Category: photography

Snowflake Bentley.

Jay Maisel told a story about Snowflake Bentley at the Maine Media workshop I attended. Allegedly, Snowflake Bentley was being honored by a photographic society at a fancy hotel in NYC. During the awards ceremony, as he was about to speak, he learned that snow had begun to fall. He announced to the crowd that he had to be going, picked up his camera, and left.

So Jay lives in the heart of museum country. I don’t. He loves to see the work of others, framed or just published. And he loves to teach, sharing with others his passion for making images and his love of art. So when I read the January 3, 2011 New Yorker  article on snowflakes that referred to Snowflake Bentley, a photographer of note whom I had only learned of from him, who, as Adam Gopnik pointed out lived in Vermont, I went to the museum in the next town which houses his equipment and work.


His microscope.

A quilt made by his wife.

Thanks Jay. Who knew it was just up the road a piece.

Continue reading “Snowflake Bentley.”

Church Street Christmas


Buses don’t run on Christmas in Burlington. If you be here, you be here. If you not be here, you be somewhere else. Odd. You can hear the traffic signals. No outsiders. College kids home. Street people all snuggled up in shelters and motels and camps. No stores open, except for Rite Aid. No restaurants. Gray. Cold. Deserted.

Continue reading “Church Street Christmas”

Stephen Shore at Bard

Who knows what be next? Visited Bard to hear an explanation of the limited residenct MFA program. Took a tour of the campus. Walked past Steven Shore’s office in the photography building. Left my card on his door. I wouldn’t say it was the functional equivalent of what Philip Roth described in The Ghost Writer where the fledgling writer spends the night at the home of his idol, but I felt the vibes. Shore doesn’t teach in the MFA program. Too bad.

Continue reading “Stephen Shore at Bard”

Fritz Lang at Fleming

To make a relationship work, you need to have things in common with your companion, otherwise you don’t have anything to talk about and you don’t need to be together. Sharon and I share film in common. Luckily, we both like film noir. Otherwise, we have lots of conflicting tastes. You could not guess correctly, if you tried who likes what.

Continue reading “Fritz Lang at Fleming”