The first thing I noticed was the richness and variety of color in this small leaf, about palm-sized. It was under a canopy of much larger caladium leaves in my deck container garden, and I started thinking of how to photograph it.

It wasn’t until later that I saw the circle of life piece, where the lifespan of this leaf is visible, from top to bottom, in one moment.

But, before that….

I understood I needed a light tent to get soft, even, diffused light, and to remove any distracting ground. I tried to remember what white, translucent material I had that would work, and then what to use for a stable frame to hold the fabric over, under, and around the leaf.

Then I thought, wouldn’t it be nice to have something like that setup all the time, in a little corner of the office, so I could quickly pick up any small object and shoot it immediately.

Well, in that case, I should build something perfect, and with some flexibility. Just before pulling out my drafting board to start designing some working plans, I remembered the little leaf. It would not wait for my design/construction scheme.

I don’t know where it came from, but “mixing bowl” popped into my head, and I got the biggest one we had in the kitchen. Leaf in bowl, bowl in some open shade, I got the soft light, and the simple ground.

As I was finishing I remembered: Edward Weston, from my personal Photography Pantheon, made his famous “Pepper #30” photograph by placing the pepper in a large tin funnel, laying on its side. Great minds, or, more likely, he planted a seed.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

“They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now. It can never be a long time ago.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, “Little House in the Big Woods” (It works better if you can hear that in a young Melissa Gilbert’s voice.)

And yet it was such a long time ago, chronologically, emotionally, psychologically, philosophically.

Hunter Teen Town was, as implied, a teen club for military dependents at Hunter Air Force Base, before it was an Army base. Visitations by “civilians” like my sister Kitty and me were normally limited, but they never said anything about us being regulars almost every weekend. Because of my involvement in Civil Air Patrol I was friends with many of the dependents, and several of the older guys wanted to date Kitty.

I even achieved the status of being allowed in the DJ booth to keep the music going on the dance floor on normal weekends, but for holiday dances, there was a live band, although it seems like it was always “The Fabulous Sphinx.”

As I remember it there were two other rooms–a TV room, and a game (pool table) room.

Mrs. “Mama” Hoover, the military spouse who took on the responsibility for managing this hormone-laden multitude was beloved, in spite of always knowing instantly when someone turned off the lights in the TV room.

What does a teenager know about time? We never thought it would end, but the Air Force base closed and the dependents scattered to new cities, college, military service, jobs, careers.

“Those were the days, my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance forever and a day
We’d live the life we choose
We’d fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way…” Mary Hopkin “Those Were The Days”

To see more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

What makes a place “exotic?” My proposition is that “exotic” is simply the opposite of “familiar” or easily accessible.

Recently a friend posted some comments (thank you Bill Ryan for this idea) about how some of his photography teachers had pushed the idea of photographing one’s own local landscape, but he noticed they all lived next to places like Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon. He had come around to agreeing about shooting locally, though.

It’s the place you can keep going back to on a regular basis. That does so much to better your odds of catching the right light, the right moment, the unusual moment. Your understanding of the place can be so much more intimate.

So, if I said I made this photograph while we were hacking our way downriver on a tributary of the Congo, you might be intrigued. With a little imagination you might see crocodiles in the shadows of the bank, or hear Tarzan in the distance.

But if I say I’m standing on a well-maintained trail in a state park about ten miles from my front door, it’s no longer exotic, even though nothing in the photograph has changed.

To make “photographing locally” work, you have to suspend the way you see everything through familiar memories, you have to quite seeing the names or “labels” we have assigned to everything, and you have to start looking at just what is there in front of (or behind) you–lines, shapes, textures, tones, colors.

And it helps if you can imagine the crocodiles.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,….”

Of all the American anthems–“Star-Spangled Banner,” “God Bless America,” etc.–my favorite is “America the Beautiful,” especially the second verse (especially with Ray Charles singing it):

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!

Happy Birthday to the USA, with gratitude for the Founders who gave us an audacious idea, and the millions since who have risked their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor believing, supporting, and serving that idea, in countless ways.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index