Stone People at Old Mission Peninsula, fully submerged in the Great Lake a decade or so ago, are now exposed,
surrounded by flora,
singing to flora,
and on almost dry land, viewed from different angles.
How soon will they be submerged again? The water has risen slightly since last year.
Inexhaustible motifs for Great Lake photography with slow rhythms of changing water levels and malleable sand dunes, newly sculpted each winter.
In your work, do you follow any changes, indoors or outdoors?
Birgit:
Nice theme.
The stone people appear buoyant. Not so much that the lake is shallow but that the rocks are bobbing.
The last two images reiterate a recurrent theme on this site: the interaction of shadow and reflection.
Why arent these stone people buried in silt?
Jay,
Yes, I am still working on shadows and reflections, inspired by your beautiful lily images.
Your comment that the rocks seem to be bobbing makes me happy.
There is a layer of silt around some of the stones, perhaps a couple of inches thick. I moved very slowly so that I would not stir it up and make the water cloudy. When I get back, I will investigate where the silt occurs relative to the dry land.
Birgit:
Just wondering if the stones, which are likely glacial erratics, are coming or going. There are deposits of gunk around here that were deposited by the last glaciation. Rocks and boulders will emerge as the deposits of debris wash away. They tend to disappear rather quickly to show up later in somebody’s landscaping.
Jay,
I doubt that they are going! There are easier places to get rocks for landscaping.
The first photo is beautiful! Its peacefull and enchanting simple with zen.
Birgit:
Stones like that have earned a peaceful existence whereupon to be captured by your intrepid camera.
Birgit,
Your stones remind me of the obos that we talked about on some earlier post — those Japanese “cairns” that signify simply, “I was here.” In particular, of course, the reflected one is perfect in that regard, because it’s a 3-some, which the Japanese like in their structures.
I like thinking about the different origins of rocks — rounded ones like these are often stream cobbles that have had their edges worn off by bouncing along the bottom of creeks. Goose Rock in the John Day Fossil Beds is composed stream cobbles, like these, which have been “glued” together by heat and time, subducted way below the earth’s surface and then upheaved 300 miles away, pushing through all kinds of younger rock to present itself and its face, all cobbled together, as it were.
It sounds as though these were rounded by glaciation. I should remember more about that since my geology education took place in glaciated New York State. But out here in the youthful west, we see more sharp-edged and crazy-cracked basalts and ash tufts. So the occasional stream cobble has a special place for me.
by the way, the first and second photos in particular sing to me. I would like to follow seasons in painting, but I’m almost too helter-skelter to do so — too dependent on accident and chance in deciding what I will paint next.
Angela and June,
Last evening’s experience also brings me to thinking of a ‘Japanese’ element in my photographs. I saw a video about the ceramic artist Toshiko Takaezu. Afterwards, we looked at about 20 pieces that the artist had donated to the MSU art museum. Earlier, I had developed an appreciation for the artist’s work, seeing some of her pieces at a friend’s house, one of Toshiko’s students from her Michigan period.
In the video, Toshiko, touching, embracing, one of her closed pieces, told us that the form is within. It reminded me of Itzak Perlman’s saying about one of Berg’s pieces that we should pay attention to the intervals between the notes. After thinking that I ‘got’ what Toshiko tells us about the form being within, I get confused when I look at the marvelous painting that she applies to the outside of many of her pieces.
I am trying to figure out is how to apply this thinking – the form is within, listen to the intervals between the tones – to a two-dimensional work of art, a painting, a photograph.
June,
I looked at your paintings of obos on an earlier post. Northwestern rocks indeed look more sharp-edged.
I have mixed feelings about obos done by human hands. I enjoy looking at them in a garden but not when I see them in nature. Walking along the beach, I enjoy looking at a little stone balancing on a bigger stone better when it seems that the arrangement is due to wind and waves. Or, like in the my first photo, where the origin of the arrangement is unclear, ‘purified’ by exposure to the elements.
Birgit,
What a delightful subject! It combines subtlety with simplicity. Your compositions are likewise simple but suggestive. I like the reeds.
The first pair of stones looks more posed than exposed. Are you finder or arranger?
Did you have your polarizer along for these?
Steve,
No human hands at work. At least not mine.
I did not shoot with my polarizer because, at this setting, I preferred the reflections on the water rather than seeing through the water.
More about reeds later.
Your preference for the reed pictures over picture one reminded me of June saying, as opposed to Steve’s, where I see a deliberate eschewing of the human .
Birgit,
Your polarizer could equally well be used to emphasize the reflection over the image from under water, though you can never eliminate the latter. In the first picture, you could probably make the reflections dominate enough so as to make the submerged rock unnoticed except in the shadow of the stone standing on it. By the way, I like this first picture also in its minimalism. It reminds me of one of mine from an earlier post.
To me, the reed pictures are more human, unless you’re thinking of the reference to someone having placed the standing stone. The stones are less detached and abstract; they are there interacting with the environment.
I do love your snow picture.
Interesting point that the reed pictures are more human. The stones in the first picture do look somewhat extraterrestrial.
I will practice more with the polarizer once I get a day without much wind. Recently, we had too much wind.