Rambles

Well it’s been far too long since my last post. It seems there are both good and bad consequences to not making regular entries. On the bad side, I have noticed a marked decrease in traffic to my site. That’s not good and it would seem to argue in favor of more frequent posts. On the other hand, there has been an even greater decrease in the amount of spam coming into the site. So that begs the question, what’s the value of the decreased traffic loss?

Anyway, I’ve just put up a new homepage picture (check out RoundLake Studios to see it.) And while I did that, I have also discontinued the Free Print Contest. The summer is just shaping up to be too busy for me to want to pay attention to some of those little details that take up a fair amount of energy without much, if any, return. I may reinstate it at some later date, but for now that chapter of this site is over. Thanks to all of you who did participate. It was fun while it lasted.

The photo course I was taking online wraps up this week and I think I’ve gotten some good stuff out of it. I’ve been using the course to help focus my thoughts and my work on getting things in line and shaped up for the gallery show I’ll be opening at the Adk Artists’ Guild Gallery on the first of July. It’s one of the busynesses that will be distracting me from doing blog posts.

If  you’re not from this area, you may not be aware that we are dealing with record high water and very abnormal flood conditions. Personally, we are well situated high and dry, but the docks are all under water at the moment. They say it will go down eventually, but steady rains have just been adding more fuel to the fire (so to speak).

If you read this and have any thoughts on anything here, go ahead and make a comment. Maybe it will encourage me to post more regularly – maybe. Anyway, thanks for your support and keep your powder dry.

Burdette

RoundLake Studios

~ Copyright 2011 Burdette Parks. All Rights Reserved ~

It’s the time of year when the major themes in the Adirondacks are snow, ice and mud (not necessarily in that order). It’s a time of year when cameras tend to spend more time on shelves or in drawers than around your neck or in your hand. But this year, because I’m in the middle of an eight week photo course in this hugely un-photogenic season, I’m much more motivated to get out there and find some images to send in as assignments. The amazing thing is, when you really get down to it and put the time in, you can pretty much always find things worth photographing — even something as dull, boring and uninteresting as ice.

I find this image particularly evocative because it reminds me of all the iced-over mud puddles I encountered as a boy walking to school on chilly spring mornings in North Dakota. They always invited a heavy foot and provided a rewarding tinkle of splintering ice shards as I trudged toward another day of being cooped up inside while the season was changing from dark, cold winter to bright, warming spring.

As water freezes, of course, it slowly transforms to ice. And ice is formed as a matrix of crystals. As a crystal formation, it can create some fascinatingly intricate patterns and like snowflakes it’s nearly impossible to find repetition of patterns. Naturally spontaneous geometry right in front of our faces (or our feet, as the case may be), if we bother to look at it. On this particular morning, I did. And I was intrigued enough that I took a picture. Then I smashed the hell out of it with a heavy foot and reveled in the tinkling of the shards — just like in the good old days. But I didn’t have to go to school.

Burdette

RoundLake Studios.  Enter my Free Print Contest.

Copyright 2011 Burdette Parks. All Rights Reserved

I’ve let myself get distracted and it has had a definite, negative impact on my care and feeding of the web site. And, I discover, that is not a good thing. The web site has experienced a rather precipitous drop of visitors. It does seem, not that this is a huge surprise, that visitors like to see new content. And when the site is not maintained in a regular and rigorous manner, that new content just doesn’t keep up with expectations. Lesson learned, I hope. Though with the level of diverse activities in the offing for this summer, it’s a lesson that may be a challenge to apply.

At any rate, it’s time for a new home page image to be posted. One of the distractions was a week of “vacation” time spent on Sanibel Island on the west coast of Florida. As a result, some non-Adirondacky images are going to be sneaking onto the site — with this week’s home page pic being the first of them.

"Mangrove Reflected"

Being a Gulf coast island, much of Sanibel’s shoreside vegetation is mangrove. This shot was made in a nature area on the island called Bailey Tract. The area has a nice variety of vegetation and plenty of water (especially since it rained almost every day we were on the island). This is the reflection of mangrove growth along a pond in the middle of the tract. In years past, this has been a good area to find and photograph birds; but this year the birds were largely absent so I took pictures of the much less flighty vegetation instead. An interesting aspect of this image, to me at least, is how much it resembles images I’ve taken using lens motion to distort and abstract images. Obviously, moving, rippling water does a similar thing.

A closer look at mangrove roots meeting the water.

A new month has begun and isn’t it amazing how fast this year is speeding by.  With the beginning of a new month, I need to mention the Free Print Contest. A new question has been posted and entering is free and strongly encouraged. As they say at Nike, “Just do it!” All you have to lose, if you don’t win, is a print you wouldn’t have gotten anyway. Huh?

Burdette

RoundLake Studios.  Enter my Free Print Contest.

Copyright 2011 Burdette Parks. All Rights Reserved.

Mother Nature is playing with us again, not an unusual occurrence around here. Yesterday everyone hereabouts was trumpeting the arrival of “spring” and it was a gloriously sunny and only mildly cold day. And then… And then what sometimes almost seems inevitable happened – winter reasserted itself saying, “Excuse me, but I’m not finished with you yet.” Bring on the snow, gusty winds, cold temps and occasional “whiteout”.

So I put up this image in recognition of it being not quite spring, not quite winter but just one of those protracted “in-between” seasons so popular here in the  north country.

I'm calling this one, "You Lookin' at Me?" Don't ask why. I have no idea.

This was actually shot last year in the back yard. This whitetail doe and a fawn were regular visitors for awhile. This year they’ve only come to visit a couple times. Not sure why. It may be because the snow out there in the woods this year has been a lot deeper and getting around is probably more of a challenge. But if she were visiting today, it would look very much like this — complete with flat light and falling flakes.

Today’s other image is similar to one I had up a few weeks ago. The difference is, the leaping dog is a newer edition but is also very fond of snowballs.

Going for a snowball. It's up there, really it is. You can see its shadow.

I have just started doing an online photo course – taking it not giving it – and hopefully it will get me back on track with making blog entries, been a bit lax with it lately as I’m sure everyone has noticed. So nice of you all not to mention it.

This could be a pretty interesting period coming up. I’m doing the eight week photo course and before that’s over we’ll be starting Pendragon’s summer season in which I will be both acting and directing. Going to be a very full summer. Might have to blog about things other than photography.

Spring Alert! I may have to take back everything I said earlier. As I am writing this, the snow has stopped and I look out the living room window and what do I see sitting in a branch of the birch tree? A robin! First one of  the year and a sure sign that spring is on it’s way. I think this particular robin is a bit ahead of the times and may wish he had waited a bit, but he’s here and most welcome.

Don’t forget the Free Print link below. The offer is still open.

Burdette

RoundLake Studios.  Enter my Free Print Contest.

Copyright 2011 Burdette Parks. All Rights Reserved.

I don’t find myself thinking so much about photography or my own petty reality at the moment. The catastrophic events that engulfed Japan this week make all else seem pretty insignificant. It is a stark reminder of just how transitory and vulnerable we are on this living, breathing, convulsing planet. It does a very good job of putting us in our place and reminding us of just how powerless we are when the forces that truly shape and rule our space-home are unleashed.

At the same time, of course, there is the unmistakable message that we are resilient. Taken on the grand scale, we are really not all that different than a colony of ants. When disaster strikes, there are losses and there are survivors, but the colony lives on. Perhaps it will help us remember that we are ultimately ruled by the planet and not the rulers of it. A bit more humility would not be amiss — not only in how we treat and interact with the globe that is our home, but with each other. Well, it’s a nice thought anyway.

The new home page image is being put up because it makes me think of the interconnectedness of us all — especially in this era of mass communication, when sitting on the other side of the world from the quake site, we can witness the devastation virtually as it happens. I read someplace earlier today that in the Japanese quake of 1928 it was three days before the event was being reported in papers even in other parts of Japan. We get ringside seats. It does tend to make one feel more connected.

"Liquid Pearls"

This was one of two images I entered in the Cover Art Competition held by the Arts Council of the Northern Adirondacks every year for the past 18 years. The juror was kind enough to honor the image with an Honorable Mention. It’s pretty obvious, I should think, that this was not shot recently. The spiders in our neighborhood are still all very much in hibernation.

This is "Cloud Theater". It's the other image I entered into the competition. It didn't get any awards, but it was included in the show that's now hanging in the gallery space at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts.

Being still mostly fixated on the tragic events unfolding in Japan, I see this as symbolic of the gathering clouds billowing over that stricken nation with a ray of sun poking through the gloom imparting a promise for a better future.

To add even more joy and good cheer to my life, I am currently reading Bill Bryson’s book “A Short History of Nearly Everything”. In it he talks about big scary things like what would/will happen when the next big meteor crashes into our planet — it has happened before and will definitely happen again. Not really a question of “if” but of “when”. From the way he describes it, it will make an 8.9 earthquake seem like a passing shower. Enough of that! It’s time for a drink!  We’ll try to get ourselves into a better psychic place before the next post. But I really couldn’t just ignore what’s happened.

Burdette

RoundLake Studios.  Enter my Free Print Contest.

Copyright 2011 Burdette Parks. All Rights Reserved.

The big event up here this week was yet another big snowstorm. Our local TV weather people have informed us that the weekend storm was the 5th biggest snowstorm on record and that this winter is already the 3rd snowiest on record – and we’re not done yet! It’s still only March. Up here, snow in April is normal and there was a big storm a couple of years ago on Mother’s Day!

Bottom line? If you live in the north country, you’ve probably seen enough snow for awhile – and shoveled it too. So, what better time to put up  another picture of a snow scene?

After the storm passed, the sun came out and created some lovely shadow patterns on the fresh, white canvas of snow.

And as if that isn’t enough, here are a couple of slightly different takes on the same scene.

And this is what happens when just the shadow field becomes the focus.

Now, do either of these seem stronger than the image I posted on the home page? And why?

The temps are starting to fluctuate more than they’ve been. This causes cycles of melting and freezing. Perfect conditions for ice formation. Coming soon. Ice stuff. How exciting! We can hardly wait.

If you can’t bear the excited anticipation, see if you can win a print in my Free Print Contest. (See below) I know I could make “Free Print Contest” a link too, but for heaven’s sake it’s right below here. How hard can it be? Just click on it.

Burdette

RoundLake Studios.  Enter my Free Print Contest.

Copyright 2011 Burdette Parks. All Rights Reserved.

A couple of weeks ago now we finally got out for a day of downhill skiing. It’s been way too long since we’ve done it and it felt great to be flying down the slopes again. Took a camera long, of course, but the day didn’t seem too promising for getting much of interest — the light was pretty gray and flat. Just enough strength and direction in the light to make the snow readable, but just barely. So I didn’t have many expectations for any of the photos.

Which is partly why, I think, I like this picture as much as I do. It came as a very pleasant surprise. There’s just a nice texture and cohesion about it that appeals to me. So there it is, up there for my Photo of the Moment.

Top of the Run taken at Gore Mountain near North Creek, NY.

I’ve been talking about trying to inject as much color into this season as I can, but this image really does want to be done in black and white.

Here are a couple more images I got that day that turned out better than expected and on of them is in color, not that you can tell all that much.

Looking across the trail at the "bumpy" side of Gore. We didn't go there on our first day of downhill.

Looking northeast from Gore toward Mt. Marcy in the distance.

As I said, the light wasn’t all that great, but the clouds were pretty good.

Another month has passed and with it another Print Contest has come to an end and new one has begun. Give it shot. What have you got to lose? Winner of last month’s contest will be announced once I do the incredibly intricate tabulations. Happy March all. It came in like a somewhat timid lion. Who knows how it will exit.

Burdette

RoundLake Studios.  Enter my Free Print Contest.

Copyright 2011 Burdette Parks. All Rights Reserved.

Time to post a new image as the Photo of the Moment. Due to a sorry combination of factors, of which negative inertia is unfortunately one, there haven’t been very many new images added to choose from for picking new, current images. And, of course, all that have been added have a pretty consistent theme — Winter.

The new hompage pic is decidedly in that category so why not just celebrate the season we are in.

"Wintered Roof"

This is a shot of the front of the former Trudeau Institute building on Church Street in Saranac Lake. The building has been taken over and refurbished by Historic Saranac Lake and turned into a museum about the history of the Trudeau Institute and the “cure” industry that was crucial to an important period of Saranac Lake’s history. Visit them on the web if you’re interested in more information about “Curing in the mountains“.

I was walking back to the car after the last of the Winter Carnival Parade had gone by and noticed this curtain of icicles framed by these two old roofs. When I first saw it, the sun was just visible through a thin cloud right above and between the roofs. By the time I got the camera out and ready to shoot, heavier clouds had moved in and totally obscured the sun. I waited, and waited, and waited for the clouds to thin so I could include that disk of sun in the shot — got lots of strange looks as other departing parade watchers passed by too. The clouds finally aligned so I could at least get some cloud definition in the shot, but the sun never reappeared. Just as in the theater, timing is everything and it’s another argument for having your camera always at the ready — not always doable, but a worthy goal.

Burdette

RoundLake Studios.  Enter my Free Print Contest.

Copyright 2011 Burdette Parks. All Rights Reserved.