CalArti

It’s coming right up! The Garage Sale Art Fair is this Saturday at the Kalamazoo County Fairgrounds. I’ll be there with hundreds of matted prints, price to sell. Come on by!

For more info, see www.garagesaleartfair.com

For me, February is a slow month for photography in Michigan. The snow is waning but wildflowers, insects, and other subjects have yet to emerge. The landscape is bleak and barren – dried grass, fading snow, leafless trees.

I suppose I should do something productive with my time, but earlier this week the urge to get outdoors took hold and I found myself driving on muddy dirt roads, seeking some of my favorite places in the Allegan Forest. If there is beauty in barrenness, then the pine barrens in February is the place to behold it.

Much of the snow has melted. What hasn’t melted has thawed and re-frozen, so it is hard and you can walk on it without sinking in. I visited several places, but spent the most time in a field off 48th street. The snow was peppered with deer, coyote, and snowmobile tracks.

I lugged the Pentax 6x7 outfit down to the seasonal marsh, where in the summer dragonflies abound. The water level was astonishingly high – the thawing ice covering the marsh was at least 20 feet further in than where it was last fall, and then it was several feet further in than prior years. Maybe the seasonal marsh is heading to be permanent – the smooth ice surface, with no reeds or cattails breaking throughlooked more like a pond than a marsh.

Well, it was a good way to spend the day. I tested out the new 45mm lens I bought for the Pentax 6x7, and loved the wide angle perspective. I also shot out some film stock, using my last 120 format rolls of Efke R100 and Ilford fp4. Soon I’ll be tapping into the large stock of Agfa film I laid in before they went out of business – and who knows what will be available to shoot after that.

A few more shots are in the Photoblog (which has usurped the Image Stream.)

It’s yet February, but things are starting to warm up.

Snow fell for a few hours yesterday - just tiny small crystals and ice dust. It was warm with temps hovering right at the freezing point, and the small dust bits melted almost instantly as they hit the glass. The snow crystals were not far behind them.

It wasn’t a real productive session - but I like the water droplets with the two small snow crystals. One other shot is in the Photoblog.

With a few days of sunshine last week I finally got around to shooting out the last frames on a roll of Kodak High Speed Infrared, which had been languishing in the camera for a few months.

The sun may have been shining but the ground was still snow covered - and guess what? Bare trees and snow covered ground don’t lend themselves to that infrared look. Oh well - some of the shots from October were interesting.

I like this patch of trees - it is along a dirt road by a pull off where I frequently stop to chase dragonflies. Many a time when I’ve walked back to the car I’ve felt a yearning to just wander off into these little twisted trees, which seem to go on forever.

Good news arrived a couple of days ago when I learned that one of my photos, Spent, was accepted into the 2009 West Michigan Area Show, hosted by the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts. After a two year hiatus in having work accepted into this show, it’s nice to get a piece in.

This image is one that keeps popping up on this blog, mostly because I like it. It was shot on film with a Holga in October, 2007 and where-else but the Allegan Forest. This was previously exhibited in last year’s Your Best Shot show hosted by the foto foto gallery in Huntinton, NY

The 2009 West Michigan Area Show runs from February 28 – April 26 with a reception on March 1, from 2-4 pm. This year’s juror is Larry Fink.

“Water, water, everywhere,
Nor a drop to drink…”

Michigan winters can be frustrating, and this one particularly so. With almost 100 inches of snow fall so far this season, you have to adjust your lifestyle a bit. A quick trip to the store isn’t so quick when the roads are surrounded by snow banks several feet high, making every intersection a game of chance. And while it may be fun to slip slide around on the pavement, dodging other drivers who are also skidding, it ultimately gets a bit frustrating to not be able to just get in the car and go.

One the bright side – who needs a gym membership when every morning presents a fresh workout with shovel and overnight snow fall?

For me, the most frustrating aspect of the last several weeks is that none of this great new snow is any good for photographing. It floats down from the heavens like the gods’ dandruff – fine, broken particles with little form or substance. It piles up out of sheer volume. It blows around in the wind almost like smoke or fog. And it makes for really poor photos…

Here’s what it looks like up close:

So while I’ve been spending a bit of time out in the garage with camera set up to take snow crystal shots, there is little to show for it. Here and there an intact crystal lands. It seems that the best crystals fall at the very beginning of a snow storm and then again at the very end. Hopefully a few nice crystals will yet come down this season.

But in the short term the forecast for Michigan is a sudden rise in temperature with a good chance of rain – time for us Michiganders to hang up the snow shoes and get out the waders.