Having spent more time outdoors recently than I usually get a chance to, I’ve become intrigued by this time of year in between fall and winter. Everything feels like it’s readying itself for winter, and there is what I believe to be a neat aesthetic to the season. I think that it would be interesting to document the transition from this period in to winter itself. I would like to experiment a bit more with a different photographic medium – medium format color film taken via a Holga. I have always liked how when shooting with a Holga, you have less control than usual and you don’t know what you will get until you see the image. Furthermore, I think that formally, the light leaks and vignette effect common to Holgas will introduce an interesting dynamic to the theme of this project. I would like to shoot scenes of nature mostly, such as the coastline, woods, or farmland, but it may also be neat to contrast this with more urban scenes – to contrast brittle November nature with scenes of urban decay.
I have always liked this time of year. It reminds of when I was a kid and school had started but each afternoon I would be out running around my neighborhood with my two best neighborhood friends. The sun would go down a lot sooner after Daylight's Savings, and I can remember my Mom coming out into the yard and calling me in for dinner. My friends and I would continue to play, using dusk to avoid be caught by my Mom and by dinner, until the very last possible moment and I would finally sprint inside so as not to get in trouble. I would arrive at the dinner table panting and colder than I realized. and very happy.
"I prefer winter and fall, when you can feel the bone structure in the landscape---the lonliness of it---the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it---the whole story dosen't show. I think anything like that, which is contemplative, silent, shows a person alone – people always feel sad. Is it because we have lost the art of being alone?”
- Letter to Richard Merryman by Andrew Wyeth, May 14, 1965
“…it has gradually turned colder, the sun is gone and a wind is rising. A grey layer of cloud floats across the sky like a duvet, the last strip of blue is being pushed against the eastern ridge and disappears.”
- Excerpt from Out Stealing Horses, by Per Petterson
Pieces of music I associate with the theme:
Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles) - Arcade Fire
The Wolves (Act I and II) - Bon Iver
All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands - Sufjan Stevens
Paintings I associate with this theme:
"Long Limbs" Andrew Wyeth. 1999.
"Maple Leaves" Andrew Wyeth. 1974.
"Pennsylvania Landscape" Andrew Wyeth. 1941.
Photographs I associate with this theme:
Untitled. Matt Callow.
