Orchid and Flame and the Anthropocene

Posted on June 10, 2013 by Les

Last year was drought and this Spring has been wet, overcast, and cool: for now the drought is a distant memory.

Anthropocene

I’ve been thinking about the new epoch we are living in, the Anthropocene. It is the first historical period in which man completely dominates the biosphere. Like most major shifts in geological history it didn’t happen overnight, unlike the die-offs caused by asteroids hitting the planet.

And like most things human there is disagreement.

Many geologists argue that we are in the Holocene, meaning “entirely recent” and have been for 11,700 years. (1) The reasoning being that each period has a clearly defined geological layer, the last of which was about 12,000 years ago with the ending of our most recent ice age.

Environmentalists and a growing number of scientists have begun to use the term Anthropocene, meaning “age of humans”  because they believe that there are enough human caused changes in the biosphere to require a new and more accurate name for the time we live in. These folks point to the massive wave of extinctions that are occurring now, the melting of ice caps and glaciers all over the world, the accelerating rise in sea levels, and the changing of the composition of the atmosphere.  Similar events occurred during earlier geological transitions. Instead of the geologists, it is the anthropologists, archaeologists, and historians that are providing the evidence.

The Anthropocene was a long time in coming and is the result of the accumulative actions of we humans. The tipping point was about 3,000 years ago (2) when human society began developing the institutions we are familiar with today, farming, domesticated animals, population centers like towns and cities, technologies like metallurgy and ceramics, and a rapidly expanding population. It is then that we begin to see our ancestors intentionally alerting the landscape to fit their needs. Even then they diverted rivers, clear cut forests, hunted animals to extinction, and genetically modified animals and plants through cross-breeding.

Proof that we live in the Anthropocene is elegantly simple. Compare the world of 12,000 years ago to now against the human population then and now.  There are over 7.1 billion human beings on the planet now (3).

Orchid and Flame

Despite its fragile beauty, the orchid is a hardy plant. It has to be if it is to survive in my house.  They are found around the world and have been admired and used since antiquity.  An example is Tlilxochitl, a vine orchid, which was grown by Aztecs for its perfume and use in food. (4)  Today we call it vanilla.

Orchid and Flame started as a straightforward portrait of an orchid growing in my kitchen window and then it wasn’t.

Make of it what you will.

 

(1)  What is the Anthropocene and Are We in It?  Joseph Stromberg, Smithsonian
       Magazine, 01/2013.

(2)  The Long Anthropocene: Three Millenia of Humans Shaping the Earth, The
       Breakthrough Institute, Erle Ellis, 05/01/2013

(3)  Current World Population, worldometers: Real Time World Statistics,
       www.worldometers.info/world-population/

(4)  Early History of Orchids, Orchid Run,
       www.orchidrun.net/index.php?lay=show&ac=article&Id=538760802

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Comfort

Posted on May 28, 2013 by Les

Futzin Resting In Aunt Nikki’s Arms

This Memorial Day weekend, I went to Fergus Falls to celebrate the birthday of another family member. This time it was Andrew who turned one year old.

Drew has the nickname Futzin which was his father’s nickname when he was a small child. Grandpa Olson gave him that name and it stuck. Now it has been passed on: linking great grandfather with the present.

For normal families, families that live out their lives humbly without pretense of greatness, it is the little things that make us immortal: a nickname that is passed down through the generations, a story about growing up on a farm, some memory that touches the soul of the family.

Hopefully, this picture of Drew and Aunt Nikki contributes to another family moment. It is the beginning of another life, a new chapter in a family’s journey through time.

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Homage to Grant Wood and Thank You to My Neighbor Glenn

Posted on May 26, 2013 by Les

     Farmer Glenn

Memorial Day weekend 2013 has been and promises to continue to be overcast, cool, with occasional rain. True, the drought for our area appears to be broken. And true again that everything is lush and green with lots of buds and flowers springing forth. Yet it is still cool and dismal.

The picture of my neighbor Glenn was taken 05/19 when we had a rare burst of warmth.

Glenn is an avid gardener. He has transformed his yard into a colorful space that the kids of the neighborhood love to visit. Indeed, our two yards, without a fence to separate them, forms a visual open space that we both enjoy.

However, over the last few years gardening has not been my top priority. I’ve been lucky to get the grass mowed. That is hen Glenn stepped in and started helping me by doing garden planning and planting. Right now he is involved in a major effort to terrace the area between our houses to improve drainage and to re-arrange the many plants that grow there. We’ve also talked about putting an apple tree on our property line.

I can say that I am very fortunate to have a neighbor like Glenn.

 

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Desperadoes and a Pinata

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Les

Desperadoes, Cara and Friend

On Saturday, I went to Wisconsin to spend time with Becky’s family. After all these years, I count them as my family too. The reason for my trip was the combined birthday party for Cara, age 6, and her brother Abe, age 3.  All of the party guests were friends of Cara’s who also knew Abe. Although to be honest, Abe’s attention was split between the other children, his two dogs, and sundry objects like a piece of rope and a bungee cord.

Cara is a very social little girl. She is bright and energetic. She also has a level of poise that I don’t often see in children her age. When I talk with her I am surprised by the complexity of her thoughts. It will be enlightening to follow her as she grows up.

Abe is physically strong, fearless, and in perpetual motion. Those are traits of the men in the Olson family. Also, Abe is able to amuse himself, which I take to be a sign of a very creative imagination. As he gets older, I look forward to conversations with him. I am interested in his perceptions and what his internal life is like.

I have no doubt that their parents, Lisa and Derek, will have their hands full as both children grow older.

Back at the birthday party, a pinata was hung from the tree. Because the thing was made of Kevlar and body armor it was impervious to the battering it received from the kids who gave it their best efforts. Lisa, seeing that the pinata was winning, poked a few holes in it and after a few more batters, it gave up its treasures.

20130518-01-031-1_LesPhillips Bottom of the ninth and the bases are loaded.

 

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Orchid Still Life

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Les

Orchid Still Life #1 2013

I have two orchids growing in my kitchen window. The one above is about three years old. It is blooming after a long hiatus in which I wasn’t certain that I’d see another flower.

As I understand it, a still life is an image of an artistic arrangement of objects. Often, the artist uses the still life to study light and it’s interaction with a variety of surfaces and textures.  Because it is a controlled environment the image-maker can fine tune lighting, grouping, and content.

This is very different from my preferred genre of editorial photography which often relies on available light and composition is captured on the fly.

I took this image in the backyard. The orchid is on my garden table which has a nice weathered look. The table is in a a nifty space with Lilac trees  on two sides. Its a great place to read and listen to the birds. I placed a sheet of black mounting board behind the orchid to simplify the background.

Back in the digital darkroom I used Lightroom to remove a distracting wooden stake from the pot and tweaked brightness, contrast, vibrance, and color. I then used Photoshop with the NIC HDR plug-in to pull out a wider dynamic range. Last, I used Photoshop to brighten the image and increase contrast just a touch, giving it a little more punch.

From the start, I had in mind an image that was soft and with rich colors. I want it to look like a memory. I had intended to have a deep black background but the shadows of the lilacs were so intriguing that I left them in.

 

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Apology to Willa Cather and My Antonia

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Les

For years, when the topic of high school reading came up, I would say that, for the most part, I was oblivious to the meaning of most of the classic American library. And, I would say that I remembered almost nothing, except for a book by Willa Cather, My Antonia. I also would say that I hated the book. Yet, it was one of the few books that I read then that I still remember bits and pieces.

In a previous blog about snow and spring, I dropped a reference to Willa Cather.

Later, I started to think about my attitude about My Antonia. If I hated it so much, why did certain images from the book still resonate with me, 50 years after I read it?

I went online and found the official Willa Cather organization. Willa was born in 1873, in Back Creek, Virginia, with the name of Wilella Cather. Later, she changed her name to Willa and her birth date to 1876.

In 1877, after some misfortune, Willa’s parents decide to move to Nebraska and reunite with her father’s brother. Willa’s recollections of this time and, in particular, her friend Anna led to her most famous book, My Antonia which was published in 1918.

It is that book, her fourth novel, which has quietly bedeviled me.

I went online to see what was available for my Kindle. I was pleasantly surprised to find that My Antonia and several of her other novels were available at no cost. I promptly downloaded My Antonia, O Pioneers (the first of the Nebraska novels), and The Song of the Lark (a fictionalized account of the life of a friend who was an opera singer.)

I immediately fired up the Kindle and began reading. Within two pages I was mesmerized: like a snake charmer’s cobra my imagination swayed back and forth and from side to side. I was captured by Willa’s words; their sound, cadence and collective imagery left me breathless, powerless.

As I read, I realized that it is her clarity of prose and distillation of the moment that I have always strived for. How could I think or say that I hated this amazing book?

Perhaps, being a shallow youth, I really did not care for it. Perhaps my dyslexia and the resulting impatience biased me at the subconscious level. However, there was some part of me that must have drunk it in, realizing that I was being offered something precious.

I’m about 2/3 of the way through My Antonia. I frequently stop to reflect on the vanished world Willa describes: immigrants creating farms on the still pristine prairie, small town dynamics, and the inner lives of the characters. Unlike in high school and college where all my reading was under tight deadlines, now I am able to savor the story and let my imagination fill in the blanks.

Dear Ms Cather,
Even though this comes too late for you to hear it, I owe you an apology and a note of gratitude.  Thank you for your well crafted prose. Thank you for Antonia, Jim, the endless seas of red prairie grass, the bitter winters and Saturday night dances.
Thank you for patiently waiting for me to return to you.

 

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