Summer Reflections
Sometimes, slowing down is all it takes
Can you believe it’s almost July?
Summertime is in full swing here in Madison. We hiked nine miles at one of our favorite spots on Saturday, and it felt great to be out among the trees. Our garden is starting to pop, and last night, as a thunderstorm was rolling in, the fireflies made their first appearance in the backyard. I love this time of year. It’s hot and humid, sure, but it’s also beautiful and relaxing. I’m feeling grateful today.
As July approaches, it feels like an occasion to take stock and appreciate the beauty that surrounds us. A curator friend,
, shared this Alfred Stieglitz picture with me over the weekend, and I can’t take my eyes off it. I love quiet pictures. They calm me down and put me in a reflective place. Sometimes photographs don’t have to do a lot to move you. “Apples and Gable” is a stunner.George sent me down a rabbit hole on the Museum of Modern Art website, and I came across this description, which is excerpted from MoMA Highlights: 375 Works from The Museum of Modern Art, published in 2019:
This picture may be read as a symbol—of Eve’s temptation in the Garden of Eden, perhaps, or of harmony between nature and humankind—yet it presents itself as an immediate, sensual experience. You can almost feel yourself reaching up to the apples covered with dew and ripe for the picking.
Stieglitz was fifty-eight years old when he made this photograph at his family’s estate in Lake George, New York, where he spent his summers from childhood to old age. At the turn of the twentieth century, it had seemed to him that photography, if it were to become an art, must emulate the other arts and so restrain or disguise its earthbound realism. Later, in the 1920s, he helped to prove in his own photographs that engaging the stubborn specificity of his medium was itself a fine art.
I know some of you must be Steiglitz fans (I certainly am). The museum has published 130 of his photographs online — you can view them here.
Peach Pictures!
Every summer, my neighbor Sue and I split a box of peaches from Tree-Ripe Fruit Co. She called over the backyard fence on Saturday night to announce that this year’s shipment had arrived. It’s always such a treat to unbox these things. Peaches are so colorful and gorgeous, and I make a picture of them every year. I posted this one in my Notes, and photographer
replied with this image by Joel Meyerowitz. I think you’ll agree, it is a perfect summation of the season:Last summer, I considered curating a round-up of peach-themed pictures, and I never got around to it. Rob has inspired me to do it this year, so if you have any peach photography in your archive, please email me. I want to see your work!
Call for COLOR Redux
I am so grateful to those of you who have emailed submissions to my Call for COLOR. Like this gem by Matt Cosby — I love it!
After giving it some thought, I’ve decided not to curate a single show of color photographs but to introduce a rolling feature to the newsletter, something along the lines of what I do with Five Photographers or my Show & Tell series.
This new feature will showcase periodic selections of color photography to brighten your inbox. This way, I can show some inspiring color photography in the newsletter on an ongoing basis, rather than all at once. If you have something colorful in your archive to share, please email me.
One more thing…
It’s not photo-related, but I wanted to leave you with a book recommendation. Some of you know that I read aloud to Kristen. It’s one of our favorite things to do together, and we’ve been doing it for many years. Last night, we finished Kathryn Schulz’s memoir, Lost & Found. Do you know this book? It’s a remarkable meditation on death and dying, falling in love, the long arc of space and time, and what it means to be human. I thought some of you might enjoy it. We loved it.
Okay, that’s all for now. Have a great week and a wonderful July 4 holiday!
So glad I found a receptive audience for Alfred's apples. Thanks Andy!
Lovely apples. I have such a love hate relationship with Stieglitz. His arrogance and decisions around who was in the Camera Work club and who wasn't and how much manipulation wealthy amateurs had to do to be accepted as 'artists' by Stieglitz, was such a set-back to photography, I swear it took the art of photography at least 50 years to recover. Don't forget that in the late 1800s it was perfectly fine to have a straight photograph of the Acropolis hanging along side a Japanese woodblock print, along side a landscape painting. Stieglitz made that impossible. And for those photographers who actually had to work for a living... forget it. You had to be rich, and an amateur. Otherwise, you did not count. Yes, he sort of redeemed himself late in life, but he single-handedly set photography back decades!
As for the apples.... "a symbol—of Eve’s temptation in the Garden of Eden", come on, sometimes an apple is just an apple. A good photograph, just a good photograph.