my best images of 2011

This past year has been one of amazing adventure, small gifts and big changes.  I’ve also been growing my photography business and continue to find editing an amazingly reflective practice that helps bring into perspective the small gifts I’ve received in my photographic journey every time I bring images up on the monitor or review them in print.  Taking the time to review those images produced in only one year is something that Jim Goldstein inspired me to do last year as part of his blog project: Best Photos of 2010 by JMG-Galleries Blog Readers. I found the practice so rewarding that I’m continuing this practice for 2011.

Enjoy and Happy New Year!

a time between…

I haven’t known what to post for a long time.  You see, I was hit with a bomb in late October… “you’re being laid off in two weeks.”  And while this isn’t nearly the worst thing that could happen, I still found myself confused about how a place I put so much of myself into could let me go so easily and scared about how I was going to make ends meet and keep food on the table.  I don’t have an emergency fund since I was investing in the development of my photography and counting on the full-time job’s monthly salary to live. As many people know first-hand themselves, this is not the best time to be needing to look for work in America, let alone in the field of public horticulture, one of the many areas hit hard by budget cuts and philanthropic decline.  As I grew past the shock and initial fright over the last two months, I realized that unemployment will help for a while and I have a loving partner who will not let me go hungry or without shelter, a gift I cannot be thankful enough for.

I had already applied to distance learning graduate school in September wanting to pursue an advanced degree in Critical & Creative Thinking at the University of Massachusetts while working, bridging horticulture and photography in a personally meaningful way that would help advance my career.  Last week I received the wonderful news that I have been accepted for the program.  But the lay off has removed my funding sources and I need to brainstorm some funding possibilities while looking for employment and trying to sell photographic prints.  I’m committed to finding a creative solution but welcome any advice in this area since it’s been years since I’ve been in the scholarship/granting circles.

So with all these details running in the background and the holidays slowing any progress on the job front, I find myself wondering what winter this year will be like.  I’ve been running at 100mph most days these past two months looking for employment.  But the holiday week has been a real gift, a time to slow down and reflect, a time to really talk with those closest to me.  The time between has begun… a time between to awake my soul.

Winter will be time to think, to ponder, to photograph… to listen to myself closely, to reconnect with my truth and discover a new direction on my path.  I’ve been reflecting on how many people define themselves by the work they do rather than the person they are before work.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always enjoyed work.  But work is something to do to earn a living in this world; it’s something you do, not something you are.  So now I find myself wondering more than ever how I want to spend the next 50 years of my life. I know this about myself.  I need to create.  I need to connect with nature on a spiritual level.  I need and value the people close to me.  I also have faith in the process so I don’t doubt that things will work out well and that the journey will be one I will learn much from.  But it’s still difficult to make time for meaningful reflection and imagining what could be… but this week of reflection has reawakened just enough of my soul that I cannot help but commit to making time in January, winter, so I’ll be ready for whatever spring gifts me.

simplicity

I only had a few hours to shoot today, but the weather was agreeable enough… wonderful overcast skies with an intermittent breeze.  The delicate nature of these flowers might fool most people.  They belong to Colocasia esculenta and are attached to giant elephant ear shaped leaves spanning 2-3 feet across.  Even the slightest breeze today made the entire ensemble move.  So I patiently waited and took many frames over the course of about 30 minutes with this one composition.  I took others, but I’m attracted to the simplicity of this cluster hiding the white spadix visible from the other side.

I converted the image to black and white to further accentuate the forms as the flower color transitions from green to white.  But I thought you might like to see the color version for your own comparison.

war in the veggie garden

I’ve been remiss in posting on my blog, so when I overslept this morning, missing my morning trip to the gym, I thought I would take the opportunity to share with you why by taking some photos.  I’ve been waging war in the vegetable garden.  Last week, I found my first two tomato fruitworms burrowing into my beautiful ‘Juliet’ Roma-grape tomatoes.  So I ‘took care of them’ and applied BT (Bacillus thuringiensis) on the eggs of the young; I’m growing everything organically.  Ok, I lost a few to a common pest and helped mother nature take care of controlling the remaining pest population.

Then I came home to a ruin of tasty slicing tomatoes still dangling from the vine.  Something was taking various sized chunks out of them.  I had installed a deer fence around the garden  in the spring, so I knew some smaller critter was enjoying my growing harvest.  Initially, I thought it might be squirrels or chipmunks since the neighbors had problems with squirrels last year, devastating their entire harvest in one weekend; I’m growing indeterminate heirlooms (Giant Belgium Pink and  Costoluto Fiorentino) so I will have a continual crop all summer and hopefully avoid a complete loss.  Last weekend I spent an entire afternoon constructing a netted cover for the garden.  But I missed one small corner since I had just barely enough netting to finish the job… and that’s why I found out who the thief was, a bird.  He found the small hole and took one last bite before I secured that hole with additional netting and some zip-ties.

So far so good for this week.  I’ve been able to harvest the home grown tomatoes and make some delicious tomato sauce or ‘gravy’ as commonly called here.  I’ve never tasted such sweet sauce from home grown tomatoes.  Definitely worth waging war in the veggie garden.

gently upon a soul

This past weekend, I visited Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia.  Many photographers have worked this ruin/museum and produced amazing images, inspiring me to visit a local place I have not seen in the 14 years I’ve lived here.  I’ve also started experimenting more with dramatic light and knew this site would be challenging and offer a good exercise.  I never expected to come away so excited about the images I captured on that day… so excited to photograph stills without anything living in them, so excited that I’m planning to return and to look for additional sites, my awareness now keen to develop a new project.

I have not been able to put into words yet what it is about making these images that captures me so.  But it’s not about gloom and doom as much as it’s about the light, about illumination, opportunity, spirituality, the connection to the good in the world… an odd paradox for a prison.  I suppose I’ll have to think about this.  But the ray of light in this image reminds me of God rays coming through a cloudy sky laying their gentle beams of light upon the earth… here the single beam laying its hand gently upon a soul.

For more images from this day, visit the New Work gallery on my website: Rhoda Maurer Photography at Photoshelter.com

hot papaya

With tomorrow’s solstice and the official beginning of summer, I thought I would post this image of a relatively new coneflower introduced by my friends at Plants Nouveau, Echinacea ‘Hot Papaya’.  I found it blooming last night in the entrance garden of the Scott Arboretum.  And although I took the typical portrait shot with as much detail as my 105mm macro lens could capture at f/45, I quickly found the sultry petals luring me in for a closer look.  So I recomposed and found f/7.1 to capture enough detail that you can still infer it’s a flower, yet with a shallow enough depth of field to soften the flow… an image more reflective of the plant’s name!

summer is here

Since we’ve had exceptionally high daytime and soil temperatures in SE Pennsylvania this late spring, many perennials are sending out flowers earlier than I expected.  I found this Penstemon pinifolius (pineneedle beartongue) blooming on the hillside at Chanticleer Garden last weekend backed by Stipa tennuissima, or Mexican feather grass.  I intentionally blurred the grass out of focus to hightlight the form of the penstemon.  I first explored the symmetry of the individual flowers along the inflorescence.  But soon I became more fascinated by the leading lines of the flower parts and created this off-center image.

I am excited to see these blooming along with Clematis texensis and other nectar food sources for hummingbirds in local gardens. But I have not seen any hummingbirds yet in the garden this year.  Sure hope they arrive soon to feast upon these wonderful plants.

spring in a parking lot

After spending much of my time in my home garden this spring cultivating new ground for a vegetable garden and building a protective fence of harvested bamboo from the edge of the property, I am getting back to posting new images taken this spring. Although it doesn’t feel much like spring today in Pennsylvania with temperatures reaching 91F today.  But the tomatoes are enjoying the heat and I am hoping for a nice crop of heirlooms later this summer.

I’ve seen several posts from fellow photographers on the west coast of dogwoods in bloom, so I thought I might also post a dogwood I found this spring, Cornus florida ‘Cherokee Chief’ in a parking lot.  The amazing red bracts caught my attention from over 200ft away as they popped against the fresh green lawn on the hill behind it.  This was one of those moments when I know I’ve found something special. Maybe not a spectacular image, but something that resonates with my creative spirit that will influence my life and my art.

spring 2011

Every day is different… and this past week spring has decided to keep things moving at a furious pace.

I walk a mile every morning and night for my commute to work; and every walk I notice something else popping out of the ground or coming to life from a branch.  I prefer a slower spring, one where I can savor the transition and slow down enough from our culture’s work/life expectations enough to notice the magic that is happening in a continual flow before us.

On my walk last night, this native Pachysandra procumbens captured my attention enough to stop the furious pace of my day; and before I knew it I had spent 30 minutes wondering at its tiny blossoms.  I try not to think about anything during this time… Oh sure I think about technical aspects of taking the image with the given conditions, but then I set myself free.  I just allow experiences to be noticed and they in turn help form my approach to photographing what I see.

I’ve been struggling to make time for a meditation practice beyond yoga.  And I think I’ve finally realized… I’m struggling because I already have a meditation practice I enjoy.  I just need to spend more time practicing and allow that practice to flow in the direction it’s meant to.

something different

Recently I’ve been looking at the local landscape a little differently…  looking for a new project or focus to spark some new energy and creativity.  It’s so easy for me to find macro images, very intimate landscapes, in the suburbs of Philadelphia.  But it’s harder to find something different: different than a broad garden shot describing the planting scheme or layout of the land, different than a plant combination emphasizing texture or color contrasts, different than the soft play of light I so easily seem to find. Today I found very harsh light and remembered the possibilities of using harsh light in the stark landscapes of Death Valley.  I was fortunate to have learned some of these ways of seeing from some of the best black and white photographers of the west last fall.  And today those teachings came back to me as I was looking at this tree against the strong architecture of a campus building.  Maybe not a project, but definitely a lesson worth remembering and practicing for future possibilities.