Shadows
One dog, two cats
Scenes from a Winter’s Week
It was a very cold and somewhat snowy week here. Nothing we couldn’t handle on either front–the lake effect produced probably 18 inches or so, maybe a little more, over several days–but nevertheless, I’m seeing reports that the first week of February may bring higher-than-normal temperatures. Here’s hoping. I wouldn’t mind melting some of this off.
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The Hammerman
We have been members at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum for over a year now, and as wonderful as the rotating exhibits have been (two close this month!), I’ve found myself developing relationships with specific works in the permanent collection. Occasionally I have heard people refer to their favorite paintings or sculptures at a given museum as their “old friends”, and damned if I’m not starting to understand that phenomenon. This is about one of mine.
This is The Hammerman, or more properly, Le Marteleur, by Belgian scupltor Constantin Meunier. This is not the original work, which I believe resides in Lausanne, Switzerland. Several casts of the statue were made, though, and one resides in Buffalo. It looks tall and forbidding, but in reality it is only about four feet tall, with only its pedestal bringing the subject to eye level.
From the National Museum of Fine Arts (Lausanne)’s website:
The hammerer is a contemporary of the Walloon uprising of 1886, a wave of workers’ strikes that were fiercely repressed. Meunier treats his subject in a realistic vein that conveys the arduous nature of a job that requires strength and dexterity, close to the suffocating heat of the large furnaces and exposed to the dangers of handling molten materials. The body, gestures and attitude of the hammerer at rest benefit from his live observations in the Cockerill steel foundry in Seraing, as do the characteristic clothing with the visor, the large leather apron, the overshoes and the pliers. By associating this realism with a posture from the classical repertoire, the contrapposto, left hand placed on the hip and right foot forward, Meunier elevates the metalworker to the dignity of a modern-day hero.
I always find something stirring and moving about this sculpture…its realism, not quite in the level of detail, but in the stance and the posture. The figure conveys physical strength, but also a kind of dogged weariness. I also wonder what exactly it is that he’s looking at; his head is turned to the right and he is turning his stern eye on…something. What? Who knows?
This statue has become one of my favorite subjects in Buffalo, and I take a few shots of it every time I’m in the AKG. I think it’s a good thing to have a few favorite things to shoot when you’re around them; it’s a good way to test one’s increasing (hopefully!) skills and develop the creative eye. Here are several of my photos of The Hammerman over the last year.. The last couple are from our most recent visit. I loved the effect of shooting the distant couple through The Hammerman‘s elbow and arm, and I took several of those shots, with this one being the most successful, in my opinion. The painting they’re discussing is a Monet.
This really does seem as good a time as any to delve as deeply as I can into art….
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“Through yonder portal, magic lies”
2024, through the lens
If you read my 2024 wrap-up post–which if you didn’t, why not, and hey, it’s right here, go read it and come back!–you noted that I decided to defer any photography in that post in favor of a separate one, because otherwise the original post would have become way too long. Well, it’s time, folks!
First, here are my favorite self-portraits of 2024. In a way, they do all look kinda similar, I must admit….
Now, more general photos. But first, how did 2024 go for me, photographically? I think it went very, very well. I can only remember one or two outings that didn’t go terribly well, and that’s because the light on each venture was…disappointing. That’s to be expected, honestly, and I’m still trying to figure out my approach here. Some photographers won’t even venture out if the light isn’t great, while I am definitely more tilted currently toward “Meh, go out anyway, maybe you get an image or two you can do something with, and even failing that, being out is its own reward.” Honestly it’s not the light that tends to dissuade me from going out, it’s the weather. I can’t really be out shooting a lot if there’s precipitation (Miranda, my Lumix FZ1000ii, has no weather-sealing), and if it’s extremely cold or very windy, it just isn’t pleasant.
I’ve most definitely become more skilled with the technical aspects of photography, which was the whole goal all along when I bought Miranda in the first place. I’m learning more and more about composition and exposure, and just what all those dials and buttons on the camera actually do. And the upshot of that is learning to make better photographs, now that I’m finally to the point of having a solid foundation of the techniques involved. For a while, any really good photos I got were more a matter of luck than anything else, but now I’m starting to be able to visualize and compose my shots before I ever aim the camera.
Another couple years, and I think I’ll be able to start getting really good at this!
(I think I will write a longer-form exploration of my year in photography on the Substack.)
Anyway, here’s a short selection of my favorite photos from 2024. I went through all of my photos from last year and picked out a whole bunch of favorites which I gathered into this Flickr album, for a total of 50-some shots. (Maybe 49 or 50, and then add in the self-pics above.) I’m not reproducing all of those photos here, because who wants to scroll through 50 photos, but these are representative. And at bottom is my favorite shot of the entire year. All of these were edited either with Snapseed (for photos taken on my phone) or Lightroom (for photos taken on Miranda…I also started shooting RAW in 2024).
Here we go! I’m going to group these by photography genre.
Nature/Landscape/Wildlife
I’m not sure what I’d call myself when it comes to these three related, but distinct, genres. I think “Nature” is probably the best descriptive term to what I do, because, well, I shoot anything and everything that captures my eye. I’m just as likely to seek out and shoot a spectacular vista as I am to capture a small waterfall on a stream in the woods that’s not even big enough to have a name on the map. As far as wildlife goes, I like shooting it–but I don’t have anywhere near the right equipment to really get into making wildlife photos, and I also don’t have anywhere near the knowledge the good wildlife photographers need. All of my best wildlife shots to date are birds, and they’re almost exclusively of birds taken near local waterways where there’s lots of people and walking paths and boats. Why is that? Because the birds who hang out in such places generally aren’t terrified of humans and are easier to predict and photograph.
You’ll also notice throughout, in many of my genres, that “People walking away from me” is a common thread. I suspect this is all part-and-parcel of my fascination with street photography and my slow progress at it…but more on that below.
Streetscapes/Infrastructure
My favorite genre may well be what’s called “Street Photography”, though I’m still not entirely sure what qualifies as street photography and what does not. Does street photography require people to be present? Does it have to be an urban setting? Is it all candid, or can it sometimes be posed or at least prompted? I’m honestly not sure. I love photographing people doing interesting things, but I also love photographing buildings and architecture and roads and also infrastructure; the way things are made tends to fascinate me. So, all of this falls under that general view. My personal preferred term is Streetscapes, because it echoes Landscapes and because I think it generally sounds a bit more inclusive than Street photography.
Finally, you gotta get the dogs, because…dogs.
(Dogs are also great practice for wildlife action photography, especially for working with shutter speed and using burst-mode!)
And here, finally, is my favorite photo of the year. I thought it would be harder to choose, but for some reason, this one just registers with me. I love that I was able to capture this…even if I may have done something slightly, um, less-than-legal to do it.
What happened was this: I spent a Sunday morning shooting at the Buffalo Outer Harbor, but then when I was done, I decided to venture into the city just to see if I could find any inspiration. So I turned onto NY 5 heading east, which in this case takes you up and over the Buffalo Skyway, a big concrete bridge that crosses the Buffalo River and the ship canal area before descending again into downtown. (There’s been a lot of debate in recent years about whether or not the Skyway should be demolished, since it theoretically hurts waterfront development to have this big bridge towering over everything. I personally think that of all the problems facing Buffalo that one is really far down the list, and anyway, I like the drive over the bridge.)
The light that day wasn’t terrific, but I had a nice clear view of downtown looming ahead of me…and a glance at the rear-view mirror revealed that there was literally nobody behind me for at least half a mile. And also, I had not turned off Miranda, so the plan was simple: slow to a crawl on the skyway, grab Miranda and snap a photo of Downtown Buffalo, and then resume acting, well, normal.
It went off perfectly. A bit of processing in Lightroom later, and voila:
Yes, it was a really good year for me and my camera. Here’s hoping for even better returns in 2025!
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The Giacomo, Niagara Falls, NY
This building, once the United Office Building and now the Giacomo Hotel, was for many years the tallest building in Niagara Falls, NY, until the construction of the big Seneca casino there. The American city has to this day not managed to seize on its status as being located literally by the side of one of the world’s great tourist attractions, while the Canadian counterpart city of the same name is constantly booming. But there are many reasons I prefer the American side, and this building is one of them.
I also like the way this photograph turned out.
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Contemplation
Morning skies
Sorry about the radio silence of late, folks, but I’ll be honest: Current Events are consuming more of my brain cycles than I want to admit, and while I could fill this space with my thoughts as to how the Election For All Time is going…I just don’t want to write about that. But I also can’t find a lot of mental energy right now to write about anything else.
So, you get pictures. I took these of the morning sky. The first is of Orion the Hunter, partly shrouded by clouds; this was taken on a morning when I was up at 6am to walk Hobbes. The other two I took when I got to work! That’s the view from behind The Store, just before sunrise and only a few minutes before my shift started. That sliver of moon captivated me. I love the sky, and the morning sky is just as wondrous, many times, as the night one.
Expect light posting, if any posting happens at all, for the next day, two, or three…basically until we know if Americans have risen up against fascism once again.
