After being in Santa Rosa for about a week, I took a chance and pushed east over a couple of mountain ranges down into the very flat Sacramento River Valley. This is where the majority of agriculture is in California and it is an extensively managed engine of capitalism and a large part of the state's economy.

I ended up in Yuba City for a night. Towns in the valley exist as support for farming, for the most part, and Yuba is no exception.  I decided to try flying over the valley  as there was potential for pictures in the grids of the fields that ran off to the horizon. At the first small airstrip I tried outside of Calusa the pilot was fine about taking me up but it was going to be in the front seat of a crop duster two winged plane. Having a wing below you when photographing is not so good, plus being out in the open meant there would be buffeting of the camera and the resulting images wouldn't be sharp. I thanked him but declined. In the Yuba airport I found a pilot with his own Cessna 182 who was happy to take me up.

The 182 is about perfect for photography. It is larger than what I am most used to, the Cessna 172. It can fly faster, has more room inside and is very stable. My pilot, Les Sander, was experienced, careful and thorough.  We took off at 10 the following morning and it was clear and calm. Les had asked what I was up to, why I wanted to go up to photograph, and I said that I was an artist and was doing this on my own nickel. He looked surprised but said nothing. Right away we were in some wonderful stuff:

This is a region where they grow a lot of rice and also fruit for dried fruit. The cherry trees were in bloom and a faint pink color:

Just west of where we took off, there lies a low range of hills called Sutter Butte, sticking up out of the flat valley floor like a raisin on a breadboard, an eroded butte from eons ago and the only thing higher than a two story building for miles around:

(Thank you Google Earth)

On the way across the valley headed west we circled it on the northern edge:

Leaving Sutter Butte behind us we flew across the valley floor at about 1500 feet at 135 mph.

Then headed for the foothills along the western edge of the valley.

Les had to fly the plane higher to be able to get over these hills and so he took it up to about 3000 feet. Know how you get a single engined small plane higher? You fly it in circles with the stick pulled back a little until you're at the altitude you need. Takes a while.

Next up, in California Aerials 2, I will chronicle the flight back to Yuba City. It'll be good. 

Along the way Les asked on the intercom through our headsets as we flew along if I was  going to use the pictures I was making to paint from and what did my paintings look like. I had confused him by telling him I was an artist. I explained that no, I was a photographic artist and that I would make prints of the pictures I was making and show them in exhibitions in galleries and museums, maybe. He said, "Really?" 

I said yes, that was usually what happened. 

Next up: California Aerials 2

In my last post(Same But Different) I wrote about photographing the same tree again and again where I am this month in Santa Rosa, CA.

In this post I will describe the way I applied that approach to a vastly different topography while a resident in northern Iceland last summer.

In Iceland in July not far from the Arctic Circle it doesn't ever really get dark. Combine that with the fact that, forgive the digression, old guys like me get up in the middle of the night to take a leak with where I was staying the bathroom had a window that looked out to the horizon and you have an opportunity not to be missed.

What I had was a situation that made it very difficult to just flush and go back to bed. So, most nights I would stagger out to the patio in front of our studios in bare feet, camera on a tripod, position the legs of the tripod on the three taped marks I'd made on the stone so I could repeat the shot, point the camera at the same thing every night, and bang off a frame or two. 

Way out there was a peninsula with water below and Iceland's big sky above. Each night, something wonderful and different was happening to this scene. Iceland's weather changes all the time, clouds come in and then clear out, it will rain or the wind will come up and then die down, and each time I would stumble out there to position the camera in the same place each night, whatever was in front of me was never the same as it had been the night before and yet, of course, it was. 

Photography isn't only about a single frame, or a single moment in time or a single photograph that contains all the visual elements to make a complete picture. It can be about time and freezing time and smearing time's distinctions to connect the differences between moments or days. My whole career I have been fascinated by the difference between two images of the same thing, either taken one right after the other or with significant time between the two.

Part of the appeal of Iceland for me was its absence of trees, something they are trying to rectify by planting more trees. But for the time being this hugely glaciated place is scrubbed clean of interfering trees that obscure one's sense of the actual landscape which is the foundation upon which we stand.  Combine this with no pollution as Iceland's energy is thermally sourced and you have exceptional clarity and an ability to see forever. 

Are you local to Boston? There are four of these Iceland pictures on view at 555 Gallery in South Boston. 

The gallery's website is: 555 Gallery

If you've been reading this for awhile you know this is a recurring theme here at NealRantoul.com. The idea of things staying the same but being different too.

Well, we are going there again, but this time in relation to where I now am in Santa Rosa, CA for the next three weeks and how I keep photographing this one tree that sits outside the back door of the cottage I am renting high up on a ridge that is just simply gorgeous every morning when the sun comes up.

I think we're all familiar with this scenario:  aging artist, confined to a rocking chair or perhaps stumbling around using a cane, sits in same spot each day and, pastels in hand, sketches the same tree through the times of day or different seasons. At least in my mind this fantasy results in a mature career artist making fairly quick and gestural responses that encapsulate all the years of experience he/she has into these series of pastels, or charcoals or pen and ink drawings.

Well, photography can do that too. I am not infirmed or confined to a rocker, do not use a cane but I am old and as I sat at the table in the  cottage last week, writing  the posts on Fred Sommer as the sun came up, or it got lighter, I would look up to see this black oak tree right in front of me:

Sometimes it was shrouded in fog, as above, sometimes crystalline clear:

And often with fog yet to burn off in the valley below:

or bathed in sunlight later in the day as the sun headed down:

I think I've got it figured out now. I set up the camera on the tripod the night before I go to bed and it's ready to go the next morning as every day is some new and wonderful light show.

Why the comments about the senior artist? Because I think of this as a way to work that is all about the subtle things inherent in long observation of the same thing as it's being altered by light and atmosphere and time of day and maybe the seasons. This kind of keen observation results in imagery that is about the differences between the frames. Are those attributes you associate with a young artist? I don't. 

Next up: The Same but Different in Iceland

I've written occasionally about a picture of mine that stands out or seems special. For instance, the tennis court picture I wrote about in What Is It?.

This post uses Yogi Berra's famous line: "Deja Vu all over again" as the picture below has been haunting me since I made it.

The photograph I am writing about is this which has been obsessing me since I made a print of it.

What's so special about it?  The line of trees and their shadows running down the right center of the frame. This is from a current project called Route 2 Trilogy that is 2/3 finished. It is aerial photographs taken along Rt 2 as it traverses the state of Massachusetts from Boston out to the Berkshires and the border of New York.

Exceptional? The picture looks fairly ordinary, a suburban street (actually near Fitchburg, MA) with homes on either side, clearly made in the late fall or early spring because there are no leaves on the trees. But it is the line of trees that gets me, so black it is hard to tell whether we are looking at trees or shadows of trees. Notice that above I wrote "since I made a print of it"? That's because there was quite a bit of work done to the file in post production to emphasize the trees and their shadows. This wasn't really finalized until I made the print.

Here it is cropped:

Pretty bizarre, yes? As in tentacles. The contrast of peaceful domesticity along a tree lined street in broad daylight with these trees throwing ominous shadows just slays me. But just recently I figured out why it feels like "deja vu all over again".  I rewatched the 1999 film American Beauty  a couple of weeks ago and guess what happens at the beginning and end of the movie?

There is an aerial tracking shot of the suburban street where Kevin Spacey lives with his family and where most of the film takes place. Aha! (I really did have a genuine "aha" moment when I saw the film.) The trees have the same kind of prominence in the frame, and the structure of the picture is very much the same as mine.

I've written before about the Sam Mendes film "American Beauty" in the post My American Beauty but didn't remember this until I saw it again recently. Funny how powerful imagery can be and how we often relate to pictures on a subliminal level.

So, did I make the picture in response to a scene to a movie I first saw in 1999 or did I make my aerial photograph independently and then note its similarity as I saw the movie again? I do not know.

Love the enigma.

Now for something different. I am now in Santa Rosa, CA and will be for the next month or so.  Santa Rosa's a little more than an hour north of San Francisco near Sonoma, Napa, Sebastopol, Healdsburg, Guerneville and the Russian River floes just north nearby.

Why here? Why not? Escaping Boston in February to go make pictures where it is warmer to an area that is incredibly rich with all kinds of things to discover seems like a no brainer to me. I can get down to San Francisco easily to visit friends, go to a museum or gallery and to my favorite restaurant in  Chinatown.  As I said: no brainer.

Once again I will bring you posts that sum up my experiences and adventures while away and share my thoughts about things photographic, artistic and aesthetic. Since these trips are mostly solo, I tend to have a lot of thoughts rattling around inside my head and I will write about those in the blog too.

One of those, and I think this every time I do one of these trips, is that it is not necessary to go to countries far away to find things that are interesting and different to work with. I am constantly struck with what a large, beautiful and diverse country we have in the US. We all have the same currency, the same politicians in Washington (unfortunately), the same laws like driving on the right, and the same language, although I understand that's a stretch. Have you ever tried to have a conversation with someone born and raised in the deep south?  That's like from a whole different country. 

So that's my plan. I hope you'll come along for the ride.

Below:

At Logan airport just as the sun was coming up, waiting to board the plane on Friday: It was about 15 degrees out.

And the first picture I made out my back door yesterday afternoon in Santa Rosa:

Since I arrived it's been raining, which is good for them here as they really need it but bad for me. I am waiting it out. I am sure sunny California will return soon. I can't wait.

Stay tuned.