ONE LESSON LEARNED FROM YESTERDAY'S WALK IN THE woods and from hindsight gained from re-visiting my early intimate landscape pictures is that my eye and senibilities are, most definitely, not pricked by the color green. And, truth be told, that fact never occurred to me before in my picture making life.
However, point in fact, it is not so much the color green itself, rather it is the fact that I am not generally inspired to make landscape pictures during the green, green, green of summer. Not that I do not make landscape pictures with the color green in them, but that those such pictures rarely feature or are "about" the color green.
In my non-picture making life, green is OK. After purchasing our house, we painted it green. The walls in our master bedroom suite are painted with 2 subtely different shades of green. The wainscoting in 2 of our bathrooms are painted green. And, the love-seat and chairs in our living room are light shades of green (although, the wife insists that the love-seat is grey). The cabinets in our kitchen are green. However, all of that written, the greens in question are all middle tones or lighter of a cool shade of green. They are, most assuredly, not the green, green, green of summer.
This understanding comes as somewhat of a shock to me. Not that I will change my picture making ways, but it does re-enforce that idea that I believe that my picture making is driven by forces-if not preternatural then certainly subconscious- that I do not fully comprehend. Which is OK by me inasmuch as I am doing, picture making wise, just what comes naturally to me, aka: following what pricks my eye and sensibilities
FYI, all of my comparison pictures were made on the West Branch of the Au Sable River along a stretch known as The Flume. We have had alot of recent rain so the river is raging right along. I live a few miles down-river from The Flume in Au Sable Forks ... so named because the confluence of the East and West Branch of the Au Sable river is located in the center of town.
