(embiggenable) ~ all,photos made along the side of the road
OVER THE COURSE OF ORGANIZING, EDITING, AND selecting photographs for inclusion in the final edit for the An Adirondack Guide book, there have a number of decisions that to be made. Most of those issues have been resolved with the exception of the final photo edit with which I am still tinkering around the edges.
That written, the biggest change made since the inception of the project has been about my initial decision to have no scenic landscape photos in the collection. That idea was instigated by the fact that scenic landscape photos of the Adirondacks are a dime a dozen. Walk into any Adirondack gift shop and there are more landscape photo books on the shelves than you shake a birch stick at, and, they all look alike.
I had no desire to add to that clutter and, to be sure, my project intent was to illustrate everyday Adirondack life “on the street”, so to speak. To a certain extent I was following Edward Weston’s adage that “Anything more than 500 yards from the car just isn’t photogenic.”; i.e., my project modus operandi was basically to make photos during my everyday driving around the Park––ya know, see something, stop the car, get out and make a picture. However ….
…. as I was rooting around in my photo library culling out photos for inclusion in the collection, I keep coming across landscape photos that were made with exactly the same M.O. as my “on the street” photos. It took a while but eventually it hit me––duh, I live in a ginormuos 9,375 sq miles Park (technically it’s a forest preserve, not a park) that is known worldwide for its natural beauty. A place where it is nearly impossible to move about without encountering and being immersed in the Forever wild natural world (protected by the NYS Constitution) of the Park.
Simply put, the natural world is part and parcel of daily life in the Adirondacks and to ignore that, picture wise, in my project would be, well, kinda dumb.
And, lo and behold, I have quite a number of photographs that were made while driving around, seeing something, stopping the car, getting out and making a landscape picture. Most of which, BTW, were made within only 10 yards of the car. So …..