is very fancy—it has heavyweight organic-y paper and wax paper between the pages. I bought some black photo corners to go with the rustic look of the photos.

All on the farm

As I’ve said before, the University of California at Davis was set up as the UC Farm School. In celebration of the centennial this year, the UC Davis Craft Center is having a show called “Crafts from the Farm,” and I’m participating!

I teach beginning photography at the Craft Center, so I thought it was only appropriate that I use photography as my medium, specifically, my Holga (which you can read about here). The Holga just felt right for this project because I got an image of old-looking farm pictures. I decided to challenge myself to take the photos only on the UC Davis campus to show what remains of farming here, 100 years later. I gave the pictures an extra added old feeling by using warm tone fiber paper, which gives them a warmer tonal range.

This show is happening towards the end of September– I’ll let you all know the actual dates in the near future, in case some of you Davisites want to take a look. There will also be lots of other crafts, inspired by the farm.

I think I will end up with 7 or 8 photos. I am printing them small– about 4 x 5 inches, with the intention of framing them in a variety of thrift-store frames, to give them a homey feeling. Here are my two favorites, so far.

About Town

I’m just getting back into the swing of things after a wonderful, long relaxing weekend on the northern coast of California, Sea Ranch to be exact, where my boyfriend’s mom recently moved (the product of vacationing there every summer for more than 20 years and her retirement dream fulfilled). So much relaxing and cool sea breeze– it was an especially grumpy Monday morning back to work.

Hopefully I will get to printing some of the pictures I took there, but I thought I would share some pictures I finally printed from the spring first. I haven’t shared much black and white photography on this blog, but traditional darkroom b & w photo was my main art all through high school and college. I have gotten a little away from it, but I still love it.

In recent years, I have been most interested in experimental photography, which for me means photography focused more on trial and error conceptual results, often using non-standard equipment, and less focused on large fine prints. One example would be the pinhole photography I did quite a while ago, and also the photos I’m about to share now, which I took with a Holga Camera: an inexpensive, 120 size, simplified camera that is known for producing uncontrolled results with light leaks etc.

The camera feels like a plastic toy, has two light settings (sunny or cloudy), and four focusing settings illustrated with small pictures (mountain, group of people, three people, one person from shoulder up). I really like throwing my results up to chance. Just like with pinhole photography, it’s a miracle to me that I actually capture a photo.

Anyway, here are some photos around my neighborhood, taken with my Holga, I was very interested in sun and clouds that day: