DAVID PERRY PHOTOGRAPHER

Tiny, magenta girl-flowers

Sun, 7 Feb 2010 12:32:06 -0800

One can scarcely miss the boy parts, those hundreds of pollen-bearing catkins that catch the light and sway musically within even the slightest breezes, giving contorted filberts much of their late-winter visual interest.
But the girl-parts on a Corylus avellana ‘Cortorta’, . . . those diminutive little, magenta flowers that emerge from otherwise normal looking buds along corkscrew branches are so small and understated that they almost require brilliant sunlight behind them to light up their styles enough for you to readily notice them. Yesterday afternoon provided just such sunny backlighting and I just happened to be wandering about my garden with an attentive, color-attuned eye and close-focusing cameras.
I spent some time observing, and then trying to show, with just a few pictures, a sense of scale, of color, of scarcity and of relative location within the context of the larger plant. (It nearly always helps me to understand these sorts of things when I’m looking at extreme close-ups. They help me develop a sense of a thing’s importance as well as its place. I assume it must work the same for you.)

Seven Teaser Slides from my Wednesday evening presentation . . .

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 19:31:30 -0800

Some people I’ve talked to seem a little embarrassed by their point-and-shoot cameras. As if they aren’t quite good enough. As if measured against the bigger, more expensive cameras someone like me carries around on assignments, their cute little pocket cameras must seem instead like cute little jokes.
It doesn’t help either, when so many point-and-shoot owners struggle to know how to really use their cameras, because their accumulating picture results are often taken to imply a simple and convenient, if utterly preposterous conclusion: It’s the damn camera’s fault.
We’re going to tackle that myth on Wednesday evening at the Flower and Garden Show. And this handful of slides included here represent just the tiniest peek at how we will go about it.
On a slightly different note, a couple of friends have observed that I’ve been a bit scarce lately, which is absolutely true. But it is not because I’ve lost interest. Quite the contrary, actually.
I’ve just been monster busy with several projects that have been keeping me in front of the computer day and night, for far too many hours, until something besides my watering eyes has had to give occasionally. Unfortunately, several times now when I’ve sat myself down to generate a new blog post, I have found myself running smack into a wall. Thankfully it has not seemed at all like a “Creative-block” sort of wall.
Instead, I think of it more as a “I’ve Temporarily Run out of Gas” wall.
One of those demanding projects has been a website for the groovy book project, A Fresh Bouquet, that Debra Prinzing and I have been collaborating on for quite a while now, and for which we are finally, formally launching our website/blog. Maybe next week. Maybe the one after that. But soon!
I am really excited to tell you all about it and have you follow along as we head out on story gathering expeditions and photo shoots with these fascinating green flower people. No wait. No, the people are not green. I mean, well, they certainly are not, like, Martian green. They just act green. They are the sustainable flower growers, foragers, gardeners and floral designers of this country. And together Debra and I will be gathering and then sharing their very visual stories. So stay tuned. I’ll have news and a link for you very soon.
Of course, another of those demanding projects has been my previously mentioned presentation for the Flower and Garden Show. Did I mention that the show opens day after tomorrow, and that you really ought to consider attending this year, if at all possible. Lots of friends are flying in from around the country for it, as they do every year. If you’re local, you’d have to be crazy not to come. There will be more lectures on more topics than you can imagine, more than at any other Flower and Garden show in the world.
This year you’ll find me presenting on the topic Garden Photo Magic: Mastering Your Point-and Shoot Camera. As you might imagine my amply illustrated lecture promises to be a surreal combination of Dr. Phil type lets-get-real, truth-telling and Jerry Springer-ish nonsensical hype, while entreating you to go ‘Barry White’ (slow hands, slow eyes, baby) on your little point and shoot cameras. (Just kidding.) For those who can make it, join me in the Rainier Room at 6:45 on Wednesday evening, February 3rd. We will have us some playful learning, and I suspect a bit of irreverent fun.

Paring it down to its essence

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:47:47 -0800

Today my assignment was to head out into the garden with my point-and-shoot camera and a very spare, minimalist eye. I’ve been wanting to burrow down and explore new ‘green’ evidences of an awakening world for the past few weeks, but when I did, I wanted to picture them simply. Today it just seemed clear that too much information and too much attention to rule-obedient composition would compete with the simple act of seeing, of being present to what is beginning to happen out there, close to the ground. So I avoided attempts at ‘perfect’, and ‘tidy’, instead letting fallen leaves and decaying stalks and dirt impose themselves upon the scenes more or less as they were when I found them. Since that is how things actually are in the garden just now, why not show it that way?
But that got me to thinking and wondering . . . about you. You do understand that you get to do these sorts of things whenever you want to, don’t you? That you don’t have to ask anyone but yourself for permission? Do you also understand that you, as the artist, get to take your pulse on a given day, and then choose to make pictures that meet you where you live that day? It doesn’t matter if others will ‘get it’ or if they most certainly will not ‘get’ what you ‘got’. Nor does it matter a whit if you break some time-honored compositional rule, or merely your own habitual pattern. What matters is listening to your own inner voice, trusting your sensibilities, and granting yourself permission to do it differently, today, or tomorrow, if you feel like it. This is an absolutely essential part of the formula for keeping a fresh eye and a playful spirit. Break the rules often, and on purpose! If you’re feeling a little timid, tell ‘em I told ya’ to.

Two weeks from tonight . . .

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:32:40 -0800

You needn’t have been following along here for very long to know what an avid fan I am of point-and-shoot cameras, or that I use them constantly in garden settings, even on assignments. They are amazing tools that allow me to see and make pictures in ways that bigger, fancier SLR’s sometimes won’t allow. And really, the last thing in the world I care about when I’m looking at a magical photograph or trying to make one is how much the camera didn’t cost, or how many years old it might be, or how many megapixels the file contains.
These things are pretty much irrelevant when it comes to making powerful pictures, in the same way that the price of a penny-whistle, or a harmonica would be irrelevant to making beautiful music. Magic simply doesn’t care. Nor do your eyes, nor do the flowers, nor the birds, nor the bugs. Nor does the woven tapestry that is the garden you’re standing in. So why should I care? Why should you?
Two weeks from tonight (Feb.3), I will be giving a lecture at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show here in Seattle, entitled “Garden Photo Magic: Mastering a Digital Point-and-Shoot Camera”. There will of course be lots of yummy, playful photographs, and with them, step-by-step tips to help you get that point-and-shoot of yours to make pictures that look and feel ever so much more magical.
I’d really love it if you were able to make it, and give you my word that we’ll have some fun and make it worth your time. So please, come. Give yourself the treat of visiting the Flower and Garden Show this year. And if you’re able to make it Wednesday evening, be sure to bring your point-and-shoot camera so you can follow along as we go over some of the coolest and most useful features you probably won’t ever understand by dutifully sleeping with that manual under your pillow . . . or even by reading it.
I’m really looking forward to meeting some of you there in person, finally. And for those who already know me . . . well, there’s always room for a few more hecklers up front. ;-)

I Should Have Known You’d Eventually Get Around To The ‘Old Apple and Oranges’ Trick Photo.

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:19:59 -0800

I was cleaning out the refrigerator yesterday, and there languishing in the produce drawer I discovered several tired-looking old apples practically begging for a chance to become something more than mere fungus food on that lonely road to the Land of Compost.
It made sense to me that they’d want to be more. I would too. So, I took them out, washed them off and offered them the chance to become warm cinnamon applesauce, which, of course they gratefully accepted.
This is what we commonly refer to as a “Win-Win” solution.
But while I was cutting them into quarters and sixths, one of them, a particularly leathery old gal caught my eye and got me to thinking about my own aging skin and wondering if, and how, I too might find ways to become something ‘more’ as I grow older. This is ‘Winter thinking’, I know, full of mortality and interior spaces, but given that some part of my psyche needed to address it, I granted myself permission to explore.
Funny thing about permission, it changes things. And in this instance, that thought took hold of my imagination and grew, until I needed a time-out on applesauce production just to consider the larger realm of options it had authored.
As I thought, I turned that weathered old apple in my hands, exploring its leathery skin and absent-mindedly talking to it.
“You’re really kind of beautiful, even in this state.” I thought, out loud, “fading, sure, but you’re still full of flavor, I suspect.”
And there my mind made its next leap, practically spinning on the knife’s point to race off in an entirely different direction.
“Wonder if anyone will feel that way about me when I’m old.” I wondered aloud, then.
I continued to study this aged apple with my hands, while trying to figure out a playful, respectful way to mark this stage of its existence in a picture. On a whim, I dropped it down into a newly emptied and washed peanut butter jar, thinking I’d practice a little of that “PBJ (Peanut Butter Jar), Macro Photo Magic”. PBJMPM is a close cousin to the “Macro in a Mason Jar” technique we’ve already explored here in three previous posts, the primary difference being the substitution of an empty Peanut Butter Jar in place of a Mason Jar, so as to accommodate larger subjects.
But my tired-looking old apple friend sitting all alone down there in that expanse of clear glass, and floating upon an empty swath of maple cutting board just made it look painfully lonely. Poor thing. So naked and vulnerable. I knew a portrait like that would never generate the warmth and respect this venerable elder-fruit was due, so I hastily scanned the kitchen for help. And there on the table, not three feet away, was an entire bowl of oranges, some, wizened mandarins, who had grown so weary of one another’s company that they were not even speaking.
“Uhhhhh, you guys wanna be in a picture?” I asked.
None of them responded in a way that would ever stand up in a court of law, but I did get the sense that each turned just a little oranger when asked, so I took that as a ‘yes’, and began arranging them around the perimeter of the PBJ, tucking them in tighter and tighter until they made that old apple feel surrounded and supported, visually. Our portrait wouldn’t have been half as pleasing without those friendly oranges.
See this old apple? See those oranges? Yep, it’s a variation on that aged ‘Old Apple’ and Oranges comparison. I get that it is a somewhat corny play on words, but isn’t it also somewhat true? In old age we may still possess our natural dignity and usefulness, (our texture and flavor, if you will), despite the fact that so much of our appearance will have changed. And apple or human, our lives will be so much warmer if we’ll allow them the support and company of others . . . even others who grew up in entirely different sorts of trees.

Fresh, this very morning . . .

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:29:53 -0800

It has rained here on twenty out of the past twenty-one days, with, apparently another string of very wet storms on its way in from the Pacific, slated to arrive soon.
In mid-January, no less.
In Seattle.
Go figure.
Luckily there are plants in the garden that know exactly what to do with this sort of weather; that thrive in it. And somehow, at about this time every year, they magically transform into wonders far more grand than mere aesthetic placeholders within a winter landscape. They arise, they swell in grace and beauty to become botanical equivalents of the North Star.
Some of us navigate by these garden magicians, using them to help us mark vital waypoints of hope within the year’s darkest day’s, urging ourselves onward through that recurring pinch-point in our annual, cyclical journey, carefully measuring their changing appearances, and gratefully accepting their olfactory gifts.
That sensual seductress, Sarcococca (below), has been flirting with me from the shadows each time I have stepped outside for nearly two weeks now. Is it so wrong that each year she utterly seduces me anew, compelling me to literally step over other noble plants just to nestle by her side for a few stolen moments, to caress her delicately-fingered flowers and hold them close to my nose? Does that mark me as a wanton man, really?

Seeing Gray and Feeling Blue

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:07:06 -0800

I was walking down the alley, returning from my neighborhood grocery a few days ago, when Gray reached down from above and tapped me on the shoulder.
“Hey”, Gray said.
“Hey”, I replied.
“It’s not fair, ya know”, Gray said.
“What’s not fair”, I asked, a little puzzled.
“The way everybody complains about me all the time,” Gray drizzled.
“Right!” I snorted, deriding the unseen voice that even then was dripping down on me from a wet cloud.
“Not my fault.” Gray said.
“Uhh-huh.” I replied.
“Color’s still there,” Gray whispered through the trees, “ya’ just gotta’ look a little deeper to see it.”
(Suddenly a black crow “skrocked” at me from among the highest branches, overhead.)
“What would you know about color?” I groused back at him, stepping smack into a puddle as I did so.
Instant karma!
I decided it would be best to keep quiet at that point, and kept walking toward home.
Gray followed.
. . .The crow stayed put.
Strangely, I’ve been thinking about this odd exchange ever since.
Yesterday, I decided to test Gray.
I went outside in the drizzle, just a bit before dark: Maximum Gray.
There, I found a more-or-less colorless scene and shot a handful of frames.
Came back inside.
Wiped the camera down.
Imported the photos into the computer and began to look, very carefully.
Sure enough, color! Lots of color. Downplayed color. Understated color.

. . . Enough even, to glean a little gratitude, color!

Some days are just gonna be like that . . .

Fri, 8 Jan 2010 14:25:20 -0800

Hey, I didn’t write the rules,

. . . and if I had, you can bet that I wouldn’t have written them like this.
Some days, well,
. . . some days are just gonna be about embracing all those things, little and big, that go ‘wrong’.

Either that or they’re going to be about banging your head against the wall and raging at the sky. I’ve done that. It hurts. Little else comes of it; . . . certainly nothing good.

Like some of yours, I suspect, most of my heroes in life are at least as prone to stumbling, and falling down, and skinning their knees as the rest of us,
. . . maybe even more. And I take certain comfort in this. But when they fall, for some reason, many manage to see the humor and laugh at their humanity. These life-magicians know how to forgive themselves and because of that, they set others (like me), at ease by their playful examples. Then they get back up. Falling down is not taken as some sort of indelible proof to them that they are bad or unworthy, or failures in the making and in need of punishment. I’m telling you outright, I aspire to think more like these people each and every day.

Others, and goodness only knows why this is so, look like a million bucks while they’re stumbling, a million bucks while they’re falling, and they still look like a million while they’re down there in a rumpled pile, brushing themselves off to get back up.

I don’t resent them for these magical abilities. Really. I just hope that if I stand close enough, some of their magical powers will rub off on me. I guess it’s gonna take a little more time.

And get this, . . . all of them, no really, all of them seem to have figured out how important it is to pay attention while they’re down, and how then to use what they’ve learned from their time on the ground to soften their hearts, to understand and empathize with others’ sense of shame at such junctures, and to move ever further toward their own heartfelt goals because of it, which probably has something to do with how they became my heroes.

Some days are just gonna be a painful mess. Some days it will just be your day, or my day to take a turn standing under that inescapable downspout of unfortunate sewage.

Yesterday felt like one of those for me. It was one of those days for a few dear friends, as well. Ughhh.

I guess you can see my amaryllis had a bad day yesterday too. A very bad day. But would you just look at how beautiful and cheerful, and determined-to-shine that red stunner remains today, even all toppled over as it is?

Does it look defeated to you? Do you sense that it has given up hope?

There’s an important lesson here (or several), but we may have to bend our definitions of good and bad and be willing to laugh in the face of adversity if we ever hope to really understand.

I’ll bet we could do it. I’ll bet we could learn.

I mean really, if a simple amaryllis bulb can still manage to glow and blossom so in the middle of a major structural crisis, don’t you think there’s probably hope for you and me?

And January Makes Three

Sun, 3 Jan 2010 10:42:08 -0800

It is three years now: three years since I first began knocking on your doors here, asking you to come outside and play with me in the leaves and flowers, and dirt.
And you have not yet disappointed me.
Having just counted back, I can tell you that I have shown up on your doorstep with an offering or request three-hundred and eighty-five times in just under eleven-hundred days, which averages out to a play-date invitation about every two-point-eight-five days.
I have assumed that you would tell me to get lost or simply stop answering your door if you grew weary of me. Some have. But others, many more, have come along to replace them. And of course, some of you have been following along since the very beginning. You know well enough who you are.
I have come slowly to understand some pretty wondrous things about many of you. But I suspect I have not said thank you nearly enough.
We live in a demanding and complicated world, you and I, where each day more voices squawk and screech, and clamor for our attentions, sometimes with the unintended effect of binding us up into chaotic knots. I know that I cannot personally keep up with all of them, nor would I want to, so I assume it must be the same for you and try to be careful with my requests.
Appreciating how valuable your time is, and still madly in love with the notion of quiet spaces, I am particularly reluctant to represent just one more source of “Look at me! Look at me!” cacophony in any of your lives.
I’d like to keep knocking at your door, if I may. I’d like to keep searching for ways to pause meaningfully, to help release those occasional sighs of relief . . . and recognition.
I’d like to continue recording and championing the appearances of magic within a day . . . within the garden, within a deliberate life, knowing that you are following along.
Most of all, I’d like it if you continued to teach me in return, through the ways you so generously show up, through the observations you offer in response.
Here’s to twenty-ten. May we continue to help one another this year. May we continue to learn from one another. And may our eyes and our hearts continue to smile and laugh together as unexpected magic shows up, knocking at our doors and inviting us out to play.

Namasté my friends . . . and thank you!

RGB

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 17:39:34 -0800

Red. Green. Blue.
These are the building blocks you have to work with for this next assignment, should you choose to accept it. Pick just one and make a picture that is predominantly about that color. Don’t overthink it or get hung up on making it “art”. Just make it about that color. Yep, red, green, blue. Simple, ok?
Use your cell phone if you want, or your point and shoot, or your fancy camera . . . or an actual crayon and paper. Who cares if it’s blurry or makes no sense other than being about blue . . . or if it’s strangely composed, or you fear no one will understand why you chose that one?
Consider this a mind-calming exercise after all the hurrying and scurrying, and wrapping and feasting, and wanting for everything to be just right when of course, it never can be . . .
Let this be a quiet space within which to miss those you miss, just a little less. Or to loosen your grip of resentment for those you secretly resent, or your freshly hurt feelings toward those who have carelessly hurt you, again.
While you think about red or green, or blue, you won’t be thinking about the places you have failed to measure up to your own too-high expectations over the past few days, or be worrying about what tomorrow may bring. And when you think about it, that would be much . . . wouldn’t it?
Take a deep breath and give yourself permission to play, if only for a few minutes. Offer this small kindness to your inner kid and see how eager she or he is to be afforded a chance to simply color and play without guilt, or fear of reprisal, or shame, or the sense that someone else has more rightful claim to your time.
This is all you have to do for the next several minutes, or as long as you wish. Nothing more. Really.
Three crayons on the table and a blank sheet of paper. Just like when you were a kid . . . (unless you were born into a world where you were always expected to make your selections from that big box of 128 crayons, in which case, this limited palette might feel even more freeing yet.)
Can you allow yourself permission to explore, to make a picture that doesn’t try to be important or perfect, that is as simple as breathing in, slowly, deeply?
Look around then. What do you see that could apply?

Hear it for the first time all over again . . .

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:48:05 -0800

and all through the house . . .

Celebrate Light from Deepest Darkness

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 11:03:40 -0800

Strange, how I’ve allowed this season of shortest days to become so ruled by activity and duty, and the chatter of monkeys.
Words and insight don’t come easily with so little room for quiet, for thoughtfulness, for steeping the tea of one’s unfolding experience.
Rather than simply add to the noise out of fear that my voice will be forgotten so soon, I’d rather wait until I’ve allowed myself something worthwhile for utterance.
One cannot share what one does not have.
The lists remain. Appointments yet to meet, duties incomplete, work that will pay the bills.
Tonight the darkness will be especially deep.

Tomorrow the light begins its return.

A Total Crackpot

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 10:13:28 -0800

The crows were laughing at me again this morning.
Picture me in my back yard in chill early light, kneeling in heavy frost, searching for just the right prayer, choosing to set a portrait of this beautiful intersection between time, temperature and very dear objects, before losing that chance for good. Warmer weather will supposedly move in this afternoon, which means that the expanded, icy core within this pot will melt, and with it my chance to properly record it with the cause of its demise.
Boneheaded move on my part, leaving it out to freeze like that. I had used it in a photograph more than a month ago, and then forgotten to empty it and bring it in. I found it yesterday when I was rooting around, trying to thaw out the fountain for the birds, wanting to keep them supplied with fresh, running water. Sigh. I loved this pot. My neighbor Buzzy had given it to me as a kindness years ago, and it had always been treasure. I liked the colors of it, and the feel of it in my hands.
Makes me wonder if I’ll experience a great deal more of this sort of sad discovery over time, as the senior moments accrete more readily within my daily life. Another sigh.
I do love how wonky it all is, visually, though; The frozen tilt and impermanent architecture of each element within the larger, utterly frozen scene.
It is a contract I made with myself, long ago, and one that I try to be true to daily: When you see magic, stop what you’re doing. Really see it. Listen. Spend a few moments with it. Honor it by finding a way to mark its appearance in your life.
I know it’s just a broken pot and some lace-caged paper lanterns, but it is still amazingly beautiful to these sometimes forgetful eyes.
And I wonder, might this be one of those essential keys to having magic constantly appearing within your life; purposefully appreciating even the littlest glimpses of gold, whenever they appear?
Perhaps you’ll understand now why I needed to be out there this morning, on my knees? It was this, this visual feast just begging to be seen and really appreciated. It won’t be here tomorrow. Like most magic, this too will prove fleeting.
So the crows think I’m a crackpot.
I can live with that.

The Watering Hole: Rethinking the Time-Lapse Photo

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 19:29:20 -0800

Every morning since we entered into this first real deep freeze of winter, I’ve been watching dozens of my neighborhood feathered friends as they come to the fountain for water first thing in the morning. The earliest ones show at about seven-thirty, and from there it becomes something of a steady, ongoing procession until about nine.
They appear, for the most part in ones and twos. Occasionally a clutch of five or six Juncos will show up, all at the same time, but really, most of the others make their appearances as solos. And for the most part, they are pretty well behaved toward one another, meaning, they usually wait for the one ahead of them to drink their fill, finish and then fly off. I wonder if it is an acknowledgement of their shared need for running water while the world in every other regard for them remains frozen.
Of course, the robins don’t wait. They muscle in on the smaller birds, taking what they want and staying as long as they want. The Stellars Jays, do too. But there seems to be enough water to go around, and eventually, each bird has drunk its fill at least once, and many have returned for seconds.
I set up a camera on a tripod to photograph these thirsty visitors a few days ago, and ended up with image after image of one bird or two (while also missing some important ones like that noisy Jay and the emerald green Hummingbird).

The Lemonade Tree.

Sun, 6 Dec 2009 17:03:49 -0800

Last thing I expected when that windstorm came blowing through a couple of years ago was all the lemonade it would generate. Course, it only seems fitting when you think about it . . .
I mean, really:
Liquidamber tree snapped off in violent windstorm! It was almost prophetic. And the Lemonade has been flowing freely from its broken trunk ever since. Yes, you see, like so many others, life has generously dealt us (the tree and I), some pretty sour lemons at times. We had certainly done nothing to deserve it, so it wasn’t as if we were being punished, or needing to be. We just happened to be in the right place at the wrong time. Whoosh! Crack! Snap! Whoompp!
A thirty foot tall tree instantaneously became a fifteen foot tall stump.
“Wow!” It was all I could think to say at the time.
“Ouch!” was all the tree could muster.
But, it was a beginning.
And from that exchange of three and four letter words, a conversation began that has evolved and deepened into multisyllabic reveries and giggle-fests as we have explored ways to partner and play in the planting strip out front that would never have been possible before.
If I may I be so bold as to speak candidly now . . . for myself and for this broken tree: We fully intend to keep on making mischief, whenever and wherever possible, working together as a team to wring as much delicious, playful, Liquidamber lemonade from our Lemony Snicket-ish series of unfortunate events as is possible before the rot sets in, the fungus takes over and this once stalwart sentinel is reduced even further in stature to sawdust and sowbug bedding. We know that we don’t have forever.
Currently the Lemonade Tree is starring in a little kinetic energy play we put together, playing “The Deelibobber”, (see above). It is a shimmery ode to the slippery breezes of winter and that rapid, deepening slide towards maximum darkness at winter solstice. (And yes, that is Santa up there in his sleigh atop the mini-me birdhouse.)
But as some of you will recall, we have also had fun dressing up a few times now for Halloween, as well: