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ART OF THE LANDSCAPE
PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGES & ESSAYS
Click on an image to view it in full and read its description.
Ascent into Morning
Morning speaks to the great blue heron’s reputation for humility and steadiness, a trait missing in our world presently; the heron standing in sublime contrast to Icarus who, for his tragic hubris, flew into the sun on wings of wax.
This image, taken in 2007, languished in my files until rediscovered and first published in 2020. I thought in this time of grave sadness and anxiety others might benefit from the symbolism of the heron. Metaphorically, to me at least, the wings of the great bird lift us steadily, resolutely into the light.
I recall the cool fog of that August morning twilight, standing in the marsh, listening to the landscape awaken. Then came the croaking shriek of a great blue heron and the world around me falling silent. This heron, this old soul here from antiquity, unfurling and primordial as he launched across the water into the new day echoed Longfellow’s evocative first lines from Evangeline, “This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and hemlocks … standing like Druids of eld with voices sad and prophetic … speaks, and in actions disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.”
It will be some time before I am able to process this image into language fully, but I can say that the experience, alone in the marsh as the world awoke around me, had a profound bearing on my sense of time and place, connecting with the natural world if only for a moment and allowing me to be anywhere and everywhere.
This great bird flies from one dimension to another, in its ancient form a vestige of the past flying into light. And so, I take its transit from darkness into a rising sun to auger favorably for our future.
Year: 2007
Location: Aurora, Ohio
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
This image, taken in 2007, languished in my files until rediscovered and first published in 2020. I thought in this time of grave sadness and anxiety others might benefit from the symbolism of the heron. Metaphorically, to me at least, the wings of the great bird lift us steadily, resolutely into the light.
I recall the cool fog of that August morning twilight, standing in the marsh, listening to the landscape awaken. Then came the croaking shriek of a great blue heron and the world around me falling silent. This heron, this old soul here from antiquity, unfurling and primordial as he launched across the water into the new day echoed Longfellow’s evocative first lines from Evangeline, “This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and hemlocks … standing like Druids of eld with voices sad and prophetic … speaks, and in actions disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.”
It will be some time before I am able to process this image into language fully, but I can say that the experience, alone in the marsh as the world awoke around me, had a profound bearing on my sense of time and place, connecting with the natural world if only for a moment and allowing me to be anywhere and everywhere.
This great bird flies from one dimension to another, in its ancient form a vestige of the past flying into light. And so, I take its transit from darkness into a rising sun to auger favorably for our future.
Year: 2007
Location: Aurora, Ohio
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
August Dawn, Schweitzer Marsh
Facing east toward the rising sun I had only a moment to capture what has become one of my favorite images of Schweitzer Marsh. A strong storm and high-pressure system had come through after midnight blowing out the humidity, yielding clear skies. The colors had an uncommon effulgence.
The marsh lies in the remote northwest quarter of the Tinker’s Creek watershed in Aurora, an area bisected by Old Mill Road. It has grounded me in times of both deep sorrow and wondrous solitude. It has been my “still point” suspending time as I look through the camera’s lens. I return to this place many times each season, usually an hour before the sun rises when I can watch and listen as the world awakens around me. The scene is repeated throughout Northeast Ohio and throughout the seasons in a variety of locations. Unfortunately, the magnificent scenery and healing “spots of time” too often go unnoticed in our quotidian lives. The breathtaking beauty of our landscapes must never be forgotten as we think about the region’s natural assets.
Year: 2008
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
The marsh lies in the remote northwest quarter of the Tinker’s Creek watershed in Aurora, an area bisected by Old Mill Road. It has grounded me in times of both deep sorrow and wondrous solitude. It has been my “still point” suspending time as I look through the camera’s lens. I return to this place many times each season, usually an hour before the sun rises when I can watch and listen as the world awakens around me. The scene is repeated throughout Northeast Ohio and throughout the seasons in a variety of locations. Unfortunately, the magnificent scenery and healing “spots of time” too often go unnoticed in our quotidian lives. The breathtaking beauty of our landscapes must never be forgotten as we think about the region’s natural assets.
Year: 2008
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
Still Point
In early 2020, I came upon a remote, mostly obscured alcove late one January afternoon near the north shore of Schweitzer Marsh. Low-lying water studded with sedge, marsh reeds and mirrored reflections created this surreal scene of points, circles, spheres, angular reeds, even a half-submerged lily pad, all seemingly in some form of geometric alignment.
Friends have queried the origin of the name “Still Point,” both as the title for this image as well as the name of our gallery. I’m finally providing an explanation and some comments, especially as they relate to the value of the photographic process as a way to better understand our choice of name.
“Still Point” derives, at least in the context of how my wife, Kate, and I think about it, from T.S. Eliot who chose those words to illustrate a concept for his poem, “Burnt Norton,” the first from his collection of “Four Quartets” and the one in which he explores the metaphysics of time … past, future and present. We named our gallery “Still Point” in eponymous tribute to Eliot’s poem and his beautifully metaphoric lines. The visual elements in the photograph resonate strongly with his timeless use of the term. Relevant lines from the poem are provided below.
“At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.”
Over the years a frequent goal has been to observe and capture landscape images that illustrate the dimensions of “stillness” that Eliot explores. As a photographer, it has been important to recognize the paradox of the landscape as evolving and transforming while remaining motionless — sharing physical and metaphysical realities of time and space. Photography provides not only a means to observe this contradiction but through images to amplify sentience in the stillness of our temporal world.
“Still” and “stillness,” are problematic insomuch as they evoke silence and serenity, they also imply a sense of stasis, a state existing outside the world of movement and change. It is less about stillness in the context of motion than stillness in the context of time — stillness as continuity, as a point of reference. This is the stillness that centers life, that allows us to order our relationships to a turbulent world.
Returning continually to the same places each year and each season, I’ve had the good fortune to experience almost every weather condition and imaginable light in northeast Ohio, as well as the region’s infinite range of sights and sounds, even its variety of earthly fragrances. Over many years looking through a camera’s viewfinder one develops an intimacy with the environment such that the world is “stilled.” During these moments, moving from one world into another (or perhaps simply deeper into the first), all is suspended — sound, motion, even time. Scenery never ceases to change, as change remains constant.
Ultimately the viewer will make his or her own judgment as to the relevance and merit of a photograph or any work of art. In some respect, I am ambivalent about providing too much context fearing it will color perceptions, undermining individual experience and the associative memories that have the potential to reward each of us differently.
“At the still point of the turning world … there the dance is.” —T.S. Eliot
Year: 2020
Location: Aurora, Ohio
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 23"
Friends have queried the origin of the name “Still Point,” both as the title for this image as well as the name of our gallery. I’m finally providing an explanation and some comments, especially as they relate to the value of the photographic process as a way to better understand our choice of name.
“Still Point” derives, at least in the context of how my wife, Kate, and I think about it, from T.S. Eliot who chose those words to illustrate a concept for his poem, “Burnt Norton,” the first from his collection of “Four Quartets” and the one in which he explores the metaphysics of time … past, future and present. We named our gallery “Still Point” in eponymous tribute to Eliot’s poem and his beautifully metaphoric lines. The visual elements in the photograph resonate strongly with his timeless use of the term. Relevant lines from the poem are provided below.
“At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.”
Over the years a frequent goal has been to observe and capture landscape images that illustrate the dimensions of “stillness” that Eliot explores. As a photographer, it has been important to recognize the paradox of the landscape as evolving and transforming while remaining motionless — sharing physical and metaphysical realities of time and space. Photography provides not only a means to observe this contradiction but through images to amplify sentience in the stillness of our temporal world.
“Still” and “stillness,” are problematic insomuch as they evoke silence and serenity, they also imply a sense of stasis, a state existing outside the world of movement and change. It is less about stillness in the context of motion than stillness in the context of time — stillness as continuity, as a point of reference. This is the stillness that centers life, that allows us to order our relationships to a turbulent world.
Returning continually to the same places each year and each season, I’ve had the good fortune to experience almost every weather condition and imaginable light in northeast Ohio, as well as the region’s infinite range of sights and sounds, even its variety of earthly fragrances. Over many years looking through a camera’s viewfinder one develops an intimacy with the environment such that the world is “stilled.” During these moments, moving from one world into another (or perhaps simply deeper into the first), all is suspended — sound, motion, even time. Scenery never ceases to change, as change remains constant.
Ultimately the viewer will make his or her own judgment as to the relevance and merit of a photograph or any work of art. In some respect, I am ambivalent about providing too much context fearing it will color perceptions, undermining individual experience and the associative memories that have the potential to reward each of us differently.
“At the still point of the turning world … there the dance is.” —T.S. Eliot
Year: 2020
Location: Aurora, Ohio
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 23"
Autumn Rails II
Captured moments before dawn, November 7, 2012, a small hawthorn stands in relief (not unlike a painter’s gesture) to the morning fog.
This is an example of early morning blue light that permeates northeastern Ohio’s landscapes beginning in early November. For me, this scene of solitude inspires mystery, awe and an ineffable tranquility.
Year: 2012
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
This is an example of early morning blue light that permeates northeastern Ohio’s landscapes beginning in early November. For me, this scene of solitude inspires mystery, awe and an ineffable tranquility.
Year: 2012
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
Awaiting a New Day
Two weeks after my father’s death, I picked my way through the moonless black of predawn along the north end of Schweitzer Marsh. The early hour, made even less visible by dense April fog, weighed on the land and spirit. The mist was heavy, and I had only to blink my eyes to know it was there.
My first encounter with grief and I had chosen to come to the place that had illuminated “the way home” in other difficult times in my life. I really had no expectation for answers that morning, not even a sense of what I was searching for … only an indistinct hope the marsh might provide some direction, a means to cope perhaps, as it had lifted my spirits on occasion with a glimpse of wildlife or conferred the favor of the landscape when least expected.
Slowly, imperceptibly, light was revealing form. A heron appeared above the fog, perched in a pin oak, looking east, waiting for the new day.
Year: 2006
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 11" x 16"
My first encounter with grief and I had chosen to come to the place that had illuminated “the way home” in other difficult times in my life. I really had no expectation for answers that morning, not even a sense of what I was searching for … only an indistinct hope the marsh might provide some direction, a means to cope perhaps, as it had lifted my spirits on occasion with a glimpse of wildlife or conferred the favor of the landscape when least expected.
Slowly, imperceptibly, light was revealing form. A heron appeared above the fog, perched in a pin oak, looking east, waiting for the new day.
Year: 2006
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 11" x 16"
In Praise of a Rising Sun
Shortly after 4:30 a.m., May 26, 2006, I arrived at Schweitzer Marsh to “bear witness” to another sunrise. At the time I calculated I’d seen 200 or more sunrises and perhaps only a score of sunsets over the 60 years that I’d visited the marsh. Each was remarkable for its singular beauty and each has added immeasurably to my reverence for nature.
By contrast, a setting sun has an aesthetic brilliance as well, but for all its dramatic color at the end of day our star has gone mostly unnoticed and under appreciated as it transited the sky; a quotidian fixture languishing above until its abrupt conclusion, sliding silently away, its fire and birdsong disappearing with it into night.
For me, a sunset represents resignation, even death, an epilogue to the long day … to life — possessing a secular predictability, a sameness, almost an afterthought in contrast to the numinosity of the rising sun heralding the mystery of life.
Looking east across the marsh, this indelible morning began in the dark of night as I made my way along the west bank through buttonbush, rush and reed to its northern corner. The path, if not particularly worn, was well known to me as I’ve traveled it frequently, often in a soporific state I confess. As I positioned myself and the camera I had yet to see the reflection of water no more than a few feet in front of me. Shortly after 5:00 a.m. its surface or possibly its illusion appeared, however, it was not until hearing the “check, check, check” call of a red-winged blackbird that I knew with certainty twilight had begun.
The real magic begins as trees and brush slowly become visible. After another 30 minutes passed the first of the Canada geese joined in with the red-winged blackbirds and spring peepers and the marsh came alive beneath the momentarily colorless, opaque sky.
Beyond and above the shrill dissonance, came the terrifying croak of a Great Blue Heron proclaiming itself as the sun pierced the horizon. In that moment, the entire marsh fell silent, engulfed with flashing, effulgent, red and orange light, a fire sweeping the landscape. Those who have witnessed such moments can never be unchanged. Terror and wonder and reverence at once.
So I leave you with one of my favorite images. After the sun rose that morning and the chorus of birds and peepers fell silent, a lone red-winged blackbird perched atop a long dead pin oak, announced his existence and joy for the new day.
In many ways this is my elegy to Schweitzer Marsh, especially for those of you who have followed and assisted in preserving this small, remote wilderness. The Wheeling & Lake Erie railroad effectively drained the wetland over a year ago and can not be persuaded by law or through conservation to reverse their actions. Autumn and spring migrations have ceased, the blackbirds have moved on and only a small rivulet runs tortuously over fields of dead sedge. As John Keats lamented in his famous ballad, “La Belle Dame sans Merci,” just over 200 years ago, “The sedge has withered … and no birds sing.”
Year: 2009
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Limited Edition of 50
Dimensions: 13" x 19.5"
~
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
By contrast, a setting sun has an aesthetic brilliance as well, but for all its dramatic color at the end of day our star has gone mostly unnoticed and under appreciated as it transited the sky; a quotidian fixture languishing above until its abrupt conclusion, sliding silently away, its fire and birdsong disappearing with it into night.
For me, a sunset represents resignation, even death, an epilogue to the long day … to life — possessing a secular predictability, a sameness, almost an afterthought in contrast to the numinosity of the rising sun heralding the mystery of life.
Looking east across the marsh, this indelible morning began in the dark of night as I made my way along the west bank through buttonbush, rush and reed to its northern corner. The path, if not particularly worn, was well known to me as I’ve traveled it frequently, often in a soporific state I confess. As I positioned myself and the camera I had yet to see the reflection of water no more than a few feet in front of me. Shortly after 5:00 a.m. its surface or possibly its illusion appeared, however, it was not until hearing the “check, check, check” call of a red-winged blackbird that I knew with certainty twilight had begun.
The real magic begins as trees and brush slowly become visible. After another 30 minutes passed the first of the Canada geese joined in with the red-winged blackbirds and spring peepers and the marsh came alive beneath the momentarily colorless, opaque sky.
Beyond and above the shrill dissonance, came the terrifying croak of a Great Blue Heron proclaiming itself as the sun pierced the horizon. In that moment, the entire marsh fell silent, engulfed with flashing, effulgent, red and orange light, a fire sweeping the landscape. Those who have witnessed such moments can never be unchanged. Terror and wonder and reverence at once.
So I leave you with one of my favorite images. After the sun rose that morning and the chorus of birds and peepers fell silent, a lone red-winged blackbird perched atop a long dead pin oak, announced his existence and joy for the new day.
In many ways this is my elegy to Schweitzer Marsh, especially for those of you who have followed and assisted in preserving this small, remote wilderness. The Wheeling & Lake Erie railroad effectively drained the wetland over a year ago and can not be persuaded by law or through conservation to reverse their actions. Autumn and spring migrations have ceased, the blackbirds have moved on and only a small rivulet runs tortuously over fields of dead sedge. As John Keats lamented in his famous ballad, “La Belle Dame sans Merci,” just over 200 years ago, “The sedge has withered … and no birds sing.”
Year: 2009
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Limited Edition of 50
Dimensions: 13" x 19.5"
~
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
A Dream Perhaps
“Death came for me
In the dark of an early winter’s morning.
Gently, she took me along a path
Leading in the direction of a distant cottage.
No incarnate form or hooded manifestation,
Only her presence nearby to lead me
Beside the dark, meandering, indecipherable river.
Illuminated by the light of night only,
The path, hard pack, traced the river’s contours,
Its water running smooth, almost still, slow and black
But for the reflected shimmer of morning stars.
In the distance a cottage, trimmed in lichen,
Seductive and filled with the regret
Of those who had passed.
And night’s end now approaching,
Ahead, cloaked in shifting mist,
A dim carriage light aside the cottage door.
Faint chimes beyond, insistent.
Abruptly, an unspoken urgency to return … now
… chimes fading, distant, fading, fading,
A silent lament beyond the bed, beyond sleep,
A dream perhaps.”
Year: 2019
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 11" x 16.5"
In the dark of an early winter’s morning.
Gently, she took me along a path
Leading in the direction of a distant cottage.
No incarnate form or hooded manifestation,
Only her presence nearby to lead me
Beside the dark, meandering, indecipherable river.
Illuminated by the light of night only,
The path, hard pack, traced the river’s contours,
Its water running smooth, almost still, slow and black
But for the reflected shimmer of morning stars.
In the distance a cottage, trimmed in lichen,
Seductive and filled with the regret
Of those who had passed.
And night’s end now approaching,
Ahead, cloaked in shifting mist,
A dim carriage light aside the cottage door.
Faint chimes beyond, insistent.
Abruptly, an unspoken urgency to return … now
… chimes fading, distant, fading, fading,
A silent lament beyond the bed, beyond sleep,
A dream perhaps.”
Year: 2019
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 11" x 16.5"
Moonlight Sycamore
This image was taken almost a year ago but recovered only recently.
Saturday, April 12, 2025, was the occasion of the Pink Moon (or Paschal Full Moon) signaling the arrival of Easter the following Sunday. My original intention to photograph moonrise at Squire Valleevue Farm that evening was thwarted by a cloud layer. Skies cleared later that night, however, so I decided to attempt a photograph of Squire’s great cottonwood tree as the moon was setting behind it before sunrise. Unfortunately, the entrance to the farm was blocked at 4:00 a.m. so I proceeded down the hill to Chagrin River road under the bright light of the moon.
Approaching the intersection of River and Fairmount roads, an otherworldly view of sycamores stood in relief against the eastern slope of the Chagrin escarpment. Rising above the river, the trees, effulgent with moonlight, almost vibrating, were luminescent.
As I view it now, I am also struck by the prominence of bushes and brambles — barberry, buckthorn, witch hazel and such, visible only for a brief period in the forest’s understory, a prolepsis of spring before the forest’s canopy unfurls in hues of yellow and green.
Year: 2025
Location: Hunting Valley
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 19.5" x 13"
Saturday, April 12, 2025, was the occasion of the Pink Moon (or Paschal Full Moon) signaling the arrival of Easter the following Sunday. My original intention to photograph moonrise at Squire Valleevue Farm that evening was thwarted by a cloud layer. Skies cleared later that night, however, so I decided to attempt a photograph of Squire’s great cottonwood tree as the moon was setting behind it before sunrise. Unfortunately, the entrance to the farm was blocked at 4:00 a.m. so I proceeded down the hill to Chagrin River road under the bright light of the moon.
Approaching the intersection of River and Fairmount roads, an otherworldly view of sycamores stood in relief against the eastern slope of the Chagrin escarpment. Rising above the river, the trees, effulgent with moonlight, almost vibrating, were luminescent.
As I view it now, I am also struck by the prominence of bushes and brambles — barberry, buckthorn, witch hazel and such, visible only for a brief period in the forest’s understory, a prolepsis of spring before the forest’s canopy unfurls in hues of yellow and green.
Year: 2025
Location: Hunting Valley
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 19.5" x 13"
Canto XXXI
Descending inexorably, with scant compassion, an Arctic front and accompanying blizzard seized northeast Ohio the 25th of January, 2026. Along its merciless track, a quarter mile east of the intersection of Fairmount and River Road, a dance was playing out behind horizontal waves of blowing snow, obscuring and revealing at once the heavily forested eastern escarpment that climbs almost 600 feet above the banks of the Chagrin River. This precipitous, inaccessible slope has remained void of human intrusion for at least 200 years, since the founding of the rural village of Chagrin Falls. Now, only a few narrow animal trails transit the steep incline.
During winter the forest floor is made visible and prey to the attention of intrepid observers. The other three seasons, it remains a cloistered, unbroken canopy of oak, maple, sycamore, beech, cherry and ash. Redbud, pawpaw and flowering dogwood, are the principal denizens of its understory, making a brief appearance each spring. Beyond the deciduous forest, conifer spires stipple the slope with spruce, white pine, hemlock and cedar.
I confess, the verdant beauty of spring and summer and the brilliant, multicolored patchwork of autumn have less hold on me than the spare monochromatic landscape that appears by early December. I return often to Andrew Wyeth’s observation reminding me of winter’s mystery.
“I prefer winter and fall when you feel the bone structure of the landscape — the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn’t show.”
The image pictured here was fortuitous, revealing itself only briefly when the snow subsided for a moment, a gift from the landscape as I took it, perhaps acknowledging my reverence for the mysteries of the forest. This stalwart American sycamore, encircled by a cluster of ancient black oaks, all likely have stood since the early 19th century. The wind-driven snow this day had the ironic effect of revealing form, black oaks revolving counterclockwise, limbs like human arms, gesticulating and sinister, outstretched in some pagan rite. Later it struck me as reminiscent of a 12th century Sufi dance, whirling dervishes as Rumi created them, spinning counterclockwise around a Celebi, uniting earth with heaven in prayer. Or similarly, to the more recent Eastern European, Hasidic dance, its followers constellating in a circle around a Sheba or Rabbi, praying for unity. I have since, however, regarded the scene as beatific, akin to one of Gustav Dore’s famous illustrations, “Canto XXXI, the Paradiso,” poetry composed by Dante in the early 14th century, famously illustrated 500 years later.
There are so many ways to see and interpret this scene that I leave that to the viewer to draw a conclusion.
Year: 2025
Location: Chagrin Falls Escarpment, Hunting Valley, Ohio
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
During winter the forest floor is made visible and prey to the attention of intrepid observers. The other three seasons, it remains a cloistered, unbroken canopy of oak, maple, sycamore, beech, cherry and ash. Redbud, pawpaw and flowering dogwood, are the principal denizens of its understory, making a brief appearance each spring. Beyond the deciduous forest, conifer spires stipple the slope with spruce, white pine, hemlock and cedar.
I confess, the verdant beauty of spring and summer and the brilliant, multicolored patchwork of autumn have less hold on me than the spare monochromatic landscape that appears by early December. I return often to Andrew Wyeth’s observation reminding me of winter’s mystery.
“I prefer winter and fall when you feel the bone structure of the landscape — the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn’t show.”
The image pictured here was fortuitous, revealing itself only briefly when the snow subsided for a moment, a gift from the landscape as I took it, perhaps acknowledging my reverence for the mysteries of the forest. This stalwart American sycamore, encircled by a cluster of ancient black oaks, all likely have stood since the early 19th century. The wind-driven snow this day had the ironic effect of revealing form, black oaks revolving counterclockwise, limbs like human arms, gesticulating and sinister, outstretched in some pagan rite. Later it struck me as reminiscent of a 12th century Sufi dance, whirling dervishes as Rumi created them, spinning counterclockwise around a Celebi, uniting earth with heaven in prayer. Or similarly, to the more recent Eastern European, Hasidic dance, its followers constellating in a circle around a Sheba or Rabbi, praying for unity. I have since, however, regarded the scene as beatific, akin to one of Gustav Dore’s famous illustrations, “Canto XXXI, the Paradiso,” poetry composed by Dante in the early 14th century, famously illustrated 500 years later.
There are so many ways to see and interpret this scene that I leave that to the viewer to draw a conclusion.
Year: 2025
Location: Chagrin Falls Escarpment, Hunting Valley, Ohio
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
Frederick Werner Farm, Leelanau County, Michigan
On a spring morning in 2025, Kate and I had a rare day of perfect weather hiking the Frederick Werner property perched along the bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan in the small rural community of Port Oneida. Mr. Werner, the second settler of the area, an immigrant from Hanover, Germany, arrived in Leelanau County in 1855.
As sublimely beautiful as the landscape is, these were subsistence farms that required residents to augment their income through logging, blacksmithing, construction and the trade of goods and services.
Pyramid Point, a 350-foot bluff overlooking Lake Michigan is less than a mile north, its coastline forming the western border of the Werner farm, itself situated on a bluff 200 feet above the lake. The barn was completed over the first couple of years followed by apple orchards and a grove of black locust trees planted along with the few crops like potatoes that would grow in sandy, nutrient deprived, glacial soil.
Most striking was the rolling sweep of the land, dunes once heavily forested, now carpeted in foxtail grass. West winds rising off the lake, over the bluffs, carrying with them the susurrating rhythm of water lapping the shore, continuing on in mirrored ripples across the grass meadows in early spring hues of lime and forest green, dissolving in and out of one another with each gust of wind.
Accompanying the beauty of the land, one also senses the privation of the past, a feeling of mystery and melancholy that drifts over the property.
Beauty here resides as much in the evocation of emotions as the landscape’s aesthetic. It was this feeling of yearning for a past that will never return (elements of saudade) that prompted me to take this photograph as Kate returned from a hike crossing the grassy meadow.
The composition, rendered in both color and black and white, seems to capture the character of the place in the way neither might independently.
Year: 2025
Location: Leelanau County, Michigan
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
As sublimely beautiful as the landscape is, these were subsistence farms that required residents to augment their income through logging, blacksmithing, construction and the trade of goods and services.
Pyramid Point, a 350-foot bluff overlooking Lake Michigan is less than a mile north, its coastline forming the western border of the Werner farm, itself situated on a bluff 200 feet above the lake. The barn was completed over the first couple of years followed by apple orchards and a grove of black locust trees planted along with the few crops like potatoes that would grow in sandy, nutrient deprived, glacial soil.
Most striking was the rolling sweep of the land, dunes once heavily forested, now carpeted in foxtail grass. West winds rising off the lake, over the bluffs, carrying with them the susurrating rhythm of water lapping the shore, continuing on in mirrored ripples across the grass meadows in early spring hues of lime and forest green, dissolving in and out of one another with each gust of wind.
Accompanying the beauty of the land, one also senses the privation of the past, a feeling of mystery and melancholy that drifts over the property.
Beauty here resides as much in the evocation of emotions as the landscape’s aesthetic. It was this feeling of yearning for a past that will never return (elements of saudade) that prompted me to take this photograph as Kate returned from a hike crossing the grassy meadow.
The composition, rendered in both color and black and white, seems to capture the character of the place in the way neither might independently.
Year: 2025
Location: Leelanau County, Michigan
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
November Cottonwood
Eastern cottonwood are fast growing, native North American trees found in the midwest, often rising over 100 feet. And bittersweet, apart from its stunning color and iconic beauty, is to be found in the wake of its destruction, in the “impermanence” it brings to the landscape; a paradox to our western aesthetic that seeks wholeness and immutability. In nature, beauty often accompanies death, quietly, inexorably.
Consider this vine, its autumn beauty spreading deliberately, insidiously, along the margins of northeast Ohio’s hardwood forests. For bittersweet, the act of commingling with the cottonwood seems less a random desire than a living imperative, sustaining itself as it does by robbing its host of light and nutrients. And any suggestion of symbiosis or benign reciprocity between vine and tree is illusory only.
“Said the Bittersweet to the Cottonwood
Dear Eros, I come to help, to salve your wrinkles,
To temper your age, to lift your drooping face,
Your sloughing skin.
To festoon your fissured, hoary bark with beauty,
My own brand, my gold autumn leaves, and later still,
My splendorous display
Of orange calyx and coral berries.
Let me girdle your trunk with vine, encircle your limbs,
Twist and twine your branches with death’s tenebrous embrace …
Let us share the sun and your wide canopy.
Slowly, inexorably, now to become dear Thanatos,
Let me respond in kind,
Adorning you with my beauty, pulling us both to earth,
Consuming you with my love.”
Year: 2025
Location: Squire Valleevue Farm
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 19" x 12"
Consider this vine, its autumn beauty spreading deliberately, insidiously, along the margins of northeast Ohio’s hardwood forests. For bittersweet, the act of commingling with the cottonwood seems less a random desire than a living imperative, sustaining itself as it does by robbing its host of light and nutrients. And any suggestion of symbiosis or benign reciprocity between vine and tree is illusory only.
“Said the Bittersweet to the Cottonwood
Dear Eros, I come to help, to salve your wrinkles,
To temper your age, to lift your drooping face,
Your sloughing skin.
To festoon your fissured, hoary bark with beauty,
My own brand, my gold autumn leaves, and later still,
My splendorous display
Of orange calyx and coral berries.
Let me girdle your trunk with vine, encircle your limbs,
Twist and twine your branches with death’s tenebrous embrace …
Let us share the sun and your wide canopy.
Slowly, inexorably, now to become dear Thanatos,
Let me respond in kind,
Adorning you with my beauty, pulling us both to earth,
Consuming you with my love.”
Year: 2025
Location: Squire Valleevue Farm
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 19" x 12"
First Light, Suttons Bay
Sunrise brings form to the farms here in Leelanau County where the sweep of wind across the dunes is the music of antiquity. 10,000 years ago, the last glacier left deposits of quartz over a mile high, ground through the millennia to sand by the weight of an ice sheet, creating in its retreat the largest area of “lake” dunes on earth.
Mimicking undulating sine waves, continually recast by the winds, the dune fields advanced across Michigan providing a footing for timber, orchards, crops, cattle and wildlife.
Traveling through these mountainous mounds one senses the mutability of time on the landscape, like endless rhythms coalescing into an ensemble, not of time only but a harmony of the trees, grass, sand and water. Like ancient tumuli marking lives, these migrating dunes honor a continuous narrative of the past.
Year: 2010
Location: Suttons Bay, Michigan
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 15" x 23"
Mimicking undulating sine waves, continually recast by the winds, the dune fields advanced across Michigan providing a footing for timber, orchards, crops, cattle and wildlife.
Traveling through these mountainous mounds one senses the mutability of time on the landscape, like endless rhythms coalescing into an ensemble, not of time only but a harmony of the trees, grass, sand and water. Like ancient tumuli marking lives, these migrating dunes honor a continuous narrative of the past.
Year: 2010
Location: Suttons Bay, Michigan
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 15" x 23"
September
This was the rare and restive September day with uncharacteristic temerity, an abruptness and “matter of factness” foreshadowing change, where the transition of seasons is rarely subtle. Even September with its few discordant days, skies prematurely brooding and bracing and meadows awaiting the distant, renascent seasons.
And still, most of the month a contrast, a nostalgic time when tall meadow grass makes its final surge then rests weary upon itself. Blue asters, tenacious through their last days, liatris and ironweed bending reluctantly, folding and fading, their roots and rhizomes anchoring the meadow through time. I’ve often thought September in Cleveland to be a mix of memories and wistful, melancholic longings for another place or for past friends and family.
The barn, its weathered sides and growing clefts reminding us of changes ahead; each season — life’s measure and mystery.
Year: 2010
Location: Squire Valleevue Farm
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
And still, most of the month a contrast, a nostalgic time when tall meadow grass makes its final surge then rests weary upon itself. Blue asters, tenacious through their last days, liatris and ironweed bending reluctantly, folding and fading, their roots and rhizomes anchoring the meadow through time. I’ve often thought September in Cleveland to be a mix of memories and wistful, melancholic longings for another place or for past friends and family.
The barn, its weathered sides and growing clefts reminding us of changes ahead; each season — life’s measure and mystery.
Year: 2010
Location: Squire Valleevue Farm
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
Jed I
Jed is a Percheron draft horse from Fieldstone Farm Therapeutic Riding Center.
The photograph was taken as Jed lay in his stall. Early morning light poured through a small “cut-out” window just outside the picture, slightly above and to the right of his head. The space was far too tight for a tripod, so I lay directly on the floor of the stall and set the camera on his flank.
He has become as much a part of the Chagrin Valley landscape as the bucolic scenes lining Chagrin River Road. Jed also has been a central figure in solo shows at the Butler Institute, the Holden Arboretum, and the Cleveland Botanical Garden.
Year: 2008
Location: South Russell, Ohio
Edition Number: Open (unlimited)
Dimensions: 9" x 14"
The photograph was taken as Jed lay in his stall. Early morning light poured through a small “cut-out” window just outside the picture, slightly above and to the right of his head. The space was far too tight for a tripod, so I lay directly on the floor of the stall and set the camera on his flank.
He has become as much a part of the Chagrin Valley landscape as the bucolic scenes lining Chagrin River Road. Jed also has been a central figure in solo shows at the Butler Institute, the Holden Arboretum, and the Cleveland Botanical Garden.
Year: 2008
Location: South Russell, Ohio
Edition Number: Open (unlimited)
Dimensions: 9" x 14"
Rapture at Daybreak
Arriving at Schweitzer Marsh on a cool March morning I made my way along a short trail to the western shore, my eyes adjusting to the eastern veil of gray blending with the water. In an act of courage, each spring the first lily shoots pierce the surface. Ringed in crystal velum, ascendant lilies are often choked by the thin membranes of ice that film the surface of the marsh every March.
Ice had melted the previous day enabling the migrating strings of geese and ducks to drop-in to feed, some to nest, others to continue on. Yet, late night still, before morning twilight returned the dull color to the landscape, I watched alone from the shore as a wild goose floated silently in flat still water, motionless in his own reflection, his morning reverie one of mystery and metaphor. I could only speculate about his ruminations, how they weighed upon him, his thoughts of loss or regret perhaps, or the elation of solitude elevating his thoughts or even some instinctive pull that drew him to the far end.
He made not a visible move, not a paddle, as the still marsh cradled him in place. Looking back but also within, he gazed past a distant raft of ducks and further still, past hoary pin oaks their high watermarks faintly visible, through sleeping flocks, past islands of sedge and rush and earthy peat, once a birth nest, even beyond the tree line of towering white oak, into the gunmetal sky before morning twilight. How rich the solitude.
“In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.”
—Albert Camus
Year: 2010
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 11" x 16.5"
Ice had melted the previous day enabling the migrating strings of geese and ducks to drop-in to feed, some to nest, others to continue on. Yet, late night still, before morning twilight returned the dull color to the landscape, I watched alone from the shore as a wild goose floated silently in flat still water, motionless in his own reflection, his morning reverie one of mystery and metaphor. I could only speculate about his ruminations, how they weighed upon him, his thoughts of loss or regret perhaps, or the elation of solitude elevating his thoughts or even some instinctive pull that drew him to the far end.
He made not a visible move, not a paddle, as the still marsh cradled him in place. Looking back but also within, he gazed past a distant raft of ducks and further still, past hoary pin oaks their high watermarks faintly visible, through sleeping flocks, past islands of sedge and rush and earthy peat, once a birth nest, even beyond the tree line of towering white oak, into the gunmetal sky before morning twilight. How rich the solitude.
“In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.”
—Albert Camus
Year: 2010
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 11" x 16.5"
Live by the Sword ... Cooper’s Hawk and Starling
Bastardized blithely into proverb (“Live by the sword, die by the sword”), the Gospel of Matthew speaks with preternatural relevance to starlings, the beautiful scourge of birds highlighted in a recent essay of mine.
I confess to anthropomorphizing birds too frequently, imputing human characteristics and making judgments as to their elegance as well as their moral failings.
Observed closely, at least in the context of the Western aesthetic, starlings are beautiful creatures, not only for their subtle iridescent hues and physical form, but for their aerobatic formations known as murmurations. They are, however, notoriously predatory, feeding on other birds’ eggs and offspring and displacing resident birds in their domination of available food.
Today I filled our feeder and watched as starlings bullied sparrows and songbirds, consuming the easy seed, scattering only shells and husks for the meek below. Inexplicably, in an instant, the mix of birds exploded from the ground, from the feeder, the surrounding trees and bushes, but for one preoccupied starling, falling prey in a brief moment, impaled on talons, staring into the dark, murderous maw of a Cooper’s hawk.
This photograph marked not more than three minutes from the time of death. In profound, horrific moments, the starling’s breast plucked clean, her body warm and eviscerated, was commemorated only by entrails cast upon the snow. The sublime well may lie at the intersection of awe inspiring beauty and nature’s savage terror.
Draw as you will a moral.
Year: 2022
Location: Cleveland Heights, Ohio
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 15.5" x 23"
I confess to anthropomorphizing birds too frequently, imputing human characteristics and making judgments as to their elegance as well as their moral failings.
Observed closely, at least in the context of the Western aesthetic, starlings are beautiful creatures, not only for their subtle iridescent hues and physical form, but for their aerobatic formations known as murmurations. They are, however, notoriously predatory, feeding on other birds’ eggs and offspring and displacing resident birds in their domination of available food.
Today I filled our feeder and watched as starlings bullied sparrows and songbirds, consuming the easy seed, scattering only shells and husks for the meek below. Inexplicably, in an instant, the mix of birds exploded from the ground, from the feeder, the surrounding trees and bushes, but for one preoccupied starling, falling prey in a brief moment, impaled on talons, staring into the dark, murderous maw of a Cooper’s hawk.
This photograph marked not more than three minutes from the time of death. In profound, horrific moments, the starling’s breast plucked clean, her body warm and eviscerated, was commemorated only by entrails cast upon the snow. The sublime well may lie at the intersection of awe inspiring beauty and nature’s savage terror.
Draw as you will a moral.
Year: 2022
Location: Cleveland Heights, Ohio
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 15.5" x 23"
Blackbird and Goose at Sunrise
I had forgotten about this image until coming across it last night (June 2019). As with so many of our photographs, memories lie beneath the surface until uncovered, sometimes years later, flooding our consciousness with recollections of the moment and occasionally new insights.
In this case I remember what struck me most about the moment was less the solitude than the sense of community between the pair. Having one another, neither bird was alone that morning. The red-winged blackbird’s morning song, a chorus of melodic chimes, commenced about fifteen minutes before the sun rose. Almost on cue, the Canada goose responded with a short honk and a tapering cackle as a coda to complete each song. The sun rose through pink haze. I still cherish that morning.
Year: 2014
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Collector’s Edition of 15
Dimensions: 13" x 19.5"
In this case I remember what struck me most about the moment was less the solitude than the sense of community between the pair. Having one another, neither bird was alone that morning. The red-winged blackbird’s morning song, a chorus of melodic chimes, commenced about fifteen minutes before the sun rose. Almost on cue, the Canada goose responded with a short honk and a tapering cackle as a coda to complete each song. The sun rose through pink haze. I still cherish that morning.
Year: 2014
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Collector’s Edition of 15
Dimensions: 13" x 19.5"
Ascent into Morning
Morning speaks to the great blue heron’s reputation for humility and steadiness, a trait missing in our world presently; the heron standing in sublime contrast to Icarus who, for his tragic hubris, flew into the sun on wings of wax.
This image, taken in 2007, languished in my files until rediscovered and first published in 2020. I thought in this time of grave sadness and anxiety others might benefit from the symbolism of the heron. Metaphorically, to me at least, the wings of the great bird lift us steadily, resolutely into the light.
I recall the cool fog of that August morning twilight, standing in the marsh, listening to the landscape awaken. Then came the croaking shriek of a great blue heron and the world around me falling silent. This heron, this old soul here from antiquity, unfurling and primordial as he launched across the water into the new day echoed Longfellow’s evocative first lines from Evangeline, “This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and hemlocks … standing like Druids of eld with voices sad and prophetic … speaks, and in actions disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.”
It will be some time before I am able to process this image into language fully, but I can say that the experience, alone in the marsh as the world awoke around me, had a profound bearing on my sense of time and place, connecting with the natural world if only for a moment and allowing me to be anywhere and everywhere.
This great bird flies from one dimension to another, in its ancient form a vestige of the past flying into light. And so, I take its transit from darkness into a rising sun to auger favorably for our future.
Year: 2007
Location: Aurora, Ohio
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
This image, taken in 2007, languished in my files until rediscovered and first published in 2020. I thought in this time of grave sadness and anxiety others might benefit from the symbolism of the heron. Metaphorically, to me at least, the wings of the great bird lift us steadily, resolutely into the light.
I recall the cool fog of that August morning twilight, standing in the marsh, listening to the landscape awaken. Then came the croaking shriek of a great blue heron and the world around me falling silent. This heron, this old soul here from antiquity, unfurling and primordial as he launched across the water into the new day echoed Longfellow’s evocative first lines from Evangeline, “This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and hemlocks … standing like Druids of eld with voices sad and prophetic … speaks, and in actions disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.”
It will be some time before I am able to process this image into language fully, but I can say that the experience, alone in the marsh as the world awoke around me, had a profound bearing on my sense of time and place, connecting with the natural world if only for a moment and allowing me to be anywhere and everywhere.
This great bird flies from one dimension to another, in its ancient form a vestige of the past flying into light. And so, I take its transit from darkness into a rising sun to auger favorably for our future.
Year: 2007
Location: Aurora, Ohio
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
August Dawn, Schweitzer Marsh
Facing east toward the rising sun I had only a moment to capture what has become one of my favorite images of Schweitzer Marsh. A strong storm and high-pressure system had come through after midnight blowing out the humidity, yielding clear skies. The colors had an uncommon effulgence.
The marsh lies in the remote northwest quarter of the Tinker’s Creek watershed in Aurora, an area bisected by Old Mill Road. It has grounded me in times of both deep sorrow and wondrous solitude. It has been my “still point” suspending time as I look through the camera’s lens. I return to this place many times each season, usually an hour before the sun rises when I can watch and listen as the world awakens around me. The scene is repeated throughout Northeast Ohio and throughout the seasons in a variety of locations. Unfortunately, the magnificent scenery and healing “spots of time” too often go unnoticed in our quotidian lives. The breathtaking beauty of our landscapes must never be forgotten as we think about the region’s natural assets.
Year: 2008
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
The marsh lies in the remote northwest quarter of the Tinker’s Creek watershed in Aurora, an area bisected by Old Mill Road. It has grounded me in times of both deep sorrow and wondrous solitude. It has been my “still point” suspending time as I look through the camera’s lens. I return to this place many times each season, usually an hour before the sun rises when I can watch and listen as the world awakens around me. The scene is repeated throughout Northeast Ohio and throughout the seasons in a variety of locations. Unfortunately, the magnificent scenery and healing “spots of time” too often go unnoticed in our quotidian lives. The breathtaking beauty of our landscapes must never be forgotten as we think about the region’s natural assets.
Year: 2008
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
Still Point
In early 2020, I came upon a remote, mostly obscured alcove late one January afternoon near the north shore of Schweitzer Marsh. Low-lying water studded with sedge, marsh reeds and mirrored reflections created this surreal scene of points, circles, spheres, angular reeds, even a half-submerged lily pad, all seemingly in some form of geometric alignment.
Friends have queried the origin of the name “Still Point,” both as the title for this image as well as the name of our gallery. I’m finally providing an explanation and some comments, especially as they relate to the value of the photographic process as a way to better understand our choice of name.
“Still Point” derives, at least in the context of how my wife, Kate, and I think about it, from T.S. Eliot who chose those words to illustrate a concept for his poem, “Burnt Norton,” the first from his collection of “Four Quartets” and the one in which he explores the metaphysics of time … past, future and present. We named our gallery “Still Point” in eponymous tribute to Eliot’s poem and his beautifully metaphoric lines. The visual elements in the photograph resonate strongly with his timeless use of the term. Relevant lines from the poem are provided below.
“At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.”
Over the years a frequent goal has been to observe and capture landscape images that illustrate the dimensions of “stillness” that Eliot explores. As a photographer, it has been important to recognize the paradox of the landscape as evolving and transforming while remaining motionless — sharing physical and metaphysical realities of time and space. Photography provides not only a means to observe this contradiction but through images to amplify sentience in the stillness of our temporal world.
“Still” and “stillness,” are problematic insomuch as they evoke silence and serenity, they also imply a sense of stasis, a state existing outside the world of movement and change. It is less about stillness in the context of motion than stillness in the context of time — stillness as continuity, as a point of reference. This is the stillness that centers life, that allows us to order our relationships to a turbulent world.
Returning continually to the same places each year and each season, I’ve had the good fortune to experience almost every weather condition and imaginable light in northeast Ohio, as well as the region’s infinite range of sights and sounds, even its variety of earthly fragrances. Over many years looking through a camera’s viewfinder one develops an intimacy with the environment such that the world is “stilled.” During these moments, moving from one world into another (or perhaps simply deeper into the first), all is suspended — sound, motion, even time. Scenery never ceases to change, as change remains constant.
Ultimately the viewer will make his or her own judgment as to the relevance and merit of a photograph or any work of art. In some respect, I am ambivalent about providing too much context fearing it will color perceptions, undermining individual experience and the associative memories that have the potential to reward each of us differently.
“At the still point of the turning world … there the dance is.” —T.S. Eliot
Year: 2020
Location: Aurora, Ohio
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 23"
Friends have queried the origin of the name “Still Point,” both as the title for this image as well as the name of our gallery. I’m finally providing an explanation and some comments, especially as they relate to the value of the photographic process as a way to better understand our choice of name.
“Still Point” derives, at least in the context of how my wife, Kate, and I think about it, from T.S. Eliot who chose those words to illustrate a concept for his poem, “Burnt Norton,” the first from his collection of “Four Quartets” and the one in which he explores the metaphysics of time … past, future and present. We named our gallery “Still Point” in eponymous tribute to Eliot’s poem and his beautifully metaphoric lines. The visual elements in the photograph resonate strongly with his timeless use of the term. Relevant lines from the poem are provided below.
“At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.”
Over the years a frequent goal has been to observe and capture landscape images that illustrate the dimensions of “stillness” that Eliot explores. As a photographer, it has been important to recognize the paradox of the landscape as evolving and transforming while remaining motionless — sharing physical and metaphysical realities of time and space. Photography provides not only a means to observe this contradiction but through images to amplify sentience in the stillness of our temporal world.
“Still” and “stillness,” are problematic insomuch as they evoke silence and serenity, they also imply a sense of stasis, a state existing outside the world of movement and change. It is less about stillness in the context of motion than stillness in the context of time — stillness as continuity, as a point of reference. This is the stillness that centers life, that allows us to order our relationships to a turbulent world.
Returning continually to the same places each year and each season, I’ve had the good fortune to experience almost every weather condition and imaginable light in northeast Ohio, as well as the region’s infinite range of sights and sounds, even its variety of earthly fragrances. Over many years looking through a camera’s viewfinder one develops an intimacy with the environment such that the world is “stilled.” During these moments, moving from one world into another (or perhaps simply deeper into the first), all is suspended — sound, motion, even time. Scenery never ceases to change, as change remains constant.
Ultimately the viewer will make his or her own judgment as to the relevance and merit of a photograph or any work of art. In some respect, I am ambivalent about providing too much context fearing it will color perceptions, undermining individual experience and the associative memories that have the potential to reward each of us differently.
“At the still point of the turning world … there the dance is.” —T.S. Eliot
Year: 2020
Location: Aurora, Ohio
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 23"
Autumn Rails II
Captured moments before dawn, November 7, 2012, a small hawthorn stands in relief (not unlike a painter’s gesture) to the morning fog.
This is an example of early morning blue light that permeates northeastern Ohio’s landscapes beginning in early November. For me, this scene of solitude inspires mystery, awe and an ineffable tranquility.
Year: 2012
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
This is an example of early morning blue light that permeates northeastern Ohio’s landscapes beginning in early November. For me, this scene of solitude inspires mystery, awe and an ineffable tranquility.
Year: 2012
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
Awaiting a New Day
Two weeks after my father’s death, I picked my way through the moonless black of predawn along the north end of Schweitzer Marsh. The early hour, made even less visible by dense April fog, weighed on the land and spirit. The mist was heavy, and I had only to blink my eyes to know it was there.
My first encounter with grief and I had chosen to come to the place that had illuminated “the way home” in other difficult times in my life. I really had no expectation for answers that morning, not even a sense of what I was searching for … only an indistinct hope the marsh might provide some direction, a means to cope perhaps, as it had lifted my spirits on occasion with a glimpse of wildlife or conferred the favor of the landscape when least expected.
Slowly, imperceptibly, light was revealing form. A heron appeared above the fog, perched in a pin oak, looking east, waiting for the new day.
Year: 2006
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 11" x 16"
My first encounter with grief and I had chosen to come to the place that had illuminated “the way home” in other difficult times in my life. I really had no expectation for answers that morning, not even a sense of what I was searching for … only an indistinct hope the marsh might provide some direction, a means to cope perhaps, as it had lifted my spirits on occasion with a glimpse of wildlife or conferred the favor of the landscape when least expected.
Slowly, imperceptibly, light was revealing form. A heron appeared above the fog, perched in a pin oak, looking east, waiting for the new day.
Year: 2006
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 11" x 16"
In Praise of a Rising Sun
Shortly after 4:30 a.m., May 26, 2006, I arrived at Schweitzer Marsh to “bear witness” to another sunrise. At the time I calculated I’d seen 200 or more sunrises and perhaps only a score of sunsets over the 60 years that I’d visited the marsh. Each was remarkable for its singular beauty and each has added immeasurably to my reverence for nature.
By contrast, a setting sun has an aesthetic brilliance as well, but for all its dramatic color at the end of day our star has gone mostly unnoticed and under appreciated as it transited the sky; a quotidian fixture languishing above until its abrupt conclusion, sliding silently away, its fire and birdsong disappearing with it into night.
For me, a sunset represents resignation, even death, an epilogue to the long day … to life — possessing a secular predictability, a sameness, almost an afterthought in contrast to the numinosity of the rising sun heralding the mystery of life.
Looking east across the marsh, this indelible morning began in the dark of night as I made my way along the west bank through buttonbush, rush and reed to its northern corner. The path, if not particularly worn, was well known to me as I’ve traveled it frequently, often in a soporific state I confess. As I positioned myself and the camera I had yet to see the reflection of water no more than a few feet in front of me. Shortly after 5:00 a.m. its surface or possibly its illusion appeared, however, it was not until hearing the “check, check, check” call of a red-winged blackbird that I knew with certainty twilight had begun.
The real magic begins as trees and brush slowly become visible. After another 30 minutes passed the first of the Canada geese joined in with the red-winged blackbirds and spring peepers and the marsh came alive beneath the momentarily colorless, opaque sky.
Beyond and above the shrill dissonance, came the terrifying croak of a Great Blue Heron proclaiming itself as the sun pierced the horizon. In that moment, the entire marsh fell silent, engulfed with flashing, effulgent, red and orange light, a fire sweeping the landscape. Those who have witnessed such moments can never be unchanged. Terror and wonder and reverence at once.
So I leave you with one of my favorite images. After the sun rose that morning and the chorus of birds and peepers fell silent, a lone red-winged blackbird perched atop a long dead pin oak, announced his existence and joy for the new day.
In many ways this is my elegy to Schweitzer Marsh, especially for those of you who have followed and assisted in preserving this small, remote wilderness. The Wheeling & Lake Erie railroad effectively drained the wetland over a year ago and can not be persuaded by law or through conservation to reverse their actions. Autumn and spring migrations have ceased, the blackbirds have moved on and only a small rivulet runs tortuously over fields of dead sedge. As John Keats lamented in his famous ballad, “La Belle Dame sans Merci,” just over 200 years ago, “The sedge has withered … and no birds sing.”
Year: 2009
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Limited Edition of 50
Dimensions: 13" x 19.5"
~
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
By contrast, a setting sun has an aesthetic brilliance as well, but for all its dramatic color at the end of day our star has gone mostly unnoticed and under appreciated as it transited the sky; a quotidian fixture languishing above until its abrupt conclusion, sliding silently away, its fire and birdsong disappearing with it into night.
For me, a sunset represents resignation, even death, an epilogue to the long day … to life — possessing a secular predictability, a sameness, almost an afterthought in contrast to the numinosity of the rising sun heralding the mystery of life.
Looking east across the marsh, this indelible morning began in the dark of night as I made my way along the west bank through buttonbush, rush and reed to its northern corner. The path, if not particularly worn, was well known to me as I’ve traveled it frequently, often in a soporific state I confess. As I positioned myself and the camera I had yet to see the reflection of water no more than a few feet in front of me. Shortly after 5:00 a.m. its surface or possibly its illusion appeared, however, it was not until hearing the “check, check, check” call of a red-winged blackbird that I knew with certainty twilight had begun.
The real magic begins as trees and brush slowly become visible. After another 30 minutes passed the first of the Canada geese joined in with the red-winged blackbirds and spring peepers and the marsh came alive beneath the momentarily colorless, opaque sky.
Beyond and above the shrill dissonance, came the terrifying croak of a Great Blue Heron proclaiming itself as the sun pierced the horizon. In that moment, the entire marsh fell silent, engulfed with flashing, effulgent, red and orange light, a fire sweeping the landscape. Those who have witnessed such moments can never be unchanged. Terror and wonder and reverence at once.
So I leave you with one of my favorite images. After the sun rose that morning and the chorus of birds and peepers fell silent, a lone red-winged blackbird perched atop a long dead pin oak, announced his existence and joy for the new day.
In many ways this is my elegy to Schweitzer Marsh, especially for those of you who have followed and assisted in preserving this small, remote wilderness. The Wheeling & Lake Erie railroad effectively drained the wetland over a year ago and can not be persuaded by law or through conservation to reverse their actions. Autumn and spring migrations have ceased, the blackbirds have moved on and only a small rivulet runs tortuously over fields of dead sedge. As John Keats lamented in his famous ballad, “La Belle Dame sans Merci,” just over 200 years ago, “The sedge has withered … and no birds sing.”
Year: 2009
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Limited Edition of 50
Dimensions: 13" x 19.5"
~
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
A Dream Perhaps
“Death came for me
In the dark of an early winter’s morning.
Gently, she took me along a path
Leading in the direction of a distant cottage.
No incarnate form or hooded manifestation,
Only her presence nearby to lead me
Beside the dark, meandering, indecipherable river.
Illuminated by the light of night only,
The path, hard pack, traced the river’s contours,
Its water running smooth, almost still, slow and black
But for the reflected shimmer of morning stars.
In the distance a cottage, trimmed in lichen,
Seductive and filled with the regret
Of those who had passed.
And night’s end now approaching,
Ahead, cloaked in shifting mist,
A dim carriage light aside the cottage door.
Faint chimes beyond, insistent.
Abruptly, an unspoken urgency to return … now
… chimes fading, distant, fading, fading,
A silent lament beyond the bed, beyond sleep,
A dream perhaps.”
Year: 2019
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 11" x 16.5"
In the dark of an early winter’s morning.
Gently, she took me along a path
Leading in the direction of a distant cottage.
No incarnate form or hooded manifestation,
Only her presence nearby to lead me
Beside the dark, meandering, indecipherable river.
Illuminated by the light of night only,
The path, hard pack, traced the river’s contours,
Its water running smooth, almost still, slow and black
But for the reflected shimmer of morning stars.
In the distance a cottage, trimmed in lichen,
Seductive and filled with the regret
Of those who had passed.
And night’s end now approaching,
Ahead, cloaked in shifting mist,
A dim carriage light aside the cottage door.
Faint chimes beyond, insistent.
Abruptly, an unspoken urgency to return … now
… chimes fading, distant, fading, fading,
A silent lament beyond the bed, beyond sleep,
A dream perhaps.”
Year: 2019
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 11" x 16.5"
Moonlight Sycamore
This image was taken almost a year ago but recovered only recently.
Saturday, April 12, 2025, was the occasion of the Pink Moon (or Paschal Full Moon) signaling the arrival of Easter the following Sunday. My original intention to photograph moonrise at Squire Valleevue Farm that evening was thwarted by a cloud layer. Skies cleared later that night, however, so I decided to attempt a photograph of Squire’s great cottonwood tree as the moon was setting behind it before sunrise. Unfortunately, the entrance to the farm was blocked at 4:00 a.m. so I proceeded down the hill to Chagrin River road under the bright light of the moon.
Approaching the intersection of River and Fairmount roads, an otherworldly view of sycamores stood in relief against the eastern slope of the Chagrin escarpment. Rising above the river, the trees, effulgent with moonlight, almost vibrating, were luminescent.
As I view it now, I am also struck by the prominence of bushes and brambles — barberry, buckthorn, witch hazel and such, visible only for a brief period in the forest’s understory, a prolepsis of spring before the forest’s canopy unfurls in hues of yellow and green.
Year: 2025
Location: Hunting Valley
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 19.5" x 13"
Saturday, April 12, 2025, was the occasion of the Pink Moon (or Paschal Full Moon) signaling the arrival of Easter the following Sunday. My original intention to photograph moonrise at Squire Valleevue Farm that evening was thwarted by a cloud layer. Skies cleared later that night, however, so I decided to attempt a photograph of Squire’s great cottonwood tree as the moon was setting behind it before sunrise. Unfortunately, the entrance to the farm was blocked at 4:00 a.m. so I proceeded down the hill to Chagrin River road under the bright light of the moon.
Approaching the intersection of River and Fairmount roads, an otherworldly view of sycamores stood in relief against the eastern slope of the Chagrin escarpment. Rising above the river, the trees, effulgent with moonlight, almost vibrating, were luminescent.
As I view it now, I am also struck by the prominence of bushes and brambles — barberry, buckthorn, witch hazel and such, visible only for a brief period in the forest’s understory, a prolepsis of spring before the forest’s canopy unfurls in hues of yellow and green.
Year: 2025
Location: Hunting Valley
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 19.5" x 13"
Canto XXXI
Descending inexorably, with scant compassion, an Arctic front and accompanying blizzard seized northeast Ohio the 25th of January, 2026. Along its merciless track, a quarter mile east of the intersection of Fairmount and River Road, a dance was playing out behind horizontal waves of blowing snow, obscuring and revealing at once the heavily forested eastern escarpment that climbs almost 600 feet above the banks of the Chagrin River. This precipitous, inaccessible slope has remained void of human intrusion for at least 200 years, since the founding of the rural village of Chagrin Falls. Now, only a few narrow animal trails transit the steep incline.
During winter the forest floor is made visible and prey to the attention of intrepid observers. The other three seasons, it remains a cloistered, unbroken canopy of oak, maple, sycamore, beech, cherry and ash. Redbud, pawpaw and flowering dogwood, are the principal denizens of its understory, making a brief appearance each spring. Beyond the deciduous forest, conifer spires stipple the slope with spruce, white pine, hemlock and cedar.
I confess, the verdant beauty of spring and summer and the brilliant, multicolored patchwork of autumn have less hold on me than the spare monochromatic landscape that appears by early December. I return often to Andrew Wyeth’s observation reminding me of winter’s mystery.
“I prefer winter and fall when you feel the bone structure of the landscape — the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn’t show.”
The image pictured here was fortuitous, revealing itself only briefly when the snow subsided for a moment, a gift from the landscape as I took it, perhaps acknowledging my reverence for the mysteries of the forest. This stalwart American sycamore, encircled by a cluster of ancient black oaks, all likely have stood since the early 19th century. The wind-driven snow this day had the ironic effect of revealing form, black oaks revolving counterclockwise, limbs like human arms, gesticulating and sinister, outstretched in some pagan rite. Later it struck me as reminiscent of a 12th century Sufi dance, whirling dervishes as Rumi created them, spinning counterclockwise around a Celebi, uniting earth with heaven in prayer. Or similarly, to the more recent Eastern European, Hasidic dance, its followers constellating in a circle around a Sheba or Rabbi, praying for unity. I have since, however, regarded the scene as beatific, akin to one of Gustav Dore’s famous illustrations, “Canto XXXI, the Paradiso,” poetry composed by Dante in the early 14th century, famously illustrated 500 years later.
There are so many ways to see and interpret this scene that I leave that to the viewer to draw a conclusion.
Year: 2025
Location: Chagrin Falls Escarpment, Hunting Valley, Ohio
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
During winter the forest floor is made visible and prey to the attention of intrepid observers. The other three seasons, it remains a cloistered, unbroken canopy of oak, maple, sycamore, beech, cherry and ash. Redbud, pawpaw and flowering dogwood, are the principal denizens of its understory, making a brief appearance each spring. Beyond the deciduous forest, conifer spires stipple the slope with spruce, white pine, hemlock and cedar.
I confess, the verdant beauty of spring and summer and the brilliant, multicolored patchwork of autumn have less hold on me than the spare monochromatic landscape that appears by early December. I return often to Andrew Wyeth’s observation reminding me of winter’s mystery.
“I prefer winter and fall when you feel the bone structure of the landscape — the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn’t show.”
The image pictured here was fortuitous, revealing itself only briefly when the snow subsided for a moment, a gift from the landscape as I took it, perhaps acknowledging my reverence for the mysteries of the forest. This stalwart American sycamore, encircled by a cluster of ancient black oaks, all likely have stood since the early 19th century. The wind-driven snow this day had the ironic effect of revealing form, black oaks revolving counterclockwise, limbs like human arms, gesticulating and sinister, outstretched in some pagan rite. Later it struck me as reminiscent of a 12th century Sufi dance, whirling dervishes as Rumi created them, spinning counterclockwise around a Celebi, uniting earth with heaven in prayer. Or similarly, to the more recent Eastern European, Hasidic dance, its followers constellating in a circle around a Sheba or Rabbi, praying for unity. I have since, however, regarded the scene as beatific, akin to one of Gustav Dore’s famous illustrations, “Canto XXXI, the Paradiso,” poetry composed by Dante in the early 14th century, famously illustrated 500 years later.
There are so many ways to see and interpret this scene that I leave that to the viewer to draw a conclusion.
Year: 2025
Location: Chagrin Falls Escarpment, Hunting Valley, Ohio
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
Frederick Werner Farm, Leelanau County, Michigan
On a spring morning in 2025, Kate and I had a rare day of perfect weather hiking the Frederick Werner property perched along the bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan in the small rural community of Port Oneida. Mr. Werner, the second settler of the area, an immigrant from Hanover, Germany, arrived in Leelanau County in 1855.
As sublimely beautiful as the landscape is, these were subsistence farms that required residents to augment their income through logging, blacksmithing, construction and the trade of goods and services.
Pyramid Point, a 350-foot bluff overlooking Lake Michigan is less than a mile north, its coastline forming the western border of the Werner farm, itself situated on a bluff 200 feet above the lake. The barn was completed over the first couple of years followed by apple orchards and a grove of black locust trees planted along with the few crops like potatoes that would grow in sandy, nutrient deprived, glacial soil.
Most striking was the rolling sweep of the land, dunes once heavily forested, now carpeted in foxtail grass. West winds rising off the lake, over the bluffs, carrying with them the susurrating rhythm of water lapping the shore, continuing on in mirrored ripples across the grass meadows in early spring hues of lime and forest green, dissolving in and out of one another with each gust of wind.
Accompanying the beauty of the land, one also senses the privation of the past, a feeling of mystery and melancholy that drifts over the property.
Beauty here resides as much in the evocation of emotions as the landscape’s aesthetic. It was this feeling of yearning for a past that will never return (elements of saudade) that prompted me to take this photograph as Kate returned from a hike crossing the grassy meadow.
The composition, rendered in both color and black and white, seems to capture the character of the place in the way neither might independently.
Year: 2025
Location: Leelanau County, Michigan
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
As sublimely beautiful as the landscape is, these were subsistence farms that required residents to augment their income through logging, blacksmithing, construction and the trade of goods and services.
Pyramid Point, a 350-foot bluff overlooking Lake Michigan is less than a mile north, its coastline forming the western border of the Werner farm, itself situated on a bluff 200 feet above the lake. The barn was completed over the first couple of years followed by apple orchards and a grove of black locust trees planted along with the few crops like potatoes that would grow in sandy, nutrient deprived, glacial soil.
Most striking was the rolling sweep of the land, dunes once heavily forested, now carpeted in foxtail grass. West winds rising off the lake, over the bluffs, carrying with them the susurrating rhythm of water lapping the shore, continuing on in mirrored ripples across the grass meadows in early spring hues of lime and forest green, dissolving in and out of one another with each gust of wind.
Accompanying the beauty of the land, one also senses the privation of the past, a feeling of mystery and melancholy that drifts over the property.
Beauty here resides as much in the evocation of emotions as the landscape’s aesthetic. It was this feeling of yearning for a past that will never return (elements of saudade) that prompted me to take this photograph as Kate returned from a hike crossing the grassy meadow.
The composition, rendered in both color and black and white, seems to capture the character of the place in the way neither might independently.
Year: 2025
Location: Leelanau County, Michigan
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
November Cottonwood
Eastern cottonwood are fast growing, native North American trees found in the midwest, often rising over 100 feet. And bittersweet, apart from its stunning color and iconic beauty, is to be found in the wake of its destruction, in the “impermanence” it brings to the landscape; a paradox to our western aesthetic that seeks wholeness and immutability. In nature, beauty often accompanies death, quietly, inexorably.
Consider this vine, its autumn beauty spreading deliberately, insidiously, along the margins of northeast Ohio’s hardwood forests. For bittersweet, the act of commingling with the cottonwood seems less a random desire than a living imperative, sustaining itself as it does by robbing its host of light and nutrients. And any suggestion of symbiosis or benign reciprocity between vine and tree is illusory only.
“Said the Bittersweet to the Cottonwood
Dear Eros, I come to help, to salve your wrinkles,
To temper your age, to lift your drooping face,
Your sloughing skin.
To festoon your fissured, hoary bark with beauty,
My own brand, my gold autumn leaves, and later still,
My splendorous display
Of orange calyx and coral berries.
Let me girdle your trunk with vine, encircle your limbs,
Twist and twine your branches with death’s tenebrous embrace …
Let us share the sun and your wide canopy.
Slowly, inexorably, now to become dear Thanatos,
Let me respond in kind,
Adorning you with my beauty, pulling us both to earth,
Consuming you with my love.”
Year: 2025
Location: Squire Valleevue Farm
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 19" x 12"
Consider this vine, its autumn beauty spreading deliberately, insidiously, along the margins of northeast Ohio’s hardwood forests. For bittersweet, the act of commingling with the cottonwood seems less a random desire than a living imperative, sustaining itself as it does by robbing its host of light and nutrients. And any suggestion of symbiosis or benign reciprocity between vine and tree is illusory only.
“Said the Bittersweet to the Cottonwood
Dear Eros, I come to help, to salve your wrinkles,
To temper your age, to lift your drooping face,
Your sloughing skin.
To festoon your fissured, hoary bark with beauty,
My own brand, my gold autumn leaves, and later still,
My splendorous display
Of orange calyx and coral berries.
Let me girdle your trunk with vine, encircle your limbs,
Twist and twine your branches with death’s tenebrous embrace …
Let us share the sun and your wide canopy.
Slowly, inexorably, now to become dear Thanatos,
Let me respond in kind,
Adorning you with my beauty, pulling us both to earth,
Consuming you with my love.”
Year: 2025
Location: Squire Valleevue Farm
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 19" x 12"
First Light, Suttons Bay
Sunrise brings form to the farms here in Leelanau County where the sweep of wind across the dunes is the music of antiquity. 10,000 years ago, the last glacier left deposits of quartz over a mile high, ground through the millennia to sand by the weight of an ice sheet, creating in its retreat the largest area of “lake” dunes on earth.
Mimicking undulating sine waves, continually recast by the winds, the dune fields advanced across Michigan providing a footing for timber, orchards, crops, cattle and wildlife.
Traveling through these mountainous mounds one senses the mutability of time on the landscape, like endless rhythms coalescing into an ensemble, not of time only but a harmony of the trees, grass, sand and water. Like ancient tumuli marking lives, these migrating dunes honor a continuous narrative of the past.
Year: 2010
Location: Suttons Bay, Michigan
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 15" x 23"
Mimicking undulating sine waves, continually recast by the winds, the dune fields advanced across Michigan providing a footing for timber, orchards, crops, cattle and wildlife.
Traveling through these mountainous mounds one senses the mutability of time on the landscape, like endless rhythms coalescing into an ensemble, not of time only but a harmony of the trees, grass, sand and water. Like ancient tumuli marking lives, these migrating dunes honor a continuous narrative of the past.
Year: 2010
Location: Suttons Bay, Michigan
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 15" x 23"
September
This was the rare and restive September day with uncharacteristic temerity, an abruptness and “matter of factness” foreshadowing change, where the transition of seasons is rarely subtle. Even September with its few discordant days, skies prematurely brooding and bracing and meadows awaiting the distant, renascent seasons.
And still, most of the month a contrast, a nostalgic time when tall meadow grass makes its final surge then rests weary upon itself. Blue asters, tenacious through their last days, liatris and ironweed bending reluctantly, folding and fading, their roots and rhizomes anchoring the meadow through time. I’ve often thought September in Cleveland to be a mix of memories and wistful, melancholic longings for another place or for past friends and family.
The barn, its weathered sides and growing clefts reminding us of changes ahead; each season — life’s measure and mystery.
Year: 2010
Location: Squire Valleevue Farm
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
And still, most of the month a contrast, a nostalgic time when tall meadow grass makes its final surge then rests weary upon itself. Blue asters, tenacious through their last days, liatris and ironweed bending reluctantly, folding and fading, their roots and rhizomes anchoring the meadow through time. I’ve often thought September in Cleveland to be a mix of memories and wistful, melancholic longings for another place or for past friends and family.
The barn, its weathered sides and growing clefts reminding us of changes ahead; each season — life’s measure and mystery.
Year: 2010
Location: Squire Valleevue Farm
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 16" x 24"
Jed I
Jed is a Percheron draft horse from Fieldstone Farm Therapeutic Riding Center.
The photograph was taken as Jed lay in his stall. Early morning light poured through a small “cut-out” window just outside the picture, slightly above and to the right of his head. The space was far too tight for a tripod, so I lay directly on the floor of the stall and set the camera on his flank.
He has become as much a part of the Chagrin Valley landscape as the bucolic scenes lining Chagrin River Road. Jed also has been a central figure in solo shows at the Butler Institute, the Holden Arboretum, and the Cleveland Botanical Garden.
Year: 2008
Location: South Russell, Ohio
Edition Number: Open (unlimited)
Dimensions: 9" x 14"
The photograph was taken as Jed lay in his stall. Early morning light poured through a small “cut-out” window just outside the picture, slightly above and to the right of his head. The space was far too tight for a tripod, so I lay directly on the floor of the stall and set the camera on his flank.
He has become as much a part of the Chagrin Valley landscape as the bucolic scenes lining Chagrin River Road. Jed also has been a central figure in solo shows at the Butler Institute, the Holden Arboretum, and the Cleveland Botanical Garden.
Year: 2008
Location: South Russell, Ohio
Edition Number: Open (unlimited)
Dimensions: 9" x 14"
Rapture at Daybreak
Arriving at Schweitzer Marsh on a cool March morning I made my way along a short trail to the western shore, my eyes adjusting to the eastern veil of gray blending with the water. In an act of courage, each spring the first lily shoots pierce the surface. Ringed in crystal velum, ascendant lilies are often choked by the thin membranes of ice that film the surface of the marsh every March.
Ice had melted the previous day enabling the migrating strings of geese and ducks to drop-in to feed, some to nest, others to continue on. Yet, late night still, before morning twilight returned the dull color to the landscape, I watched alone from the shore as a wild goose floated silently in flat still water, motionless in his own reflection, his morning reverie one of mystery and metaphor. I could only speculate about his ruminations, how they weighed upon him, his thoughts of loss or regret perhaps, or the elation of solitude elevating his thoughts or even some instinctive pull that drew him to the far end.
He made not a visible move, not a paddle, as the still marsh cradled him in place. Looking back but also within, he gazed past a distant raft of ducks and further still, past hoary pin oaks their high watermarks faintly visible, through sleeping flocks, past islands of sedge and rush and earthy peat, once a birth nest, even beyond the tree line of towering white oak, into the gunmetal sky before morning twilight. How rich the solitude.
“In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.”
—Albert Camus
Year: 2010
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 11" x 16.5"
Ice had melted the previous day enabling the migrating strings of geese and ducks to drop-in to feed, some to nest, others to continue on. Yet, late night still, before morning twilight returned the dull color to the landscape, I watched alone from the shore as a wild goose floated silently in flat still water, motionless in his own reflection, his morning reverie one of mystery and metaphor. I could only speculate about his ruminations, how they weighed upon him, his thoughts of loss or regret perhaps, or the elation of solitude elevating his thoughts or even some instinctive pull that drew him to the far end.
He made not a visible move, not a paddle, as the still marsh cradled him in place. Looking back but also within, he gazed past a distant raft of ducks and further still, past hoary pin oaks their high watermarks faintly visible, through sleeping flocks, past islands of sedge and rush and earthy peat, once a birth nest, even beyond the tree line of towering white oak, into the gunmetal sky before morning twilight. How rich the solitude.
“In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.”
—Albert Camus
Year: 2010
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 11" x 16.5"
Live by the Sword ... Cooper’s Hawk and Starling
Bastardized blithely into proverb (“Live by the sword, die by the sword”), the Gospel of Matthew speaks with preternatural relevance to starlings, the beautiful scourge of birds highlighted in a recent essay of mine.
I confess to anthropomorphizing birds too frequently, imputing human characteristics and making judgments as to their elegance as well as their moral failings.
Observed closely, at least in the context of the Western aesthetic, starlings are beautiful creatures, not only for their subtle iridescent hues and physical form, but for their aerobatic formations known as murmurations. They are, however, notoriously predatory, feeding on other birds’ eggs and offspring and displacing resident birds in their domination of available food.
Today I filled our feeder and watched as starlings bullied sparrows and songbirds, consuming the easy seed, scattering only shells and husks for the meek below. Inexplicably, in an instant, the mix of birds exploded from the ground, from the feeder, the surrounding trees and bushes, but for one preoccupied starling, falling prey in a brief moment, impaled on talons, staring into the dark, murderous maw of a Cooper’s hawk.
This photograph marked not more than three minutes from the time of death. In profound, horrific moments, the starling’s breast plucked clean, her body warm and eviscerated, was commemorated only by entrails cast upon the snow. The sublime well may lie at the intersection of awe inspiring beauty and nature’s savage terror.
Draw as you will a moral.
Year: 2022
Location: Cleveland Heights, Ohio
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 15.5" x 23"
I confess to anthropomorphizing birds too frequently, imputing human characteristics and making judgments as to their elegance as well as their moral failings.
Observed closely, at least in the context of the Western aesthetic, starlings are beautiful creatures, not only for their subtle iridescent hues and physical form, but for their aerobatic formations known as murmurations. They are, however, notoriously predatory, feeding on other birds’ eggs and offspring and displacing resident birds in their domination of available food.
Today I filled our feeder and watched as starlings bullied sparrows and songbirds, consuming the easy seed, scattering only shells and husks for the meek below. Inexplicably, in an instant, the mix of birds exploded from the ground, from the feeder, the surrounding trees and bushes, but for one preoccupied starling, falling prey in a brief moment, impaled on talons, staring into the dark, murderous maw of a Cooper’s hawk.
This photograph marked not more than three minutes from the time of death. In profound, horrific moments, the starling’s breast plucked clean, her body warm and eviscerated, was commemorated only by entrails cast upon the snow. The sublime well may lie at the intersection of awe inspiring beauty and nature’s savage terror.
Draw as you will a moral.
Year: 2022
Location: Cleveland Heights, Ohio
Collector’s Edition of 10
Dimensions: 15.5" x 23"
Blackbird and Goose at Sunrise
I had forgotten about this image until coming across it last night (June 2019). As with so many of our photographs, memories lie beneath the surface until uncovered, sometimes years later, flooding our consciousness with recollections of the moment and occasionally new insights.
In this case I remember what struck me most about the moment was less the solitude than the sense of community between the pair. Having one another, neither bird was alone that morning. The red-winged blackbird’s morning song, a chorus of melodic chimes, commenced about fifteen minutes before the sun rose. Almost on cue, the Canada goose responded with a short honk and a tapering cackle as a coda to complete each song. The sun rose through pink haze. I still cherish that morning.
Year: 2014
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Collector’s Edition of 15
Dimensions: 13" x 19.5"
In this case I remember what struck me most about the moment was less the solitude than the sense of community between the pair. Having one another, neither bird was alone that morning. The red-winged blackbird’s morning song, a chorus of melodic chimes, commenced about fifteen minutes before the sun rose. Almost on cue, the Canada goose responded with a short honk and a tapering cackle as a coda to complete each song. The sun rose through pink haze. I still cherish that morning.
Year: 2014
Location: Schweitzer Marsh
Collector’s Edition of 15
Dimensions: 13" x 19.5"
GALLERIES
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