Sudek

"I remember one time, in one of the Romanesque halls, deep below the spires of the cathedral [St. Vitus]--it was dark as in catacombs--with just a small window below street level inside the massive medieval walls. We set up the tripod and camera and then sat down on the floor and talked. Suddenly Sudek was up like lightening. A ray of sun had entered the darkness and both of us were waving cloths to raise mountains of dust 'to see the light,' as Sudek said. Obviously he had known that the sun would reach here perhaps two or three times a year, and he was waiting for it." - Sonja Bullaty

For me, Sudek is a mentor - a vague faraway force, whose muted axioms lay hidden in the layers of his deceptively simple work. I assert that you cannot take a better photograph of an onion than Sudek - his glow with an inner light unseen by most mortals in possession of an imaging system be it digital or film - though perhaps an old master of oils could equal the effort.

A glass on the windowsill. I flip past seeking the images my over-saturated eye has come to expect and need as 'art' - and yet I return thinking - but it's just a glass of water, how could the muse be reflected in that? and then I notice that somehow through a distant mirror, Sudek has winked at me, led me into his little room, shared his facility with the north facing window's miserly light, implanted a bit-o-the-equivalence, slyly, sneaking it under the door of my pseudo-refined artistic editor/conscience and tweaked my nose with a cryptic smile. I, who will willingly drive hundreds of miles to take photographs, have to acknowledge that Sudek travelled far in his little room.

Photo: Neo-romantic, ©2010 Timothy A. Sandstrom

what I found in the forest

... and so I walked into the woods, as oft I do, a glance beckoning me towards soft light falling amidst the tall leviathans. I grab gear and venture but a short distance from the road, set the equipment down and start to wander, surveying the locale, listening, smelling, kneeling down to touch the earth; why am I here?

After a few moments of silence, I realize that I am far from the bustle of the world. Look: faeries dance, ravens cackle, and old snags drift lazily in the evening swell wagging their forms against the twilight. Orcs and goblins peek from behind distant trees, shapes move, figures play with the edge of my vision: I am alone in the dark woods and find myself brushing up against primal fears in my mind. A snapping twig: was that a footstep? My posture stiffens, no one is here yet I am intimately aware of all the sounds in the woods around me. My spine requires it, the vestigial reptilian inside me ensures that I am on heightened alert here. These are just the woods, my educated brain says: no one is here, no mountain lions, no bears, and yet the sense of wild pervades even though I am but mere yards from the road.

A dark wooded ravine runs down into the deeper woods, and my mind plays with thoughts of what walks there while I sleep. How oft we forget that we are but animals, and beneath the layers of civility, the same terrified primal outlook of a deer resides in us. Occasionally we remember, and this remembrance can exhilarate, terrify, or awaken a wanderlust to seek out the primordial in ourselves.

Photo: Wizard's wand, ©2010 Timothy A. Sandstrom

lost coast

The north coast of California is the edge of the great migration, the final shore upon which the waves of westward seekers washed up. But it is a formidable country: rugged, incessantly damp, covered by thick forests of redwood, Douglas fur, and western hemlock. So after the logging slowed, most went their way to sunnier climes where the living was easier.

According to the occasional roadside attraction, Bigfoot lives here, his visage along with other denizens of the mythic stand in mute testimony to the back recesses of time and our psyche. We need there to be wild places,where man is but a seldom visitor at most, where the mind can still believe that mystery lives.

Photo: Wild coast morning, ©2010 Timothy A. Sandstrom

seen better days

Every moment contains some echo of the past, rippling forward with lessening vigour, until it is but a whisper to those who would listen. I hear these whispers of the past - the echos of the sunny day when this screen door was new and freshly hewn, the functional exemplar of its form. What days passed, what weeds grew, what attentions wandered in the interim, I sculpt with imagination, filling the blanks with a loving brushstroke. Others might seek a different tale, each according to their desire, and therein lies one of the Great Mysteries of Art.

Photo: Seen better days, ©2010 Timothy A. Sandstrom

thoughts on granite...

Say the word Yosemite, and someone will whisper 'Ansel' in return. As a lad, in the scouts, we hiked from Devil's Postpile into Yosemite. Cold crisp mornings, stroganoff, switchbacks, and the cleanest granite you've ever seen. And to me, and others no doubt, the granite somehow provides the essential mental image of the high country. 'Tis the 'scrith' laid bare, the understructure, the very bones of the mountains, so satisfyingly strong yet laid about in random confusion tumbled here and there in chaotic heaps. Mighty forces have forged these stones and others moved them, scoured them, polished them to a lustre of the finest brass. We but scurry about their flanks, clattering over the scree, in awe and wonder looking for the breccia of creation.

 

Photo: Twilight of the Gods, ©2010 Timothy A. Sandstrom

Ghosts of Fresno

As a child, I had dreams about these tracks, the smooth shopworn rails stood for something quite profound, of which now I have only the vaguest recollection. Somehow, they were good, true, and reliable - things that seem so scarce in those times, looking back. Apparently, we lived in Fresno's Chinatown - on G street. Once a thriving hotbed of shady and legitimate commerce, today it is rundown, boarded up, and not far from a sizable tent city. It was a place my folks went to hide: from life, from parents, from the law. Not long ago, remnants of long rumoured tunnels were found beneath the streets, maybe some secrets are better left alone...

BTW - The Rolleiflex is - by far - my favorite camera. Having one lens and a square format may seem too limited in these days of zoom lenses and and photoshop. Sure, it reduces your options, but constraints can be good - forcing you to work with a scene. Yes, not everything 'fits', but working within it's confines - for me at least - is often very liberating...

And, thank god for Kodak :)

Photo: Ghosts of Fresno, ©2010 Timothy A. Sandstrom

Here's an image by Q.T. Luong from Specimen Ridge.

I've been researching hikes in the Yellowstone area.

Certainly, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

should be on the short list, go see Q.T.'s images!!!

Some candidates [so far] for the death march:

- Black Canyon of the Yellowstone [12 miles]

- Bighorn Peak [14 miles]

- Osprey Falls [9.2 miles]

- Fan Creek [5-11 miles]

- Sevenmile hole [10 miles]

- Upper Gallatin valley [9-13 miles]

Anyway, add some ideas!