Kudzu
Mercedes, my friend and former Studio Assistant at Penland in North Carolina, knows just what I mean when she gets a one word text from me that says: Kudzu! If I am in the south I am on the prowl for kudzu.
Kudzu, the legendary fast-growing vine in the American South, the one that can grow a foot a day and cover your parked car if you're not careful, the one I love to photograph off season when it lies flat and tangled with no leaves, looking like a dark brown lace fell over the landscape.
These here are from Mississippi and Kentucky shot the past couple of days as I am headed home to Boston from New Orleans.
What's to say? I do love kudzu, although most hate it as it is invasive and chokes the life right out of most growth plants.
Next up? I stayed at the simply wonderful Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill in Kentucky last night and shot late and early light.
Stay tuned.
Related series
Penland, North Carolina 2012
These photographs were made in late June and early July 2012 on a trip from Boston, where I live, to teach at Penland School of Crafts near Spruce Pine in North Carolina. I drove down there and back, photographing some along the way, but mostly photographed in the small town of Spruce Pine and near to Penland. Each morning at 6:30, often with two or three students along, we would spend a couple of hours photographing in Spruce Pine. The idea of coming back to someplace to photograph, to study it and one’s results from the previous day seemed to resonate with the students and it certainly did for me. Spruce Pine is small, bifurcated into older and newer parts and reflects present day US economics and hard times. It has a railroad that goes right through it, sits in a valley alongside a river and is lush in late June with dark green foliage.
Working this way in North Carolina brought me back to days in my deeper past. There were many road trips spent photographing, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends, sometimes with students, pulling over in some little town, walking and shooting what I saw and what seemed worth trying to make into a picture.
Of note here to other photographers is that this is the first group of pictures I have made with a new camera, a Nikon D800E. This is always a love/hate relationship for me, getting used to how a new camera works, how it sees and imposes itself on what I want it to do. No one wants to be stumbling with buttons and controls while taking pictures and, as cameras are now very complex, it takes me a while to feel comfortable with its newness and being unfamiliar.
Spruce Pine, NC 2013
The Spruce Pine, North Carolina pictures come from when I was teaching at Penland School of Crafts in April, 2013. Most mornings I would head out early to town, a few miles away, before class to first have a coffee then walk the town.
This is the same town I made a group of pictures in last year called Penland, North Carolina 2012:
http://nealrantoul.com/projects/penland-north-carolina-2012
Marion NC 2014
Made while teaching at Penland School of Crafts in the late spring 2014.
The pictures are from Marion, North Carolina.
