The Annala Round Barn – An Appreciation

For decades I'd head out along straight line gravel from Ironwood MI just into Wisconsin, then stop alongside the road for to gaze longingly from a distance at one of the United States' last (perhaps the last) fieldstone round barns still standing.

You can read the story of the Annala barn and how I finally came to access that here.

Given free reign, I took full advantage and eventually shot the place every which way, using 4x5 and 120mm transparency. Also with the Toy Canon, to cover my butt. Near the end of the Odyssey, I visited armed with the brand spankin' new Nikon. All I can say is that I'm damned glad I lasted so long.

Digital image capture/processing is made for the likes of the Annala Barn. Those aspects of the structure typically sheathed in shadow stand reasonably revealed. What's luminous in life is done representative justice.

Accompanied by my dear friend Amanda, on a bright sunny day to help close my sojourn, I did my best to translate the place in that moment in time.

So let's take one last look inside, eh?

I'll be forever grateful to the current owner for taking such good, loving care of this priceless legacy property and for allowing me to work it. Also to the far flung Annala clan, for their generosity of spirit. What follows is dedicated to all of them.

May Mathew Annala's sturdy old stone barn shine for generations to come…

Calling All Artists – 2020

This year, the deadline for submissions to the Artist in Residence Program in Michigan's Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park is February 14th.

Run by the Friends of the Porkies organization, I was privileged to take part in that program during October, 2012.

My time at Dan's Cabin didn't just further my creative interests going forward. Those two weeks of comfort in the wilderness continues to inform and enhance me, to this day.

Since then, I've written about the experience a number of times. In so many ways, for me it's the gift that keeps on giving.

You can read about that here:

And here: Home is Where the Heart Is

And here: Creative Conversation

If you want to know more about the Porcupine Mountains, there's this:

The Porcupine Mountains Wilderness, Pt. 1

And this: The Porkies – People & Their Government at Work

Or, you can just take my word for it and apply.

Life is short.

As to the Friends of the Porkies Artist In Residence program at Dan's Cabin in the Porcupine Mountains, the time left to submit your application is short indeed.

Your comfy cabin in the woods awaits you…

Have at it.

Otherwise, you'll never know where the path not taken might've led.

2019 - Close Up

There're (at least) two areas of endeavor for which large format capture was/is ideally suited: botanicals and architectural.

The 1^st trip I took with the Linhof way back when was to the Gogebic Range. Mostly I shot botanicals, because that's what I saw. The results were satisfying.

The 2^nd trip with the Linhof was to Switzerland. Mostly I shot vintage architecture, because that's what I saw. Upon returning home, a remarkable percentage of those 120 high risk sheets of 4x5 transparencies left me agape.

Architecture won, hands down. The love affair began. That altered the course of my creative life. And so it's been, for these last decades of work.

Not coincidentally, botanicals often came included.

There was nothing nimble about the Linhof and nothing easy about doing outstanding fieldwork with it. Though my long term shooting ratio ended up excellent, that's because I learned to be meticulous.

Even so, committing resonant, deep focus images via lengthy exposures onto 4x5 transparency film in the wild frequently became a fool's errand. Too much light. Not enough light. The wrong kind of light. Or simply the slightest breeze could and did ruin any given day's entire effort.

Happily, I chose architecture. Mostly, that doesn't move. 'Least not while you're looking.

*

The last few years, digital capture's proven every bit as personally and creatively transformative as was large format film. Except this time the revolution's not exclusive but inclusive and rather than arrive as a sudden epiphany, the transformation rolls on.

One thing leads to the next, everything interconnected. Unexpected only in the moment. Familiar upon review.

January of last year, I swapped out a fine specialty lens that didn't get much use for another that might. Boy did it ever.

It was as if I'd opened the happy version of a photographer's Pandora's Box. Now I see the world different. In a sense, through child's eyes.

An image need no longer be tack sharp foreground to infinity for to be considered excellent. Indeed, it's often better when it isn't. Nice way to embrace a tool's limitations…

Of course, it's still convenient when the object at hand doesn't move.

Yet it's no longer a prerequisite. My newfound nimbleness is occasionally faster than even the jumpiest life.

No less the boldest and least afraid. Next spring we'll be on maybe our sixth generation of Great Black Wasps since they first arrived. My special garden companions, because they're great & black and utterly indifferent to me.

And neither is impossible light the hard barrier to success it once was. Previously, I'd have never looked twice, at this...

For an old transparency shooter, that's like a freakin' miracle. At the very least, digital capture and processing constitutes yet another in our long list of modern technology's many wonders.

I've not left architecture behind, as you can see. But it remains 400+ miles to Superior country and for myriad reasons, I travel less these days. It's good to find work close to home.

It's also healthy to finally focus on something other than the past – those remnants of generational failure that have for so long been my specialty. It's almost a surprise that fresh air needn't necessarily come laden with despair.

Yet for as radically as the tools have evolved and my opportunity has broadened commensurate, the basic subject's unchanged. It's the light. Only and ever the light.

Now, today and tomorrow. It's always about chasing light.

And being both meticulously prepared and nimble enough, to perhaps capture a fleeting moment when it's positively perfect...

Winter Solstice, 2019

Many ancient peoples recognized the exact moment their dark world tilted back toward the light.

Sometimes gathered at massive stones erected in great circles constructed expressly for the purpose, they watched and waited, then together celebrated the turning.

It's easy to think these folk knew the world mostly through primitive intuition. Much like we used to believe about animal awareness - called intelligence, so to better separate us out from our animal cousins. Except intuition doesn't account for those stone circles, built precisely to purpose. As is often the case, the easy answer's wrong.

Remnants of recent stone construct are frequently ambiguous. Transience befitting purpose. If you think abandonment/dissolution weren't built right in, think again.

Modern science reveals that the day after tomorrow will gift us with one measly second of additional light. No one should blame us, if we don't mark it. We've a damnably complex compendium of critical tasks at hand, rather than spare time for to celebrate an obscurity.

Even considering science propelled by reason and a vastness of knowledge we should resolutely be using to replace old ways with new, our collective path forward appears fraught. At best, uncertain.

Naturally, uncertainty breeds fear. Populist bullshit would have you believe fear unites and through unity makes us stronger, but that's what fire tells wood until wood's reduced to ash and can no longer hear.

Social science informs us that despite seeking unity through fear, as individuals we've rarely if ever felt more isolated from the common tribe. Instead we feel alone, set adrift and left at the mercy of a cold, darkening world.

Were we at least as smart as pagans or even your average green plant, we'd intuit that it's our essential nature to collectively survive dark times by individually putting our shoulder to the wind and pushing forward until the world we've made turns back toward the light, where under its many blessings those who survive the effort might thrive.

Should we do that together, perhaps we'll again appreciate exactly what it was primitive people saw fit to celebrate, during their world's apparently darkest day.

Shining Light on the Prairie -- Autumn's Last Call

Meteorological winter officially arrives December 1st. The vernal equinox not until three weeks after that.

Our first snowfall of the year is expected Thursday, trick or treat. The first killing freeze of the season is due the following morning and voilà, winter.

So this year, both science and the pagans are wrong.

The prairie's been creeping toward the dark for a while now and competition over what food remained on it turned fierce well beforehand. Yet early this month, on any given sunny day we hosted a dozen or more butterflies and maybe a score of bees, each claiming their shrinking share of perennial richness.

On the prairie in October, that's not guaranteed.

Moths, crickets and other beasties worked the night shift. We were like the 24/7 diner that never closed. If you don't know about those, look it up.

Then the first light frost tip-toed in on little predawn feet. Everyone knew it, but all hint of winter was quick whisked away in the glory of a sparkling autumn morning, as if it'd never happened.

Following the second frost, our highest butterfly count plummeted to three.

Bees became few and those were down to the Carpenters, working awfully hard for precious little.

Monarchs became passing strangers and have since moved on altogether. This was a great year 'round these parts for monarchs. I don't pretend that means they're 'saved' or anything like it, but still.

Curiously, milkweed bugs chose last week to make babies. They clustered together in the afternoon sun for protection and warmth and on cloudy days, the bug family vanished in grey chill. Meanwhile, their home steadily degrades beneath them and all around.

Life can be hard to spot now, even on wetlands.

Bedazzled by hues of burnished gold speckled with stubborn green and brilliant blues all struck together in splendid light, we tend to forget that's the mask of death, if not necessarily despair.

Now to find life this side of the dark season, you have to really look. Sometimes it's protected from the frost by a canopy of waving grass, floating muted in constant shade.

Mostly, you've got to get all the way down to the roots. Where air and water meet and meld with wet earth, life gathers strength for what's to come.

During most any given day over these last few months, I simply stepped out my back door into the sun and was surrounded by riotous life. I already miss my little friends. I believe I'll see them again.

Soon enough, Prairie Smoke we planted last spring will rise. On the underside of incipient green leaves will be baby fireflies, pin prick miniatures of their summer selves.

Dark-eyed Juncos will pass through on their way north, even as they have this week headed south. Spiderwort will bring early bees. The wild seed lupine that's had a full year now to get comfortable will finally show its true colors. Purple coneflower that did admirably well after a violent division, will next year thrive even more.

Myriad butterflies, bees and wasps will follow and the constellation of life will be riotous again.

On the cusp of darkness at the edge of northern ice, so I choose to believe.

Onward then, through winter.