Always when you think that there couldn’t be anything more, the “more” pops up. Seems to be some kind of natural law.
In a matter of instants, the sun light faded and a courtain of water fell from the skies.
That was yesterday. And the whole episode did not take more than a couple of seconds – just long enough for me to run to grab the camera, lean out of the window and take some shots – while getting soaked. Then it was over again. Standing in the kitchen, dripping all over the place, I found that I got a beautiful sequence … and the most astonishing image of the group I am saving up for the book. “A Tender Heart”, yes, in preparation, right on my table at this moment.
They cleaned the pond recently and replaced the lights. So now, in the night, when your eyes are drawn to the only late lightsource in the backyard, you have these two glowing eyes staring back at you. I do not want to complain, but I think they could have done a better job with the light – less haunting. On the other hand side it kinda fits to the character of the place: always empty, always watching. Kinda Stephen King like – only this time it is a backyard with a pond instead of an house.
They put something in the water to make it turn green – or probably they forgot to put in something to keep it clear. But I have to say that I prefer it this way. I always wonder why on earth pools are painted light blue anyway? What most unnatural color to put into a pond like the one in our backyard! I kind of understand why you have this in swimmingpools – the notion of clean and cool. Especially in warmer regions a dark color in a pool would just help increase the water temperature, and with this the growth of everything you do not want to have in that water … but why in a pond? Oh well … it is beyond me.
I guess it is just this way “because it is done this way”, meaning: people do not reflect about alternatives. I fear it is not even about not wanting to take risks – most likely it is about unawareness and being pigeonholed.
Maybe it is just, so that I take some picures … But that would be to take myself to seriously, I fear. :)
Just did this one … An interrupted long exposure into the pitch dark – and I really thought I had heard the shutter – but turns out I had not.
No tripod anyway. Hanging out of the window trying not to breathe, long exposures of this kind become somewhat life threatening.
I am closing the Backyard Series soon. Waiting for the final recipes …
For those of you, who are participating in (and trying to follow) “A Tender Heart”: my website is being rewamped by vektorrausch right as we speak. It is a parallel process and I will just turn the lights off here once the new site is more or less ready to go. There will be a lot of work for me to do to adapt the content, and so this might take a while. But on the new site it will be easier for you to follow the project, and for me it will be easier to group the information. Win-win.
“A Tender Heart” is made out of several parts. One of the parts, of course, consists out of the recipes that I got from some of you. Another part is the Backyard Series, which you might have followed on this blog. I am still working on this one, and what you see here on the web is not the final edit, I just always quick-grabbed one of the many files for the blog. But I guess it is enought for you to get the idea.
I have not been able to spend the necessary time to prepare the recipes. Still need to fill in some gaps and will write those, who are contributing, emails in the weeks to come. Thanks again for giving me some of your time. I really appreciate it.
A heavy storm is brewing. It is something in the air. Birds seeking shelter. Grounds still deep frozen … warm air swirling around.
Everybody is feeling nervous.
Retreating home for the weekend … will work on my book.
I was standing at the kitchen window looking onto the backyard yesterday after I posted the last image with the failed flash – the one that looked like a Luc Tuymans painting.
It is funny how you can never escape your past. You think you left it behind and then one small thing happens by accident and all is there again, as if it had never left. In a way, it is good, at least for me it feels like a good thing, because I like my past and I just moved on to other territories because I felt I had reached a limit back then. Now it is as if the old can give new meaning to the new, and the limitations I saw in the past … well … they kind of evaporated. Cities and landscapes of possibilities are coming into existance before my eyes.
At the end it is always the same-same anyway. I am always after the same things and the questions that thrilled me some years ago when I was using one kind of language are the same questions that thrill me today while using another language to deal with it. When it is not about the answer, it totally does not matter what languages you use, unless you have a specific peer group you want to reach.
If it is about the questions, you will be creating variations of it. Testing how far you can go without leaving the playground. How close can you come without loosing the focus. And then again, what happens when you loose the focus? Maybe there is something to gain there … maybe there is something important beyond the focus. Of course there is. If you deal with symbols, you have to be able to move beyond them. But that is another topic.
Let me finish my tea and get back to work.
No idea what went wrong here, but I like it.
This image was taken with the same camera settings as the two pictures that came before and the two pictures that came after it, which looked totally normal. While this picture looks more like a painting by Luc Tuymans than anything else.
I actually have a work of Tuymans hanging here … He has always been one of my favorites.
Sometimes it seems perfectly good when things go wrong.
Harmony.
Most of us wish for it.
Most of us act against it’s fulfillment.
I admit, I waited 2 hours for the sun to hit the top part of the building in a way that would make it reflect in the ice on the pond in the otherwise still unlit backyard. I got a glimpse of the effect yesterday and hoped to get a shot at it today. Thankfully it is cold and sunny again.
Almost forgot my birthday. Thanks to Tone and friends I did not. But worked through it nonetheless. Meeting family today – will party with friends later in the year. It is time to slow down.
Even if it is just artificial, if feels like a turning point.
Worked until 7am yesterday and until 5am this morning. Not healthy. Definitively no turning point there yet.
