On Photography – Researching My Sequel

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amwriting, books, creative process, Novel, photography, writing, writing process

I’m working on a sequel to my novel From the Far Ends of the Earth, mostly research and note-taking at this time. The sequel will be following the “missing” mother’s journey of self-discovery and re-invention through the lens of her camera as she travels through Mexico to the tip of South America.

The mother’s photography plays a key part in the first novel. It becomes an obsession for one of the main characters, the son, a struggling drug addict. He receives packets of his mother’s photos, black and white glossies, with no notes or explanations of why she’s sending these to him. They are stark, often disturbing images, wildlife mostly: a horny-head lizard, mean face, wicked eye, flash of tongue; a nasty looking rooster perched on top a fence post, its wings in a flurry, beak open, eyes wild and furious.  Another of a dead tree, all bare limbs, like outstretched arms, like someone shaking its fists at the sky, or trying to tear it to pieces.

He doesn’t know what to make of these and pins them on a wall to study. In his drugged haze, he comes to see the photos as pieces of his mother she’s cut from her own body and sent to him to put back together. If he does, she’s saved, and he’s saved, and she come home. If he doesn’t they’re both doomed.

I love photography but have never studied it professionally, so I have a lot to learn before writing this. I began my research by  foraging through all my bookcases, large and small, tucked in various corners of the house to discover any books I might already have on the subject. I was delighted to find a few gems:

On Photography, by Susan Sontag. A collection of essays about the art and its cultural significance and influence.

The Joy of Photography, by the editors of the Eastman Kodak Company. A 1979 guide to the tools and techniques of good photography.

Ansel Adams’ Examples -The Making of Forty Photographs. He describes equipment, techniques as well as the inspiration and vision that guided his art in making these. Fantastic photos too!

The Family of Children  A 1977 collection of photographs about childhood around the world  from the greatest photographers of the time. This is a sequel to the iconic The Family of Man collection curated by Edward Steichen and Carl Sandburg published in 1955.

Photography and the Art of Seeing by Freeman Patterson. A visual perception workshop for film and digital photography.

In addition, I’m reading the The Age of Light, a novel by Whitney Sharer based on the life of Lee Miller, a fashion model who becomes a photographer, studying with the famous surrealist painter and photographer Man Ray. Eventually she becomes his muse and lover. She goes on to establish herself as a noted photographer as well as the first female war correspondent embedded with the Americans. She was there when they freed the concentration camps and took photos of herself bathing in Hitler’s bathtub, after his suicide.

I’ve also ordered a book by the photographer Sally Mann, Holding Still: A Memoir with Photographs. She caused quite a stir in 1992 when her book of photographs Immediate Family was published. Although highly acclaimed as one of the greatest and most influential photography books of the time, it was also criticized for the extremely intimate and personal photographs of her children, some unclothed.

My character begins her journey in the year 2000, before digital photography was popular.

What kind of camera would she have had? Could she create a dark room and develop her own film in the back of her camper?

How would she earn a living as a traveling photographer?

How would she advance enough over the course of two years to earn a cover story in the National Geographic, which she has done by the end of my first novel?

These are just a few of the questions I have. If any of you know the answers or can suggest other reading or research material that might help, I’d be most appreciative.

Doing research for a book is one of the easiest, most rewarding and inspiring stages in the process of writing a novel. I’m a little bit in heaven.

 

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Italy’s Amalfi Coast, Beckoningly Unreal

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Amalfi, Amalfi Coast, Europe, Italy, photography, Positano, travel, vacation

John Steinbeck once wrote that the Amalfi coast “isn’t quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you have gone.” Having  visited it last summer, it still doesn’t seem quite real to me, but that dreamlike beauty does beckon.

For those of you planning next summer’s travel, or just wanting a taste of seaside sun now, here are a few photos that capture some of this magical place. Most are my own, but a few I’ve gathered elsewhere.

We start here in the town of Amalfi, where we stayed in the Hotel Residence, across from the waterfront and a sandy umbrella strewn beach.

Around the corner from our hotel is a large plaza with steps climbing toward a striking Byzantine cathedral and a fountain where passersby fill up their water bottles. Narrow streets lead away through a busy shopping district into the foothills.

The next day we leave Amalfi, catching a ferry to Positano, one of the most beautiful towns along the coastline. On the way we catch glimpses of other seaside villages and villas clinging to the rugged hillsides.

Here we arrive at Positana, which grew around a Benedictine abbey founded in the 9th century. Now the tiled dome of the  Collegiate Church of Santa Maria Assunt is its most famous landmark.

We walk along the waterfront, where artists have set up their easels and a marching band entertains us. and then have lunch with a view of the seaside.

Later we stroll up into the hills to shop, and enjoy the spectacular views above and below us.

Along the Almafi Coast lies the island of Capri and the city of Sorrento, which we also visited. But I’ll save that for another time.

Time-Traveling Through the Streets of Pompeii

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archaeology, Europe, History, Italy, photography, Pompeii, travel, vacation

One of my favorite stops during my travels last summer was visiting the ancient ruins of Pompeii, a sprawling city buried beneath 15 feet of ash and pumice when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD.

It was such a strange feeling to be walking along the streets and into the homes and bath houses of people whose lives had been buried in an instant for centuries. We only had three hours to see what needed several days, at least, to explore fully. But I still came away feeling deeply moved, and somewhat eerie, as if I was voyeur peeking through the curtains of time into private quarters never meant for my eyes.

It was fascinating how much of the colorful frescoes, painted tiles, and sculptured wall friezes survived; how wide and well-paved the streets and  sidewalks were; and how many clay pots and urns remained intact buried beneath the ash. Also buried were the bodies of those unable to escape in time. Those final moments are now memorialized in plaster casts.

“Endless Love” – A 6th Year Celebration

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Anniversary, art collage, celebration, daughter, life, personal, wedding

I created this collage to celebrate my daughter and her husband’s 6th wedding anniversary, today. They were married January 12 in Shell Beach. Her husband made a surfboard called “endless Love” for all the guest to sign, and she made and decorated her dark chocolate, chiptole pepper wedding cake. Their best friend officiated as they stood barefoot in the sand with the waves unrolling in the background.

Aside from the births of my children and grandchildren, it was the happiest day of my life.

I wrote a post about that day six years ago Sea, Sky, Earth, Fire – My Daughter on Her Wedding Day,  which began:

She was married beneath a cliff on the edge of the sea standing barefoot on the rocky beach. Barking seals sunning on rocks and crashing waves nearly drowned out the simple ceremony.

Hunchbacked boulders rose from the sea behind her like giant guardian sentinels. A single guitarist played flamenco music to match the red rose in her hair while the late afternoon sun glimmered across the waves.

Sea. Sky. Earth. Fire. All four essential elements holding the world together blended beautifully together that day.

Below are a few photos and memories that I tried to capture in my collage.

 

Happy Anniversary, Kelli and Andrew!

Three to Share: Beauty, Art, Place

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art, Blogging, blogs, inspiration, Nature, photography, quotations

I love discovering new blogs that inspire me and want to share three, among many, that I discovered this past year.

The Beauty We Love

I turn to this one often, for the captivating images as well as the inspiring quotations. Two I enjoyed most recently were by John Muir, the first enticing us to saunter reverently rather than “hike” when we are out among nature. He tells us how the word “saunter” comes from pilgrims who are traveling through France  ‘A la sainte terre’, or  ‘To the Holy Land.’ Another reminds us that we are kin to everything

When we try to pick out anything by itself,

we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

One fancies a heart like our own must be beating in every crystal and cell,

 and we feel like stopping to speak to the plants and animals

 as friendly fellow mountaineers.

Recently I featured another post I loved in Seeing the Self in What We Love.

Then there was Wild Elegance, which speaks to why I named this blog Living on the Edge of the Wild. John O’Donohue from The Invisible Embrace, Beauty writes:

When we acknowledge the wild beauty of God, we begin to glimpse the potential holiness of our neglected wildness.  As humans, citizens and believers, we have become domesticated beyond belief.  We have fallen out of rhythm with our natural wildness.  What we now call ‘being wild’ is often misshapen, destructive and violent.  The natural wildness as the fluency of the soul at one with beauty is foreign to us.

The call of the wild is a call to the elemental levels of the soul, the places of intuition, kinship, swiftness, fluency and the consolation of the lonesome that is not lonely.  Our fear of our own wildness derives in part from our fear of the formless; but the wild is not the formless – it holds immense refinement and, indeed, clarity.  The wild has a profound simplicity that carries none of the false burdens of brokenness or self-conflict; it flows naturally as one, elegant and seamless.

And moreover:

Beauty invites us towards profound elegance of soul.  It reminds us that we are heirs to elegance and nobility of spirit and encourages us to awaken the divinity within us.  We are no longer trapped in mental frames of self-reduction or self-denunciation.

Instead, we feel the desire to celebrate, to give ourselves over to the dance of joy and delight.   The overwhelming beauty which is God pervades the texture of our soul, transforming all smallness, limitation and self-division.  The mystics speak of the excitement of such unity.  This is how Marguerite Porete describes it:

 ‘Such a Soul, says Love swims in the sea of joy, that is in the sea of delights, flowing and running out of the Divinity.  And so she feels no joy, for she is joy itself.  She swims and flows in Joy… for she dwells in Joy and Joy dwells in her.’

The Eclectic Light Company – Paintings

For a stroll through art history and a survey of some of the major and minor artists through the ages, I love to visit this site, which always inspires and enlightens.

The painting that headlines this post is from his site by a lesser known artist, or at least new to me, Maria Fortuny’s painting of Portici Beach in Spain.

The best of his 2018 paintings and articles can be found at this link. It’s a two-parter, so don’t miss this one as well.

For a preview of what he’ll be covering this your, make sure you check out this link.

The Depth of Now

This blog satisfies my longing for travel, art, photography, soulful writing, and that fearsome urge to trust oneself in exploring the unknown. Here a young woman tells about uprooting herself to move to a new city, Istanbul, which she explores through photography and storytelling.

In her favorite posts of 2018 you can taste some of the many flavors she has to offer: joyful wisdom, finding home, writing about place, Istanbul street art, and more.

I also loved her interview with photographer John Wreford. She’s a wonderful photographer herself, and I think that’s how I met her, at a cemetery in Prague.

But where I fell in love with her blog was when I read Home is Where the Heart Is,  where she converses with a stranger she meets in a medieval courtyard and writes:

We talked about how everything at its core is fluid and he talked to me about the Tao Te Ching.

And suddenly we had left the party and were slowly meandering down the road of a deep conversation. And by deep, I mean that reality started to lose its edges as we both came to an agreement on certain points other than what is conventionally accepted.

I admitted to him that I had lived in so many places that I no longer could relate to home being somewhere outside myself. That secretly I was building my home within – letting go of the stuff of this world and instead focusing on the things that I can take with me when I die – the wisdom and knowledge of the world that may (or may not) serve me in the next life.

You see, I don’t believe that we die because what is there to die into? Everything is alive and remains alive in one form or another.

And something tells me that I have lived many lives because from time to time I remember something unusual. I will have a dream that will take me to another place so real that I must have been there before.

I hope you will fall in love with these blogs I discovered this past year as I have. And, please, share some of the favorites sites you’ve discovered with me too in the comments below.

O Holy Night, Images Sacred & Sublime

Tags

art, Christmas, Christmas music, inspiration, O Holy Night, photography, universe

Star_birth_in_Messier_83_(captured_by_the_Hubble_Space_Telescope)

I’ve gathered some images, sacred and sublime, to scroll through as you listen to “O Holy Night“, one of my favorite Christmas carols.

I love this song, not only for the haunting melody and beautiful  lyrics, but also because night has always seemed holy to me.

When I walk out beneath the stars on a cold or balmy night, I’m awestruck by such beauty and mystery and magnificence. I feel humbled and incredibly grateful, as if witnessing the hand of the divine writ large across the sky.

The images below are my gift to you. They reflect what this season is all about for me, a sense of the sacred and sublime–scenes of the birth of Christ and families celebrating Christmas.

Photos of spectacular sunsets and winter wonderlands–nature in all her glory.

And finally, images of an infinite universe stretching out and wrapping about the earth as if we were a holy gift just waiting to be unwrapped.

Enjoy!

 

Walters – The Adoration of the Shepherds

Peter Paul Rubens – The Adoration of the Magi

 

Paul Gauguin – Christmas Night (The Blessing of the Oxen)

Attributed to Carel Fabritius

Heilige_Familie_und_Hirten_im_Stal

From Christmas throughout Christendom – The Christmas Tree

Viggo Johansen – A Christmas Story

Waiting for Father Christmas – Theodor Hildebrandt

Glorious Sunset

A White Christmas

Blackbirds flock at Nightfall

Frosty Trees in Winter Wonderland

Cosmic Skies over Bali

Northern Lights over Greenland

Stars trailing through the night

Earth Rises in the Night

Hubble_Directly_Observes_Planet_Orbiting_Fomalhaut

Night Mist as seen by Hubble

Cartwheel Galaxy

Orion as seen by Hubble

The Milky Way Galaxy

Our home Earth wrapped up in the Milky Way Galaxy

(First posted in 2012)

Inside the Holy Grove of Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia

Tags

Antonio Gaudi, architecture, art, cathedral, church, inspiration, La Sagrada Familia, travel

Stepping inside La Sagrada Familia cathedral is like walking into an enchanted forest. Your gaze goes and up and up, following the trunks of  trees toward light-filled branches.

The forest is made up of several kinds of stone, so each tree trunk has its own subtle shade, some leaning red, others green. They branch out at the top into smaller and smaller columns, like fingers stretching out to hold up an impossibly ornate ceiling.

Only it’s not a ceiling at all, but a canopy of leaves and stars woven tightly together, as you would find in any forest grove.

Toward the right of the main entrance is the heart of the cathedral with two massive organs and rows of pews for worship. There floating  beneath an umbrella of lights is the upward-gazing figure of the Christ.

Along the sides of the main chamber are spiraling staircases moving up the towers, to what and where, I do not know.

Colored light floods the cathedral, streaming through the stained glass windows, or projected along the walls and columns, flowing from blue to green, and gold to scarlet,

Glimpses of the crypts below can be seen through artful cut-outs in the stone.

 

Toward the exit is a large loggia featuring some of the furnishings Gaudi created for the cathedral, and a single simple painting, capturing the tenderness and grief at the fallen Son.

Below are two virtual tours of Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia. The first video is very short and gives you a 360 degree view of the interior main chamber. The second video, which takes around five minutes, shows both the exterior and interior, with some lovely aerial shots outside, while inside the church is full of worshipers during its consecration mass.

 

All the still photos in this post are my own except for the ceiling shot which came from Wikipedia.

My last blog post features the exterior of La Sagrada Familia and tells more about its creation.

 

In Bruges – “Like Being in a Fairy Tale”

Tags

architecture, Belgium, Bruges, culture, Europe, fairy tale, Film, History, In Bruges, photography, travel

In the brilliant dark comedy “In Bruges,” a mobster sends his two hitmen to Bruges to cool their heels after a job went horribly wrong. What the two men don’t know is that they were sent there so they could have a beautiful “fairy tale” experience before one partner was ordered to kill the other. Things don’t go quite as the boss had planned.

But he was right about one thing. The film’s brooding, atmospheric cinematography did create a fairy-tale, dream-like veil through which the city’s medieval history, fabulous architecture, graceful bridges, and misty canals are revealed.

In person, Bruges does not disappoint. It was one of my favorite stops on our European adventure and I’d love to see more of it someday. Three days was not enough. There are more cobblestone streets to explore, more art museums to visit, more boat rides down misty canals. More Belgian chocolate, beer, and waffles for that matter.

The city’s many canals, bridges, and swans are favorites, of course. Bruges is known as the Venice of the North, and since I wasn’t able to get to Venice this trip, it made this city even more special to me.

Then there was the history and the architecture! From the quaint little corners of the city . . .

. . . to the spacious and grand central plaza with its flags and cafes, shops and towers.

Bruges was full of comic surprises and delights . . .

from the sign above a restaurant “water closet” . . .

. . . to the intimate peek into a doctor’s office on display outside a ceramic shop . . .

. . . the comforting clip-clop of horses hoofs coming up behind you . . .

. . . or a great white whale rising out of the canal.

Then there was the chocolate, the waffles, and the beer . . .

I’m not much of a beer drinker but I did find a fruity blend that suited me quite well.

These were just a few of my favorite memories of this fairy-tale, dream-like city. For more, watch the film, it won’t disappoint.

A Rainy Day in Segovia

Tags

Alcazar, Europe, History, photography, Roman Aquaduct, Segovia, Spain, travel, vacation

One of my favorite side-trips when traveling in Europe was the day we spent in Segovia, viewing the Roman Aqueducts and visiting the Alcazar, a 12th century castle where Queen Isabella grew up.

The Roman Aqueduct is by far the most dramatic feature of a city full of beautiful landmarks. Built in the 1st century, it  rises nearly 100 feet tall and reaches over 2600 feet long, consisting of over 170 arches and 25,000 granite blocks, all built without mortar. It delivered water to the city for over 1800 years, until the mid 19th century.

The city through which it passes is a painter’s palette of raw sienna, burnt umber, and yellow ochre, stitched together with narrow streets of cobblestone and brick pavers.

We stroll through the damp streets with the patter of raindrops on our umbrellas, stopping often  to visit the quaint little shops along the way, to watch the street performers play, and to snap photos of each other.

We love the ornate doorways we find, the flower-filled balconies, and richly textured walls we pass.

Eventually the narrow streets lead us into large plazas, as it does here before the Iglesia de San Estaban with its Romanesque bell tower, built in the 14th century.

The largest plaza on our walk opens up to reveal the jewel of the city, Segovia Cathedral, built in the mid 16th century. It is considered a masterpiece of Basque-Castilian Gothic architecture and is known as “The Lady of Cathedrals.”

Surrounding the spacious plaza are an array of sidewalk cafes and tall, elegant buildings.

Another steep climb from the plaza leads to the Alacazar. It sits high above the city on a  stony crag with steep cliffs falling to the Castilian valley below. The castle, first referenced in 1120, was a favored residence of the Spanish Royals. This is where Queen Isabella spent her youth. Where she fled with her husband Ferdinand for protection from her enemies when they were newly married.  And it’s where she was finally was crowned Queen of Castile and Leon.

It’s tall towers and turrets are said  to be the inspiration for Disneyland’s castle, but several other castles claim that distinction as well.

Inside the castle is a dazzling array of richly decorated halls, chapels and armories.

The views from the ramparts are dizzying as well as dazzling, revealing lush forested hillsides, . . .

. . . fairy-tale villages winding along the riverside . . .

. . .and panoramic views of the city of Segovia.

Here you can see the towers of Segovia Cathedral and the Iglesia de San Estaban in the distance. Note too the ancient walls that surround the city, built before Isabella’s father retook the city from the Arabs.

I’m asked all the time which were my favorite places to visit during our 30 days of travel, but I can’t quite pin that down, there were so many.  Still, when asked, Segovia always rises quickly to mind.

If you ever get the chance to visit Spain, the city of Segovia is a must-see.

Tasting Life Twice – A Traveler Returns

Tags

Europe, life, memory, photography, travel, vacation, writing

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” ― Anaïs Nin

I’ve just returned from a whirlwind romance with Europe, visiting five countries and 18 cities in 30 days. I wasn’t with a tour group but with 3 traveling companions, one of whom was on a grant-based mission to tour the castles of Europe.

We traveled by plane, train, bus, ferry, car, taxi and subway, and the wear and tear of the trip happened mostly during those transitions, lugging bags and suitcases up and down hotel stairs and elevators, across cobblestone streets and busy thoroughfares, up narrow escalators and down crowded corridors to throw our luggage through train doors before they closed on us. One terrifying and, in retrospect, hilarious moment I’ll never forget was standing on the platform watching my lone cousin on the train surrounded by all our luggage as the train doors are closing and her husband comes running up behind us shouting that it’s the wrong train.

That “in retrospect” is so important. It’s what filters raw experience into meaningful moments, pushing some moments into the background while highlighting others. It allows us to filter those experiences through our past, to find the similarities and disconnections that help us to place it within a larger context. It allows us to reflect on what was seen and felt in a deeper and more comprehensive way.

Even going through the hundreds of photos I took, deleting the inconsequential and cropping others to highlight and foreground what was seen in a new way, allows me to “resee” what I might have missed in the moment, allows me to re-experience the moment in a new way.

I’m fascinated with how layered, how open to revision, our experiences are. While travelling I had little time to record my thoughts and perceptions, but as soon as I returned home, I began to do that. Here’s what I wrote:

“Currently, as I write this, a day after my return home, I see that month of travel as a huge, largely undigested meal, too rich and powerful to fully absorb, to unravel, to comment upon. I mix metaphors because even how I cannot fully or precisely articulate what I’ve not yet had time to fully grasp.

But I’m looking forward to the time I have now to reflect back upon those raw experiences and to shape it into meaningful expressions, whether through writing, blogging, sketching, painting, poetry. The best is yet to come, I feel, for bringing the past into the present, into a slow-motion re-examination, pulling it under the microscope of the mind, filtering it through past similar memories, or things I’ve read about it, or read afresh, read anew–experiencing it more thoroughly through the lens of history I had not had the time to read in the raw moment . . . 

I see this trip as a treasure trove of experience, largely unmined, to draw upon. My life is deeper now, richer, more varied, than before, because of this experience.”

It goes on, much of it rambling, repetitive–the free writing that allows us to get our feelings and perceptions down on paper uncensored.

So while I’m still mining this treasure-trove of experience, or to mix metaphors again, digesting this rich meal, tasting it twice, I’ll leave you with five fleeting moments forever stilled from the five countries we visited.

Detail from Gaudi’s Cathedral, Barcelona, Spain

The Louvre, Paris, France

Bruges, Belgium

Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany

Varenna, Lake Como, Italy