Photography Thinks
Lake Champlain has not risen this high since 1862. Not around to see that event, but I, along with others will remember this overfilling of the tub. Heavy rains. Lots of snow. Water needs somewhere to go.
The omnipresent Champ keeps watch.
Girls just want to have fun.
Or, just sit in the sun.
Not time to go for a swim, but the stands await their places on the beach.
A little work to be done.
A little too cold to camp or picnic.
The entrance may look blocked, but it ain’t.
Sharon felt a little like Alice after she fell through the rabbit hole.
Not a big crowd, but a happy one. No franks or chips. But there was sun and sand.
Paul finished rehab and chose to come back to Burlington. Put on some weight. Cleaned hiself up. Now he needs a job to keep his bed.
After hearing he didn’t have any money, I offered him a dollar. “I ain’t begging anymore,” he said. “This dollar be a blessing, just like the Rebbe used to say when he gave a dollar.” “I don’t know much about jews, but thanks.” “If you don’t want it, give it to someone else who needs some good luck.” “That is just what I am going to do,” he said.
Mike could probably use it. He is still waiting for a bus ticket from his mother who is somewhere.
Charlie just needed a match.
It is still a little cold for Church Street, but not when love can warm the scene.
Looked twice before I realized a marriage was happening.
Fresh flowers.
May their love grow and may they be as happy in their marriage as I am in mine.
Len Spier shot Burlington before he presented a talk to members of Meet Up, “Art in Photography,” entitled, Watch Your Back. Now 83, he now aims a G10 due to a stroke suffered five years ago. Energetic and poised, he hasn’t lost his love for images or his desire to educate photographers that they are artists whose work is worth protecting, even if they aren’t professionals. Trained as an attorney who made a living at litigating and shooting, he is uniquely qualified to speak on the interstices of art and law.
This being his first visit to Burlintgon, everything attracted his attention. Aware no train service serves the Queen City and hailing from a subway driven metro area, he shot a freight train from in front of the antique store on Flynn Avenue.
Seen here in front of his the Dark Room Gallery where he would deliver his talk, he posed with one of his pictures, Polka Dot Woman, that hung during a recent Photo Space Juried photo competition. Ken Signorello, director of the Gallery and the event coordinator for the lecture stands behind the image.
27 people showed up to hear him, despite snow and sleet. “The copyright law is in the Constitution….Make sure to put your copyright on your works. Your rights accrue when you create the image. Protect them.” He gave examples of clauses to put in contracts when selling rights to the images…. Be aware of all the social networking possibilities.” “You need to get a release if you are going to use the image for trade or commerce.” More time was needed, but he covered a lot in a clear, concise, understandable way.
He had the floor. So, after talking about copyright and the rights of street photographers to shoot, unimpeded in public areas, he showed some of his works. Here, he discusses dueling toilets he discovered in the lavatory at a Court Street Law Office in Brooklyn. “I’d seen toilets next to one another in the army without anything between them; … but here, I picture the lawyer and the secretary facing one another, one talking and the other pen in hand.”
The next morning, Ken and Len share thoughts about the previous nights event. They look happy, because the message was delivered so generously and in good humor. Very well received, if you look at their faces.
A pure tourist, he visited Middlebury, Addison County to experience rural VT. He looked at cows, a covered bridge, an abandoned house (not that all unfamiliar to a New Yorker), and lunched near the angry Otter Creek.
Before returning to the Big Apple, Len examined an old Russian Camera that Dan Scott bought on E-Bay. They discussed film, 120 film.
What else to do on a cold and snowy Sunday other than sit next to the fire and curl up with the NYT? Been doing it for more than 50 years.
After reading sports, obits, and the Magazine section, I went down to the Lake for a walk with the two stories resonating in my head. Neither the cold, the damp, nor the gray could hide the natural beauty. But, I just couldn’t get Papa Neutrino or Julian Assange out of my head. They both be dreamers who wanted to change the world-one by being a part of it and the other by leaving it. Charge…
People celebrated Papa’s departure with song, champagne, and fireworks. No one on the shore admitted that they didn’t think the craft would make it, though everyone hoped it would. I watched them put it together; Papa was a little ballast short in this shipbuilding experience. And don’t forget, a few days before the departure, he had his pacemaker replaced. His cardiologists even came down to visit the boat with their kids. Not sure they were on board with the trip, but they be healers not seers.
Papa sort of gave everyone a dream that you don’t have to be tied down to your things to have a good life. Who knows if he left anything other than dreams? He knew the score, but didn’t seem to notice if he was ahead or behind. To him, the system was going to do what it was going to do and he was going to do what he was going to do and he didn’t care about the power structure and they didn’t care about him, other than to make sure he secured permission to take his craft out on the Lake, something he did by showing the Coast Guard the raft floated and had running lights.
Well, he left and we all know what happened. Some of his junk remains here, although it is covered by the snow.
When I read Bill Keller’s article on Julian, I sort of got the feeling that he, too, thought he could take on the system and prevail. Both guys battled against the system. One’s dream was built on leaks, the other derailed by one. Ultimately, nature and biology got to Papa. Too early to tell what will happen to Julian. His stuff was not as blockbusting as republican critics have shouted. Nothing changed. We knew most of what he told us. And as for what the materials said about the caddiness of diplomats and world leaders was no surprise. Papa’s ill fated voyage had the same effect.Both didn’t understand that you don’t step on Superman’s cape and you don’t piss into the wind.
I thank the NYT Managing Editor for his work in telling us how respectfully the paper balances the competing interests of the First Amendment. I question, though I do not reject, the judgment that went into selecting Papa for a William Grimes obituary. Aware as I am of the NYT policies on publishing alleged classified documents, assuming that is what Julian’s were and its standards for selecting people for obits, instead of paid death notices, they did what they do. As for both of those guys, though,neither is or was as big a deal as they thought they were, but the world would be a lesser place if individuals didn’t think they could live a life that makes a difference.
Jay Maisel told a story about Snowflake Bentley at the Maine Media workshop I attended. Allegedly, Snowflake Bentley was being honored by a photographic society at a fancy hotel in NYC. During the awards ceremony, as he was about to speak, he learned that snow had begun to fall. He announced to the crowd that he had to be going, picked up his camera, and left.
So Jay lives in the heart of museum country. I don’t. He loves to see the work of others, framed or just published. And he loves to teach, sharing with others his passion for making images and his love of art. So when I read the January 3, 2011 New Yorker article on snowflakes that referred to Snowflake Bentley, a photographer of note whom I had only learned of from him, who, as Adam Gopnik pointed out lived in Vermont, I went to the museum in the next town which houses his equipment and work.
A quilt made by his wife.
Thanks Jay. Who knew it was just up the road a piece.
Buses don’t run on Christmas in Burlington. If you be here, you be here. If you not be here, you be somewhere else. Odd. You can hear the traffic signals. No outsiders. College kids home. Street people all snuggled up in shelters and motels and camps. No stores open, except for Rite Aid. No restaurants. Gray. Cold. Deserted.
Democracy. What democracy? I voted. So what? People vote against their interests, unless they have a reason founded on some moral issue to motivate them. Too hard to follow the issues, because you have to read papers, which, in the case of the Burlington Free Press, don’t tell you enough, or watch TV, which, in the case of WCAX, just cover what they can. No real editorial comments worth remembering. Candidates are rock stars, only interested in winning office and staying there. So, I get to vote. Then they do whatever they want without really telling you why, supporting whomever brought them to the dance, disenfranchising the rest of us.
Papa Neutrino’s raft is moored near the Coast Guard Station in Burlington. Planned embarkation is scheduled for November 5. When asked if a destination has been chosen, Scott said, “we intend to start here in Burlington and end here.”
