Where to Begin

Jupiter, Florida, 2010

Summer ends and school begins. I took the past 7 weeks off from blogging to be in Massachusetts, Florida, and Maine. Now, I’m firing up the blog engines to accompany my Basic Photo, Digital Fine Art and Photojournalism classes. Welcome to all my students. I hope you are sufficiently energized from a long hot summer to start the semester “so fresh and so clean.”

A fresh and salty Florida wave.

I took a little trip to Florida with my son and daughter to visit my parents. In between meals, we went to the beach.

Tobey at the beach.

And we watched TV with the folks.

My father and daughter preparing for the torturous experience of Fox News

I love being with my 91 year old father as he glides through his daily chores.

My father and our rented Prius.

Back to the beach, this time in Maine.

A driftwood shelter on a Maine island

Vivian and I visited friends in Maine for a few days. I ate every kind of shellfish known to Maine. We power boated and canoed around the Penobscot Bay area. Actually, I think we were just north of there in Waldoboro. I found Maine to be so beautiful, so New Englandy, and a bit too familiar to be able to comfortably photograph by day.

View from Nan's Nest, Waldoboro, Maine

By night, the convoluted magic of the Maine coast wove me into it’s spell.

View from the deck, Waldoboro

Whether I was using the camera hand held, as in Nan’s Nest, or with a tripod (above), the Maine spirit imbued what I saw.

Florida always struck me as a bit bereft of soul. In Maine, I talk with the spirits. At night, even those who walk the earth by day take on a ghostly transparency.

Richard as the spirit of Waldoboro

The spirit of Waldoboro takes a swim

Nan's Nest through the screen door

Wendy and Vivian talk by the fire

I feel a bit guilty about all the beautiful places I’ve been this summer. I hope everyone has had such a generous share of good times.

Now it’s time for a new beginning. I invite my students to join me in looking close to home for what is beautiful and important to us.

The Basic Photo folks will have the adventure of the chamber noir, the darkroom.

The Digital Fine Art class will have to resist the mechanical magic of Photoshop and reach for their own vision as interpreted pixel by pixel.

As for the Photojournalists, we are in it together. One five hour session a week will find us in the field photographing post agricultural, post industrial, and post historical Western Mass. We’ll make our own history. It’s all good.