The Windswept Landscapes & Memorials 2008-09
Who can sound the depths of the wind?
When the wind is blowing
we must expand & swell else we be blown away.
Charles Burchfield
My wife and I live on the edge of a meadow where we are often vulnerable witnesses to not only multiple forms of human folly, but also very strong winds that howl and sweep through that space. The wind shakes our house...and our sense of well being; we then experience the wind as an uncontrollable and at times terrifying force in the natural world. 
Windswept Landscape 18x26” Click on image to enlarge
Indeed many of the Windswept photographs look and feel apocalyptic; others reveal a beautiful, intricate web-like vibrational structure. In this series I strive to give visual form to that sense of awe and wonder I feel in relation to this potent though invisible transforming power of Nature.
There are two sets of Windswept photographs. Set 1 focuses on the Natural Landscape; Set 2 , which focuses on the Cultural Landscape is entitled Windswept Memorials.
Sometimes
Sometimes, when a bird cries out,
Or the wind sweeps through a tree,
Or a dog howls in a far off farm,
I hold still and listen a long time.
My soul turns and goes back to the place
Where, a thousand forgotten years ago,
The bird and the blowing wind
Were like me, and were my brothers.
My soul turns into a tree,
And an animal, and a cloud bank.
Then changed and odd it comes home
And asks me questions. What should I reply?
Hermann Hesse
(trans R Bly) from News of the Universe
(trans R Bly) from News of the Universe
Windswept Meadow 18x26”
Windswept Meadow 18x26”
Windswept Landscapes Canal 18x26”
Windswept Hill 18x26”
Windswept Lake 18x26”
The Wind! Motion is life. All is dead that stands still.
Charles Burchfield
Windswept Memorials
Set 2 of the Windswept photographs focus on the Cultural Landscape--especially places or memorials having to do with human conflict and tragedy.
Wind is often related to breath and spirit. My fantasy or magical thinking in regards to this series is that each windswept photograph--with its transformation of the image--breaths a healing or purifying life into the painful, tragic historical memory embedded in the earth, place or object that was photographed.
Windswept Vietnam Veterans Memorial 18x26”
Windswept Monument to World War I Soldiers 18x26”
Windswept Monument to Slaves 18x26”
Windswept Monument to People in Bread Lines 18x26”
Windswept Gettysburg Memorial : Cloud over Gettysburg 18x26”
Windswept Gettysburg Monument to Soldiers 18x26”
Windswept Gettysburg Monument to Soldiers 18x26”
Windswept Gettysburg Monument to Soldiers 18x26”
Windswept Gettysburg Monument: Mrs. Lincoln Portrait 18x26”
Windswept Gettysburg Monument: Stone Wall 18x26”
Windswept Memorial: Death of a Colonel, 1781 battle, Hudson River Valley 18x26”
Windswept Memorial: Pompeii Piazza 18x26”
*
straw, feathers, dust —
little things
but if they all go one way,
that's the way the wind goes.
William Stafford
Combines
In the Woods
The Persephone Series
Please visit Symmetrical Windswept Landscapes & Memorials
See also: The Meadow Series 2008-ongoing
Welcome Page to The Departing Landscape website which includes the complete hyperlinked listing of my online photography projects dating back to the 1960's, my resume, contact information, and more.
,
Combines
In the Woods
The Persephone Series
Please visit Symmetrical Windswept Landscapes & Memorials
See also: The Meadow Series 2008-ongoing
Welcome Page to The Departing Landscape website which includes the complete hyperlinked listing of my online photography projects dating back to the 1960's, my resume, contact information, and more.
,