the separation of time

< the basic idea of The Last of the Mohicans: women are "flowers in the wilderness" that need a knight to rescue them.

I don't think I've ever had to think so much about how deeply we're connected to the time in which we live. Without knowing it, all of us believe and expect certain things because of current history, literature and culture, without hardly being aware of it.

I just finished The Last of the Mohicans for class, which was written in 1826, and started a book by Catherine Sedgwick published the year after. From these authors' point of view, they were writing about history long passed, a time in America's development they themselves hadn't seen. To them, their words were modern, flushed with new knowledge. Today Cooper comes across outrageously sexist and racist, if progressive for his time (while a good deal of Indians in Mohicans are brutish, animalistic savages, others conform wonderfully well to the "noble savage" idea, and are admired by the white characters).

In Cooper's case, what struck me most was how flowery his prose was. The two women in his novel can't just be weeping, helpless women; they have to "heave sobs", fall on their knees praying in thanks, emit "blistering" tears. Looks-wise, of course, both girls (I can't say 'women') possess "shining tresses" and "ruby lips" and beautiful, slender female forms (and on, and on, and on).

Sedgwick seems more intelligent than Cooper - I'm only 60 pages in, but her characters are more complex, and her style less bent to diverge in a frenzy of drama more laughable than anything. She dares to challenge the ideology behind works like Mohicans. What's strange about Sedgwick, though, is how very prominent conservative religious beliefs are in her writing. Characters do all in their power to see that children are baptized, given 'Christian' names, and brought up solidly; any Indians encountered are potential converts living in heathenism, and directly spoken of as so. There is not the slightest bit of doubt as to this.

The spirit isn't misplaced, but the pervasive, heavy-handed way in which Sedgwick portrays her beliefs is utterly opposite to any fiction I've read published today. Completely! Modern fiction writers dislike making declarative statements about the validity of any particular religious system, unless they're addressing the topic of God Himself (or have an axe to grind, in which case they ought to be writing nonfiction). Writers today would much rather explore things connected to a character's strong religious beliefs, such as how they make him or her act and relate to others. A scene in which the death of an unconverted pagan was bitterly mourned would NEVER be portrayed without some degree of irony, removal or outright mocking. Even Christian fiction writers allow a bit of breathing room for skeptical readers, allowing room to judge characters' words and actions as they stand rather than insisting in every scene that Christian beliefs are unequivocally right and everybody thinks so.

After 60 pages you might think these antiquated styles would become natural to read. Hardly. In 2010, Cooper and Sedgwick are still jarring, despite their insights into human nature. I wonder how popular writing today would come across to them.

the ever-elusive bird shot

I'm finally starting to accept that blindly pointing and clicking is getting me nowhere (at least in terms of enjoying the process...) My camera's automatic settings cannot read my mind. Ignoring the technical side of photography entirely - other than modifying the automatic settings I already use - makes for frustrating picture-taking. There's no other way around it.

I don't hate these bird shots - they're the first ones I've ever attempted, after viewing absolutely superb, amazing, is-that-real bird shots on flickr. It's just that I know what the good stuff looks like, and I'm sooo far away.






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so cold - roses for a reminder

As the title says - my favorite rose shots I took at the Sunken Gardens last year, mementos of a much warmer time. So many varieties, so many colors!

snow fun pt. 1

As the title promises. I took close to 1,000 photos the Saturday I was SUPPOSED to be focusing on packing and moving on - that happened Sunday, ha! All Dad had to do to get me up that morning was to say, "Hey, Renae, there's some really cool frost outside, might be good for taking pictures." I don't care if it's 5 a.m. If you tell me there's something cool worth seeing and recording in a picture, I will be there!

I'm still learning how to edit pictures from the new camera; luckily it's not too different than with the old. However I never quite know what Photoshop could really be doing for me, so I feel reluctant to save any changes I make (since of course the new camera is getting more "data" in an image that better editing might be able to bring out. With the old camera, when I tried to push an image's quality in a certain direction, I generally knew that I didn't have a whole lot to work with either way.)

best of first efforts

*Do not use images without permission. Thanks.

I woke up this morning around 7:30, peeked outside the window and was met with a gorgeous orange and pink sunrise. That was it: time for the Olympus' first official outing. I grabbed Mom's boots, Dad's gloves with fingerholes, the necessary coat and hat and ventured out, pajama pants and all. I tried to step in the footholes I'd made a couple days before, attempting to creep into the backyard with the least amount of snow slipping into my boots.

All in all, I'm pleased. Of course by the time I was actually outside, the light had shifted rather dramatically, but that didn't mean the view wasn't worth seeing. I startled two rabbits, who hustled away under a large pile of snow-covered brush. Their frenzied tracks were rather interesting, and I got a few shots of that. Sometimes there's be only a single line of rabbit tracks leading up to the base of a tree, which was rather cute (until I approached the tree later and wondered where the rabbit was possibly hoping to find shelter!).

These (below) are my favorites (click for larger). The first is me turning backwards on the hill facing the suburbs - a good title might be "Lincoln Sleeping." The next two are obviously of the sunset. I think the last one's my favorite.

My dad's subtly trying to encourage me to go backpacking this coming year with he and my sister - this morning showing me a website of the trail they want to go on and the shots a photographer/backpacker managed to get there. Dude, at this point that's only going to depress me. You need pretty solid technical knowledge, I think, to produce outstanding 'backpacking' pictures. Nevertheless the site was lovely. Such a trip might be fun to go on, but I'd probably end up spending a lot of time by myself when my sister and dad leave me to actually hit the trails (and I'm back at the start with my camera :))

Shots:

what i got for christmas

Ahh, I got so many camera-related things for Christmas! This was the main gift, followed by a camera bag, a zoom lens and a memory card. It's been some time now since my little Canon Powershot A530 needed a break.

Good thing it's used to being beat up. Yesterday I took it out while it wasn't drizzling too much and tried to grab some cool ice shots. Everything was cracking around me, including our giant Chinese elm, as if guns were going off. I noticed one big branch fell on the barbed wire this morning.

The ice was gorgeous, but my lens kept fogging up or developing a scrim of ice around the edges. Sometimes the effect was satisfyingly smoky and old-fashioned looking; other times just a pain in the butt. Here's a few shots...

latest

*please do not use my images without permission. Thanks.

More and more as I'm taking pictures, I think to myself that I could do this forever. The rush of exploring a scene, every second as fragile as me and the camera I'm holding, is heady and sweet. Light is constantly shifts; with people, the best moments flicker like fireflies before vanishing.

To say that you're "shooting" a picture is entirely accurate. In history class we watched a film in which a common Czechoslovakian woman watches Communist forces riding into her small village to take it over, causing a riot in the streets. She runs into her house and back again with her small, cherished possession, her camera, and steps right into the scene, fearlessly approaches the tanks. She is seemingly mesmerized by it all, oblivious to the explosions and screaming. The sound of the "click" her camera makes is every bit as loud and forceful as the sound of the Communists' guns firing, and increases in intensity as she focuses in on one man riding the tanks, his face filled with anger and hatred. He shouts at her as she approaches him, but the woman is not dissuaded; it only seems to make her bolder. In some sense, how could it not? She had the truth by the teeth in that moment, if only she had courage enough to take the picture.

I don't claim that anything I do is that important, though I do think the scenes I shoot are important. Yesterday was a good friend's wedding, in which I got to be a bridesmaid. The emotions a bride goes through on her wedding day are really like nothing else. This shot stood out to me:



It's blurry but I think that blurriness works. Something about the mirrored image and the vulnerability of the moment, the way she's looking at and touching herself, just sort of gets to me.

Here's another picture that technically could have been better, but to me gets the emotion I felt looking at this image. It's just a statue I found on campus on a particularly blustery day.



The little studs of frost seem to highlight, or illuminate, the quiet suffering sadness in the figure's face, the way he seems to be closing his eyes to the world and hoping to just get through. I would have liked to go back and try the shot again in different light, but shortly thereafter the heavens dumped snow all over us and the time was passed.

I can't always get what I want, but it's so, so much fun to try.