This weekend Meagan Gould visited my studio. The time flow by reviewing the past six months North MaineWoods portraits and the everyday work from the camps. Our conversation and exchange brought up questions that have pocked at me for years. I need to choose one camera for a project and simplify the technical and open myself to the visual side of exploration and dialog. I shoot prolifically but the images are all over the place: in color and black and white and I jump between formats reflecting what amused me that day not necessarily the best choice. I am forcing a framework of discipline in that it will be one format. I will be just shooting with the 8/10 for the portraits and square for the camps although I am considering the 4/5 at the camps. I shoot some Velvia last month and it is beautiful. The detail studies of the tools I use from walkways to door knobs resonated the value of these ordinary elements and moments of pause in my day. I felt incomplete in my responses to Meg's questions of why I shoot black and white and why I use so many cameras. Part was exhaustion and part was it is a practice I have followed since NESOP. Once you get comfortable in a practice even if it is not practical you may continue. I am eager to simplify and see the results. My back and sense of time will appreciate the freedom. I do love black and white but it lacks the presence of visual dialog I want at this time. It is nostalgic and I do not want that burden. I am discontinuing the circle images at this time. Meg commented that the peep hole reference was hard to overcome. I am still laughing. I love the idea of the camera and it came from Michael Silver, which makes the camera a ritual of nostalgia not a constructive tool.
We hiked Hedgehog mountain on Wednesday to celebrate Avis' second birthday. The varied niches in the boreal forest were marvelous. Many squares shoot. I thought of De Certeau and Lefebvre chipping away the facade of diversity in my life. Our walking activity brought their references to humanism and the consumption equation to mind as I considered the relationships within eco-tourism and the logging of the North Maine Woods. Tree are the product to extract and sell or to visit and tour. The experience of being in the woods does not separate me from the questions of everyday and everydayness, it only brings new questions within the context. A burning question persists; am I being present, too reflective, too oriented, or can there be a happy balance? My husband did express frustration with my camera and the constant stopping which disrupted the pace, but I had a thirty pound kid on my back, so I was good to stop regularly.
I admired many large trees, the product of the North Maine Woods, and discussed with Eric how they survived the waves of cutting expeditions that harvested this landscape in the last hundred plus years. Trees are an excellent marker of history and human presence in the landscape. I think of my great grandfather Weir cutting trees on both the east and west shores of Moosehead Lake. Timber has always meant money.
I shoot portraits this week with the 8/10. Shooting with Provia which means color, beautiful color. The face and the hands taking the whole frame have my eye. I continue to ask folks to hold something that connects them to experiencing the North Maine Woods.
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