Thomas Landers Road

I was suffering.  The October weather was relentlessly good.  This morning was forecast cloud and rain, which made me feel easier that my friend Ida was coming to print in the studio.  Maybe I would be able to sit still in front of the computer while the berries bounced in the beaters.

But it was impossible.  The sun was shining, not a raindrop in sight, so as Ida arrived I urged on her a chance to see the harvest, we went to get her camera and tripod and off we went to Thomas Landers Road.

There we found a basin of berries in the light.  Always light, wherever you turned, light.  Overhead, clouds billowing light floated over this clearing in the woods for the berry plants to look up to the light give us these sparkling spaces to wander in, with little pink flags marking the boundaries, with men dragging booms, pushing berries to the suction, men upright on their berry beaters floating through the pools it seems, but rooted to the earth, upending the marker stakes, thrusting them back to mark the next sweep, cars parking and spilling people to touch this marvel from their past, water spilling out of the truck and flowing back into the pool,  gleaming light, reflecting light, spilling light, glowing berries red in the light light light.

The Harvest

This is what I saw and felt at Thomas Landers Road.

Breakthrough

As the team moved into the second big space in Falmouth, slowly slowly my mind sought a new solution in my pictures.  There was much repetition, what was new ??  Of course the actions do repeat; the cycle of the cranberries and the recycle is the story and is the scene.  The places repeat....same bogs as last year, usually.

But to stay engaged I must improve my approach, maybe change my perspective a little, and, as I contemplated the bogs in East Falmouth, slowly I saw that here was a place to try panoramas, especially vertical panoramas.

A friend taught me how to do this.  I had never given much thought to panoramas before, and I had always thought of them as an easy way to make a very very stretched out thin picture......not so appealing.  But, when I was shown that the key is to turn the axis of the camera to right angles with the axis of the camera's sweep....... this was a revelation.  I saw some stunning panoramas from my friend and I was intrigued; I tried a few, and was tempted, but never did it quite seem worth the effort.

That changed in East Falmouth.

Here it was truly worthwhile to include in one picture the sweep from the berries at one's feet, through the depth of the bogs, to the tips of the clouds billowing overhead.  Here the distortions of perspective lent an air of mystery and grandeur to the scene, and put an emphasis on those rich red berry pools that they truly deserved.

I started doing the panoramas here, and I have not stopped....maybe when the harvest stops.


At work in the Sun

Berry Pool and Sky

Berry Pool Panorama

Falmouth

After the storm the team was halfway through the Falmouth bogs off Carriage Shop Road.  This is such a long stretch of bog that the secrets of the trade are laid bare for the slowest of comprehension to see.  What becomes clear in these bogs is that there is simply not enough water to flood them all, so the work proceeds in steps, from top to bottom from high ground to low ground.  The sequence is -- flood the top two bogs, beat the berries in the first, and move on to the second.  As the berries are gathered in the first, release the water slowly and flow into the third.  When the beaters are done the second, they move to the third, the gatherers move to the second, and so it goes.

There are fifteen segments to the large Falmouth bog and the crew was there for seven days.  Two segments a day.  Flood, remove sprinklers, beat, gather with the boom, pump, haul, drain.  This is the cycle.  This was done twice a day for a week.  For the first three days it was done in constant rain.  For the last four days the sun was shining in glory.

Seeker of Light

Berry Hop

Water Work

The Storm

The storm came almost on schedule.  As soon as the wet harvest started the storm started.  On a Friday it dropped lowering clouds in the sky and then blew hard through the night.  On Saturday it lifted for blue skies all day, but on Sunday it was back, and it rained for another four days.  At times hard driving wind, at times gentle drifting drops.  There was so much water pouring down from the sky that it seemed it was meant to flood the bogs.

The work went on.  The main Cataumet bogs were cleared over the weekend and the teams moved to Falmouth.  By the time that the clouds cleared and this fair weather and somewhat ill photographer caught up with them again on Wednesday, they were halfway through the immense bogs off Carriage Shop Road.

Big clouds boomed through the sky, the light glared on the water, and the birds scattered when the water pickers went into their pools.  The harvest went on, life went on, and the storm cleared.


Before the Storm

Come the Storm

The Boom

The First Berry Pool

After all the preparations, pumps, pools, water flowing, bog threshers positioned, the wet harvest started on Wednesday morning.  Then it stopped almost as quickly.  As I wandered in the direction of the bogs on the other side of County Road, I saw Brian rushing past in his truck, a look of urgent determination on his face that told me not to crack a joke about an unpainted board on his truck.  A conversation with Pete at the pumping truck and he was off.  I sauntered on, crossed County Road, came down into the bogs and climbed the hill.

Brian rushed by again.  Big problem !  Definitely not happy.

I descended into the lower bog and now I could see what was the problem.  An engine hose had blown out on one of the berry beaters.  Fortunately the machine had been at the side of the bog and it was easy to contain the problem and to work on the machine. 

Of course the work had not stopped completely.  Just one machine had been disabled and a few people, Brian included, seriously distracted,

So the work went on, and the wet harvest started.

What I remember most about that little disaster though came not even at the bog.  It was the propane that lingered in my throat and nose and clothes for days.  An acrid smell and taste, like metal.  Nothing nice about it.  And I wondered, I was just passing through.  What about everyone who does the work?

The First Berry Pool

Water

The dry harvest is winding down.  It is picturesque, a line of reaping machines wending its way across a vast open space, boxes strewn in the fields, helicopter lifts, but it is inefficient.  Work cannot be started until the dew dries in the morning.  No work at all on rainy days.  Many berries get left on the plants.  It only pays off if the harvested fruit can command a "fresh fruit" premium at the buyers'.  If there is too much damage from bugs or rot, the premium is lost.  Relying on outside support, like a helicopter service, introduces another uncertain variable.  Uncertain variables tend to increase costs.

It is time to go in the water.

Water is good.  You can start earlier, you can work right through a rainy day, and more berries are freed from the vines. 

But you need water.

For days the pumps have been running.  They are everywhere.  They are in the picturesque pump houses, there are caterpillar tractors, there are diesel engines on flat beds standing naked by the fields.  Fat hoses fill to their full thickness.  Water spews out of conduits.  Water spills over dam tops.  Water is whipped by the winds off the bogs and down the trails.  The ducks and geese and swans have broad new homes.  The frogs are hopping and swimming, no longer confined to the ditches.

There is water everywhere, there is light everywhere, the berry pools are coming.

First Flood

Eager Beaver

Water Forms

No time for rest

There is no time for rest on the harvest, no time to lean on a rake or mop a brow.  The berries have ripened and winter is coming; will they wait if we are tired?  There will be time to be tired later.  Now we must work.

At Work

Helicopter

Now I have found out a fact.  This makes me wonder even more about the helicopter and the berries.  The two crates of berries that are picked up in one load weigh 600 pounds.  The helicopter weighs 1700 pounds.  The berries are 1/3 the weight of the helicopter.  This astounds me.

I had a chat yesterday with the Firefly pilot, Harry.  He arrived around 3:30, and for a while he had nothing to do.  This because his assistant, Damien, the guy who connects the lift strap on the ground to the helicopter in the air was in Wareham buying DVD's when Harry arrived at the Cataumet bog.  After a few phone calls Damien was on his way, and Harry had time to chat with a curious photographer.

Harry has been flying since the 1980's, and they were using helicopters to lift berries off the bog before he started, so the helicopter technique is almost tradition too.

Harry is not very impressed by the weight question.  It doesn't seem a big deal to him to lift the berries, swing them across the bogs and deposit them at the truck.  "You just don't make any sudden turns" he says, "you sort of let it just flow".  "Of course you don't want that rope too long, or then the leverage on the berries gets stronger and you have a problem"

We talked about the weather, about bored air traffic controllers, about how the Air Force used to fly out of Otis and the Navy used to fly out Weymouth, and, when Damien arrived about pubs on Clew Bay, County Mayo.  Somehow we just got comfortable in a little Sunday afternoon chat, and we were happy to ease it along until when Steve, the truck driver,  came over and said politely but firmly, "maybe we can load some berries this afternoon, gentlemen?" and our little helicopter chat was over.

Flying High

Berries in the Sky

Safe Landing

Picking Berries

There are two ways of harvesting cranberries, the dry harvest and the wet harvest.  The first way means scooping the berries off the low lying plants with a sort of curved comb scoop.  In the old days this was a wooden hand tool.  Now it is an automated reaping machine.  The second way means floating the berries off the plants by flooding the bogs; the berries are then gathered on the water by a boom and suctioned into a truck.

Today it is raining and nothing is happening because we are in the dry harvest.  For the dry harvest rain is no good.  For the wet harvest rain is no problem.

But for the last couple of days the weather has been glorious.  Three fields have been covered and two truckloads gathered.  It is a very very slow process.  The reaping machines move very deliberately and the workers arrange themselves in an overlapping line.  They start on the outside edge of the field, circling it, working their way to the center.  No one walks on the unharvested plants.  If a sack has to be moved or a crate carried from one side to the other, the worker carrying it will trace an elaborate arc around the outside of the field, walking 3 times the distance a straight line would take him in.

The reaping machines deposit the berries in burlap sacks, and these are left on the field as they are filled.  Each filled sack must be carried to one of the harvest boxes and poured into it.  These boxes, or crates, scatter the field with improbable gray blocks, like a giant's toys.  As they fill they are wrapped in carrying straps....but who will carry them?

The answer descends from the sky, as a red helicopter arrives to lift the berry boxes off the low-lying bogs to firmer ground where they can be loaded onto trucks.  This feels dangerous.  An attendant must hoist each box's strap up to the helicopter that descends upon him, the pilot sees his position over the box through a mirror posted on the cockpit, and as he lifts off and swings into flight the heavy weight of the box clearly affects his momentum and direction.  As he swirls overhead the heavy box swings in a wider arc -- blades, body and box retest the laws of centrifugal force.

The whole process of the dry harvest can be seen at my ongoing gallery of the 2010 harvest.

Yesterday morning, I went early to the bog because these guys start early.  But, not much was happening.  The dew was too heavy on the ground and everyone was waiting.  Some work was going on as they picked up weed debris from the field that had been harvested the day before.  Actually the biggest visible effect of the harvest is that the fields are weeded.  The ripe berries are almost invisible under their leaves...... a field ready to harvest is a field full of weeds !

Begin again

 

Burlap bags

 

Arrangement

  

.

Holding on

It is evening.  Clouds gather in the sky, but they are not for rain -- they are here to play with the sun as it leaves.  It is quiet because it is September and the villages have no more vacationers in them.  Boats are out of the water, early this year because of the threat of hurricane Earl, traffic is thin, and the sport fields of the schools are now where the energy of youth and hope gathers.

At the Lobster Trap some cars are clustered in the lot, close together for company, the water on the Eel Pond is flat, and the stream rushes under the little railroad bridge with its art class decorations out to Phinney's Harbor, to the Bay, and to the Sea.

It is the gathering clouds that command attention.  They soar over the Eel Pond while the sun paints them -- white to pink to dusty gray, billow by billow.  The ospreys stretch their flight to the tips of the clouds, then dive into the folds, then plummet to the water's plane with a clumsy, terrifying splash.  Somehow they survive this crash landing and sometimes emerge with a fish that they then adjust in their talons, sometimes with nothing, but as they shuffle away in flight they shudder every feather to shake off the water so they can soar again.

From the railroad tracks, all paths seem possible -- to Woods Hole, to New York, to Tennessee.  On this forbidden perch above the water, the view out to the sea seems to stretch and shimmer forever.  Beneath our feet the track bed holds the ghosts of trains to the Cape from generations gone away; we mourn their passing -- the travelers and the trains.

The sun lights up the sky in a different way each minute.  Shadows gather on the shore but the cloud tops burst with light and drip down to the water like melted marshmallow.  The moon hangs in the sky.  It is following the sun down to the water, but this moon grows stronger each day, full of promise.

As I gather all of this in I have only one thought.  "Hold on to this !"  "Keep this moment !"  "Do not let this summer go away........hold on."

Impossible.  The sun will set, the colors will settle, the summer is gone and it is time to reap what we have sown.

 moon over phinney's harbor

Cranberry Harvest

It is time again.  I already saw trucks on Tihonet road to the Ocean Spray plant full of cranberries, and from Route 25 in Wareham I could see graceful booms stretched across telltale pools on the bogs.  I will follow the harvest again this year.  Last year's pictures are here on my website, and a full set can be found in Essays on my website.

The crew was out in Cataumet yesterday and I found them for the first time this year.  They were clearing brush to open up a path to a sensor on a pumping station; my friend Henry, the foreman, was there, cheerful as usual fixing something -- a chain saw that did not want to start.  "Maybe we start today, I don't know, depends whether it dries out".  The chain saw would not start and got tossed into a brush heap -- perhaps ceremoniously, perhaps permanently.

I think I already have enough pictures of the harvest, but really, I do not. How could there be enough?  Just as each sunset is different, so each moment of work is different, and this is about the work, not about the bright colors, although they surely glorify the work.

There is a deep story here.  I tried to put some of it in my pictures last year, but they remain a promise, and a prisoner of expectations.  More images will help me to go deeper, but perhaps the only way in is by writing.  I have two writers in mind, but there is a third one too -- me.

If I write this story, this will be it.

henry

Desire

Siddhartha, who became the Buddha, made his final breakthrough to enlightenment after many days and nights sitting under the Bodhi tree, rooted there in determination to reach the end of his quest.

His final obstacle was a confrontation with Mara, the demon of desire. After he faced down Mara, invoking the earth as his witness, he achieved enlightenment and became the Buddha.

What is most interesting about this story is not the wrong objects of desire that were paraded before Siddhartha in this final "temptation" but the fact that the story casts desire itself in the central role of tempter.

The notion that desire, the very "act" of wanting something or somebody, is at the heart of the problem is a new one to me, until I think about what has been happening on the frontiers of biological research into the brain. Then it makes sense.

Neurobiological research is doing a lot to make clear the psychobiology of desire. This work suggests that desire is a universally addictive response. The same circuitry seems to be involved with cocaine, sex, chocolate, flowers........anything that gives us pleasure. The brain circuits involved do a very effective job of creating an anticipation of pleasure which itself becomes a drive that is hard to resist.

This seems to be a neurobiological definition of desire.

If it is the desire itself that we have to manage then we have some clue about what might be the answer. I mean, how do we manage this desire? I think the answer is patience.

Whatever the desire is, whether it be money, or sex, or chocolate, or paper clips, it is the uncontrolled compulsion to satisfy that desire that will destroy us.

If this is true we do not need to make an analysis of whether sex is more important than paper clips. If the need to have paper clips NOW causes us to act heedless of our other commitments and obligations and needs, we will destroy ourselves and others.

What we need is time to understand how the need for those paper clips fits in with everything else and how we might stay alive, keep others alive, and get some paper clips too.

Surely patience is needed.

Returning to Siddhartha, he emerged from his stay under the Bodhi Tree with great insight into the nature of the universe and everything in it. He developed a set of moral precepts to guide anyone else seeking this path. I understand them to be a simple way of turning something not good into something good.

where there is greed, let me be generous.

where there is ignorance, let me be wise.

where there is anger, let me have compassion.

....to these, I would add.

where there is desire, let me be patient.

(credits: the story of Siddhartha is drawn from a WGBH production on the life of the Buddha; the summary of neurobiological research comes from a recent Charley Rose production on the brain; the answer came from across the ocean.)

My Bodhi Tree

Sometimes we all have to pull back and look inside of ourselves in order to be true to anyone and to everyone. We all know this, and we all know how hard it is to do. So when someone takes that decisive step, it is clear that we must support them and it is also clear that we must thank them. Only when someone is not there does it become more clear how wonderful it is when they are.

This is an image and a message of thanks but it is not in fact dedicated to anyone, it is dedicated to everyone. It is dedicated to everyone because this need to withdraw and seek ourselves is a universal need, and it is dedicated to everyone because everyone and everything is connected.

This is my cedar tree on Patuisset. Of course it is not my tree, it is everyone's tree. it is the tree of all those wonderful people in this little paradise and it is connected to trees everywhere. It is connected to my grandfather's cedar a few miles north; it is connected to a cypress tree in Crespellano; it is connected to a Bodhi tree in India. it is connected to countless trees that I do not know.

I personally discovered that here, at this tree, I could touch the ground and ask it to bear witness to my own quest, and with Sile's help I found the technique to both touch the ground and reach for the sky in one image.

I put this tree here as a sign of thanks and as a return to the universe that bore it and me. The file is there. Anyone anywhere is welcome to do anything with it.

I, personally, will be here, touching the ground and asking it to bear witness to what is good, and searching the sky for dreams to dream.

Thank you.

Suffering

Girl with Mangoes, 1971

It is not a fun theme to explore, but it seems to me that suffering can produce great art. Without making any larger claims for this image, I know that I like it, and I know that on the day I took this picture, I was suffering greatly.

Here are a few more images that are connected to times of great pain, uncertainty or disorientation, where it seems clear to me that the act of making the image was part of a process of seeking a solution, of expression, or even of healing.

Bicycle at Rest, Florence, 1978

Knotting a Persian Rug, Khorasan, 1978

The Caregiver, Quissett, 2010

Documentation is an Illusion

In earlier posts I have discussed the burden of expectations that photography operates under because of its role as "documentation". Then my argument was that although the vast majority of photographs operate as documents, e.g. in newspapers, that there are many other roles for photographs, e.g. as an expression of creative imagination, and that there is no reason to believe that the rules for documentation applied to all photographs.

Now I think that the argument needs to go beyond this. I think the word document/documentary is suspect at its core, and is so much at risk for misuse or misunderstanding that it needs to be abandoned completely.

There are no "documents", no true records of "how it really was". Every photograph is a personal intervention, first by selection of space (framing), then by selection of time (release shutter). These choices, if made by people, have a message, a reaction that is expected from the viewer.

I grant that the intent may be to inform rather than to incite. I would prefer to use the word "report" when this is the aim rather than "document". If my aim is to inform you then I should follow methods and standards fit for that purpose. If my aim is to share a fantasy with you then there are no bounds.

I see on the New York Times web page an invitation to "Help us Document the decade". This is perverse. Why not just "Help us Remember the decade". Using the word "document" invites us to participate in an attempt at objectivity that is unnecessary and doomed.

Why not just acknowledge that this effort, worthy as it most likely is, is going to be a subjective personal effort of intersections between people and what happened mediated by a camera.

Because they will appear in a newspaper, it would be perfectly reasonable to request, or stipulate, and make a further request that the style of the photographs be "realistic" as in no further creative intervention beyond the "taking" of the photograph.

I think this would be better statement of what is the undertaking here, and a pretty worthy one at that.

Cranberry Harvest

For more than a month I was able to follow the cranberry harvest in Bourne, Falmouth and Wareham. For the most part I was following the harvest team of Handy Cranberry Trust.

There was the dry harvest in Cataumet and the wet harvest in Cataumet, Falmouth and North Falmouth.

The wet harvest is probably familiar. The bogs are flooded, the berries dislodged and a sea of red surfaces. The harvesters move deliberately and gracefully through the water. Are they walking ON water? No but they are walking IN water, and there is a total and special grace to their movements.

Part of that grace comes from the riot of red they move in. The red of the floating berries is so intense that one becomes addicted. More red, more red. But the work is going in the opposite direction. Slowly the red vanishes, sucked up the tubes and spilled into the truck. The blue pools remain, but they too will disappear when the bogs are drained.

How does one move through this watery terrain? The threshing machines plod, but they appear to float. The illusion would be rudely undone should they stumble on a drainage ditch, so a Moses marks the way with his staff, showing the way through the red sea with his staff, and guiding the submarine threshers to safety.

There is a less romantic but equally interesting dry harvest. But here there is no watery solution to the problem of gravity.....how to get the berries without crushing them. The only solution is to tread carefully and from the outside in.

There is one other cool move for getting the berries from lowland to highland, and that is to airlift them.

The Art of Photography: Principles and Observations

On Starting another course at the Falmouth Artists Guild I thought it might be useful to set down some principles and observations.

1. This is about photography as an art form.

2. Art is a shared fantasy.

3. Realism is only one of the aesthetics available to the photographer.

4. The first rule of composition is "find great light". All other rules of composition are there to be broken; I don't think this one can be.

5. It's not that important what kind of camera you have, but it is important to know what it is doing.

6. Pixels are precious; know the count !

Photography as an Art Form

Last week I talked at Highfield Hall about Photography as an Art Form.  I may be able to write more but there are a number of simple propositions that are the core of what I want to say.

1.  Photorealism is as much an aesthetic in photography as it is in painting.

2. Although photography is a useful tool if one's objective is documentation, there is no reason that a photograph has to be a document.

3.  If you are in an art gallery, you should be expecting a work of creative imagination, not a document.

4.  The f64 group made a big mistake for photography by defining themselves by technique rather than by aesthetic objective.  Since then photography has been trapped by expectations of fstops and megapixels.

5.  An acquired image is a plastic form, not a fixed form.

6.  My relation with the forest is more important than the fine detail of its trees, leaves, and twigs.

7.  Art is a shared fantasy.

8.  The usage "artists and photographers" needs to be retired; so does the classification in bookstores, "art" in one section "photography" in another.

Parallel Universes: Photography Show at Falmouth Art Center has many dimensions

(this review submitted to Falmouth Enterprise and Cape Cod Times June 8, 2009)

It is a privilege to review the Photography Show at the Falmouth Arts Center.  There is a lot going on here with this first juried show in the wonderful new home of the Falmouth Artists Guild and there is much to see in this extraordinary new building, culmination of so many efforts over the last few years.

In the show there is a set of prize-winning photographs exhibiting some great photographic technique.  A full list of this work is below.  Congratulations to the winners.

What I found as I looked at all the show's images, assembled by juror Marion Roth, was that there was a set of pictures that drew me in, that got me excited and made me think....or dream.....or feel.  I want to write a few words about these, because this is what art is all about, a sharing of feelings and fantasies and notions through a medium.  That medium might be oil on board, dots of ink on paper, or marble on a pedestal.  Not much by themselves but improbably alive and transmissive after a human hand, and heart and mind have worked on them.

First is Jean Adelman's "Sunday Squall", a view from the shore of a looming storm.  Everything in this small work makes us feel the impending threat -- a darkly silhouetted house, brilliant eelgrass in the foreground set against the steel gray depths of the looming cloud, and under it, tiny and threatened, the wake of a boat making for the safety of the shore with all haste.  Beachgoers sit calmly in their chairs seemingly oblivious to the threat, although one curious pair seems to be aware of its approach.

Deborah Casso's "Lone Lily Pad" stopped me in my tracks.  After you get done asking yourself..."now how did she do that?", you continue to marvel at the two realms of fluidity, the ghostly tuber ascending in a sinuous curve from the depths and the forthright platform floating on liquid you know is there but cannot see....definite, crisp and precarious.  Is this risk? Or reassurance?  For me, this is the riveting work of the show.

Howard Dunn in "Avila, Spain" gives us a classic set of three Spanish ladies chatting in a village that seems far, far away.  Douglas Greetham and David Kelly give us bright spring flowers in "A Celebration" and "Breezy Day".  You can feel that Spring is bursting outside the building.

Barbara Groom's "Power" plays with shapes and gives us a bright and clear visual pun constructed of a cross and crosspieces.  Darlene Heard's "Crystal Sea" reminds us that there are other places besides the Cape to escape on a boat in beautiful water.  Andrew Howard's "New Silver Beach, Winter" is both chilling and breathtaking. 

Joel Leavitt makes a moody fogbound scene on Nantucket and Lillian Holmes shows "Maurie" a simple but poignant family portrait.

 Ruth Leech makes us feel the emptiness of a deserted house and Alicia Petitti's moody mysterious moonrise over a cotton candy sea in "Lucy Vincent Beacon" intrigues and makes one feel safe on land.

Finally Milt Williamson's "Help with the Flag" is a classic flag picture which excels in the depth of its colors, the play of light and the fluidity of its composition.  You feel that the group of children that is folding up the flag is one with it.

I have one suggestion for my fellow photographers, which is to say more about the materials, the medium, we are using.  The labels for the show make for a monotonous repetition of "photograph" as the medium.  Only one label says anything more.  I urge everyone to take the trouble to list more specifics, such as "C-print", "Silver gelatin print", "Archival inkjet print",  "ink on paper", "ink on canvas".  A show of paintings would have more specifics on the label such as "oil on canvas", "acrylic" and so forth.  I think this is particularly called for these days, as there has been an explosion in the last ten years of materials with which photographers can present their work.  "Oil on Canvas" made a revolution in Leonardo's time, and digital print techniques are making a revolution in ours.  Let's say more about what's going on.

Prize-Winners:  Juror's Choice: Kathleen Hall, "Reflections of Motif #1"; Best Color: Doreen Sykes, "Tree at Ruins"; Best Black and White: Mark Chester, "Chauffers"; Best Creative Study: Jeannine Lavoie, "Reflections"; Best Special Technique: Robert Manz, "I Cipressini"; Honorable Mentions: Ben Allsup, "Nutcracker"; James Lynch, "Canal Sinking"; Joan Pearlman: "Double Focus #3".

Robert Manz is a fine art photographer working in natural light.  He is a member of the Falmouth Artists Guild.  His work can be seen at Jan Collins Selman Fine Art in Falmouth, at the Cataumet Arts Center, and at his studio in Pocasset.