Hi again friends! And apologies on the minor delay, I just noticed I set my dates wrong on the scheduling of posting.🤦♂️
I hope this finds everyone enjoying their weekend and if you’re in the Midwest or Northeast, hopefully dialing the heat and severe weather back a bit! Maybe this waterfall below will help cool you down!
Before we get there though, I have a bit of information I’ve been wanting to share with you…
So, this year is and has needed to look a little different for me. I know I have vocalized it a little bit, but this past year was rough in many ways and I have been doing my best to do what is necessary first and change things up a bit this year.
This actually reminds me of a quote I saw in one of my Mom’s nature/inspirational/spiritual calendars a few years back from Saint Francis of Assisi - “Start with what’s necessary, then with what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”
That really struck a cord with me and I have ever since tried to use it as a mantra for when life seems too overwhelming.
So, in relation to my Artwork this year, I had to make some tough decisions. And although I applied to a handful of Spring shows, I decided early on that I wasn’t going to stress about how to make any of them happen this year (and since I only applied to some of the really big hitters, I was either waitlisted or didn’t get in to all but one anyway - Stockley Gardens - a perennial favorite of mine every Spring that I hated to let go but decided it necessary this year). I was just going to take some guaranteed landscaping work and enjoy that work during my favorite time to do it. Then I would consider how to shape the Summer after the 4th of July and then the Autumn.
Which brings me to what I’ll be doing this Summer, well July anyway. I have always done the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts (the State College or Penn State Show) the weekend after the 4th ever since I started doing festivals in 2016. It was actually my first show ever (wow was that a learning experience!😂) and I have been fortunate enough to be juried in every year since. And it’s also kinda my hometown show, having grown up in Reedsville, PA and gone to Penn State. It holds a special place in my heart. But this year, I respectfully declined my invitation and I’m trying something new…
I have had several very good years there, and some very disappointing. That’s how it goes on the circuit! But, I have felt a little bit of a decline for a few years now and what I’m sensing from the show, at least for what I am trying to sell. And there are a few other highly reputable monster shows out there the same weekend. Namely, Madison (Wisconsin) and one called Krasl (Michigan). Last year I applied to all 3, and GOT IN to all 3!!! (Well after being invited from Krasl’s waitlist anyway)🤯 Boy, decision time??! After much debate and learning I had finally procured a corner booth at State College. I decided to “play it safe” on expenses and all that and just stay local and see how the corner worked for me…
Well, the weekend was meh, I made a little bit, but overall I felt it left a lot on the table and I found myself wondering the entire time and ever since. So, this year, same thing - I applied to all 3…
State College - Accepted! Madison - Waitlisted. Krasl - Waitlisted. Arghh. I held out deciding on State College until the next to last day before commitments were due. And I was actually about to commit that day when I opened my email and - Invited to Krasl!!! Side note, I was also accepted into Ann Arbor this year…
So, with a bit of a heavy heart, but also a ton of excitement, I declined my invite to State College and I’m heading to Michigan for back to back weekends this July! It will also be my first time doing Ann Arbor and I’m excited for some new experiences!
I will miss you all at State College this year, but it is time to broaden my horizons and visit a new audience. From what I have heard, Krasl is a beautiful show with a great high end reputation drawing on Southwest Michigan’s lake communities and the Chicago area. It takes place on a lake bluff in St. Joseph near Benton Harbor and looks and sounds gorgeous!!!
So, there I will be the weekend of July 10th-12th and then across to the eastern side of Michigan in Ann Arbor a few days later July 15th-18th!
Aside from that, I am anticipating doing the return of the Stowe Foliage Festival in Vermont on Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples’ Day weekend (pending on some personal up in the air things). And that may be it, unless Michigan goes very well - there are some shows I know I could apply to at last minute and potentially do in August through October. But time will tell…
And I intend to have much communication and photo sharing between now and then! And oh yeah, how about the fun stuff now!…
This was another one I intended to share much earlier in the Spring, but found a way to relate it to what I have just shared. Time to explore and soak up “Life’s Possibilities”…
“Life‘s Possibilities” - Foothills Trail, SC
Photographed April 28th, 2012
Mamiya RB67 w/ 65mm lens (Wide-Angle)
F22 for 4 seconds
Professional Fuji Velvia 50
I could make the argument that in many ways, this experience is the one which really set the stage for my life’s passion for adventure and preservation of our wild places.
In April of 2012, I drove south to visit my brother in South Carolina for my inauguration into the world of backpacking. He had been getting into it (backpacking, that is) for a couple of years and we had loosely discussed getting together for an adventure for a while. Well, during the holidays of 2011, more concrete plans were made and here I was! Using mainly his own and his wife’s extra gear, he took me out for 3 days/2 nights on the Foothills Trail in Northwestern SC.
To say the 8 miles on day one kicked my ass would be an understatement!😂 I’ll never forget the feeling of floating away upon taking the pack off for lunch only a few miles in. Which, by the way, is never quite as funny feeling as that first time! I also don’t think I’ll ever forget how exhausted, punished, and well downright beaten and alien to myself I felt for the last two miles of that hike. But, I also loved it!!!
We arrived at night one’s campsite just in the nick of time to hang a tarp to pass the thunderstorm that had been brewing for most of the afternoon. The sky at once opened up and the storm let loose, ahhhh that smell!
As we awaited its passing, I had the notion to photograph the forest scene in front of us from under our shelter (see “Soaking Up Life” in the Gallery). And I’m so glad I did. I absolutely love how green and teeming with life the forest is! As I gaze upon it, even still now, I see how truly life giving the Spring rainfall is, how every tree and leaf are soaking it up. I see it breathing. I can feel its heartbeat.
As the storm passed on, we set up camp and chopped/sawed our firewood. And just before preparing our dinner, I caught a magnificent sunset moment from the top of the waterfall, not more than a stone’s throw from our tent, looking outwards. That is, after all, one of the main reasons my brother felt this location would be a really cool photo opportunity for me - as he noticed here before that at this time of year, one gets a clear view of the sun setting beyond the distant mountains from the top of the waterfall. Although I didn’t get a “clear” view due to our stormy conditions, the moment was purely exhilarating! With the falls flowing and plunging a good 80-100 feet right at my feet, I had a peek through the thick of the surrounding forest into misty mountain ridge lines and an ethereal pink glow in the clouds that only a storm can provide. After I snapped a couple exposures, I turned to face my brother and pumped my fists in the air as if triumphant! I was being given “A Peek See” into just a few of Nature’s grandest elements.
The night was thick and damp, but by the fire was bliss. And wait, seriously?? These freeze dried meals are this good??!!!
In the darkness, as we conversed about life around the flame, we witnessed something so strange that took me years to identify what it was we were seeing - some soft ghostly blue glow of a gliding insect, some species of firefly we do not know?? - In fact, yes! It was the Blue Ghost Firefly! I have since experienced it a few more times and it is some of Nature’s purest magic!!!
What a way for one to spend their first day and night backpacking, I thought as I was alone now as the fire died down beside a thundering waterfall… We, much like the forest around us, were “soaking up life.”
Bruised and battered at dawn the next morning, I then stood, photographing the waterfall - this image - that has stood the test of time as the strongest piece to represent my experience. As I was setting up, I caught my brother out of the corner of my eye, strolling down the trail to greet me with a cup of coffee he just brewed at our campsite, tucked maybe 50 feet behind the top of those falls you’re now looking at. What a moment, what an experience. It was only a weekend long, but it changed my life forever. And it set me on the path for where I am today, opening the doors to so many of “Life’s Possibilities” and what I believe to be my life’s purpose.
Thanks Bro!
By the way, have you guys noticed the dates on these last 3 images I’ve shared??? April 2012 with my Mamiya RB67 was epic!!!😉
My very best,
Brandon
P.S. - Just a disclaimer for anyone who may have been confused about accessing my Spring in Bloom slide show on the post the other day. If you click on the View Gallery link, it takes you to my original blog post on the website. From there, simply scroll down to the same place in the post and see the slideshow! (As I do different things in my posts, I am learning how things then translate to the email newsletter, which I only have so much control over in certain situations.)