Llamas Freak Me Out
Blog episode #16
My friend has a llama on his farm named Dolly who always comes up to me at the fence when I arrive.
The thing that unnerves me about llamas is not what they say but the fact their head is right on the same level as my own and I'm afraid they might bite me in the face.
"I wouldn't do that," she said.
We just looked at each other in silence for a minute while she chewed something.
"I think about it though," she said.
Pete Hendley
www.petehendley.com
comment
shop
unsubscribe
#llamas
#talking animals
#communicating with animals
#farm animals
Heaven is Seedy
I died and came back with good news and bad news. I remember everything that happened like it was yesterday.
The good news is that there is a heaven and there is no death. The bad news is that heaven is a shithole. The buildings need paint. The lawns are unmowed. The parks are overgrown and littered with dog poop, cigarette butts and empty forties in paper sacks. Here and there is a resident in underwear and bathrobe and slippers. It turns out God is not a good landlord there either.
A man at a booth at the exit from the bright white tunnel gave me a choice, stay or go back and I said hold on a second until I had a look around.
I woke up screaming on the operating table with doctors and nurses leaning over me under a bright glaring light and an excruciating pain in my chest and the new knowledge that this was it. It wasn't getting any better.
Ducks are Mean
I sat on a park bench by the river on a sunny, beautiful day. I had two days off and couldn’t think of anything to do. I sat there and the day began to slip by. Then I started to think of things I should do and this made me worry and I started to feel anxious.
A duck walked by from my left and stopped in front of me, “You’re a moron,” it said and continued on to the river and jumped in.
The Whales Got Into the Lake Again
Scientists finally came from the nearby university, but they only stayed for a few minutes. They walked up to the water’s edge and then back to me. They were angry. “It is impossible! It is a small and shallow freshwater lake with no access to the ocean!”
“Yes, I know it is impossible,” I said. “That’s why I called you.”
Nevertheless, every two or maybe three years they appear. They only stay a few hours. It is never predictable. But if you go to the lake often and wait patiently, eventually, they will arrive.
Careful What You Fish For
The moonlight and first hint of dawn caught the surface of the lake just right for me to see below its surface. I was shocked. Then alarmed. I thought of yelling out to the fisherman to warn him. But what would I say? I just stood there and couldn’t think of anything that he would believe. Then I calmed down and realized that, actually, he was better off as he was.
By Evening, All the Cows Had Left
I drove by a field the other day out here in Iowa, and I saw a strange sight. A mirror stood in the field, leaned up against a fence. A herd of cows mingled nearby. As I watched, a cow walked up to the mirror and then stepped right through it and disappeared. A few minutes later another followed. One by one, they each went through the mirror. By evening, the cows had all left. I then went up to the mirror myself and tried to walk through but I couldn’t. It was just a mirror, reflecting the field and sky and me.
I have to admit I was disappointed. I didn’t know where it led, but I wanted to go there. When I returned the next day, the mirror too was gone.
Things are never what they seem.
Pete Hendley
www.petehendley.com
More on Alfred Steiglitz's Publication Camera Work
I wrote about Alfred Steiglitz’s self-publication Camera Work (1903 - 1917) in my last blog (May 2022 - https://nonagon-tangerine-csmg.squarespace.com/config/pages). I wanted to let everyone know that there is a group called the Modernist Journals Project (https://modjourn.org/) that has made digital copies of the original issues available on their website for FREE. They are brilliantly done scans of all the Camera Work issues. You can read them online or download them. This is an amazing resource. The photographs in these issues are just stunning. Take a look! (https://modjourn.org/journal/camera-work/)
They also have a lot of other publications from their beginnings, such as National Geographic, and The Atlantic, and some lesser known but fascinating fiction and poetry and essay magazines like The Strand Magazine (London 1910), Windsor Magazine (London 1911), and Egoist (1914 - 1919) to name only a few.
I highly recommend this site.
Pete Hendley
www.petehendley.com
From Camera Work No. 7, A Village Corner by Theodore Hofmeister, page 13.
From Camera Work Issue 49-50, page 17. Paul Strand’s famous and controversial photo.
Camera Work - Alfred Steiglitz
It is hard to imagine that in the early 1900s debate raged over whether photography was an art or just a mechanical, objective way of recording reality. Alfred Stieglitz led the movement for photography as art by starting a gallery named 291 in New York and by self-publishing his own work and that of his friends and acquaintances in the subscription quarterly magazine Camera Work. The focus was primarily Pictorialism, which involved special lenses and developing processes that lent a dreamy slightly unfocused look to the photos, in stark contrast to today’s interest in sharp digital images. (There is a place for both). It ran from 1903 to 1917 and was hand produced by Steiglitz on heavy fine art paper. Some of the many great artists of the time were featured: Steichen, Clarence White, Paul Strand, Rodin, Matisse, and Picasso among many others. In his gallery 291 he also showed paintings on canvas such as those by his wife Georgia O’Keefe.
There is a nice small publication by the publisher Taschen that reproduces Camera Work. It is much smaller than the original magazine but very nice. It includes the articles and images from the originals. I highly recommend it.
Pete Hendley
www.petehendley.com
Blog Episode #8
In Carl Bernstein's new book Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom, he mentions my father Coit Hendley a number of times. They were friends and colleagues and "newspapermen" back in the day together working on the Washington Star in Washington D.C. It is a great book, very evocative of those days when opinion was confined to the Editorial Pages, and journalists prided themselves on reporting the most factually accurate story they could. Of course they weren't perfect, but no one threw around accusations of fake news in those days of the 1950s to the 1980s, through the civil rights movement, Kennedy assasination, the moon landing, Watergate. Quite an era. It is full of details about how a newspaper gets the job done, using phone booths, carbon paper, and your feet to track down leads. Bernstein's love of his job comes across wonderfully. It is amazing to see my father and his world portrayed. I sent Bernstein a complimentary copy of my book about my father's World War II experience at D-Day, LCI-85: The Military Career of Lt(jg) Coit Hendley During the Invasions of North Africa, Italy, and Omaha Beach on D-Day: His Papers and Photos, and I never heard back, which is fine. Well, I guess he got it. He also mentioned me and my book. I even made it into the index, next to my father. Quite exciting!
My thanks go out to Peter Alexander who alerted me to my presence in this book before I’d had a chance to read it!
Buy your copy now!
If you know of anyone who would like to receive this blog, please have them go to www.petehendley.com and sign up!.
I hope everyone is well out there!
NEWS: Award and Publication
I am happy to report that my book The World is Beautiful: Two Years on the Road (Photos) is a 2021 semi-finalist for the North Street Book Prize! It is nice to be recognized and hopefully it will help more readers find the book. (Available on Amazon).
"Honoring the best self-published books of poetry, children's picture books, art books, graphic novel & memoir, genre fiction, literary fiction, and creative nonfiction & memoir." My book was entered in the Art Book category. "...We admired The World is Beautiful...and your final rank in our 2021 contest is Semi-Finalist." - Adam Cohen, President
I am also happy to report that Little Village, a local magazine here in Iowa City, had published three of my photos. Their check just arrived!
If you know of anyone who would like to receive these blogs through email, please have them go to www.petehendley.com and sign up!
I hope everyone is well out there!
Film Vs. Digital
It was a huge debate when digital cameras first came out - does one switch to digital or keep using film? As time went by it became easier and then a necessity to go digital. If you do still use film, you have to scan the negative into the computer to make it digital, so you can then post it online, sell prints online, use editing software like Affinity Photo (which I prefer to Adobe) Lately, a lot of people have returned to using film, though rarely ever exclusively. I shoot both, depending on the situation. Film has a unique feel to it which creates a “grainy” look, depending on the type of film you use and the conditions. With digital, photographers are usually looking for a much cleaner, slicker look, though software editing does offer a way to try to imitate the film look, with varying degrees of success. If I am in a situation where I need to shoot a lot of frames, like tracking an eagle across the sky or attending a sporting event, I will use digital. It doesn’t cost anything to shoot a lot of images. If I can be more selective, I will usually use film. I also like the developing process, which has gotten easier than in days of old. Below on the left is an example of digital and on the right a film shot from my book The World is Beautiful: Two Years on the Road (Photos). They both have their purposes.
You can view these more closely on www.petehendley by clicking on them and following the links.
www.petehendley.com
Manhattan on the East River
Is It Ever Okay For a Photo to be Blurry?
Today, the tack-sharp image is the expected. It is more possible than ever with autofocus and digital cameras. But is it ever warranted to have any blur in a photo? In the image below, titled “The Amish and Me”, I was in the car with a camera in my hand (a manual focus 35mm Pentax Me Super), when the horse and buggy sped by. I quickly snapped a shot. The young girl’s expression makes it worth it, in my opinion. In the second photo on the right, titled “Sometimes It’s a Lot”, I think the blur creates a feeling of unsettledness (taken with an autofocus 35mm Canon 1V). It is from my book 55 Photos: Baltimore 2021. It helps to see it in context. We were helping Lydia move to Baltimore, find an apartment, start a new job, settle in, and it was sometimes “just a lot” to deal with.
Of course, in the end, it’s up to personal taste.
Both of these photos can be found in the People section on www.petehendley.com.
Pete Hendley
Fine art prints now available on www.petehendley.com
Vintage Photos
This is one of my favorite photos of my mother, brother and sister in the 1950s. I assume it was taken by my father and probably in South Carolina where he was from. I love the retro details, fish for $1.25, the front of the car, the simplicity of the snack place. Susan Sontag said, “Time eventually positions most photographs, even the most amateurish, at the level of art.” We are interested if for no other reason than the historical details. Does that mean every photo becomes art? Maybe so, if we wait long enough.
Pete Hendley
Fine art prints now available at www.petehendley.com.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - Costa Rica
When I first took this photo, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, I was disappointed in it. I had set in my mind that I wanted to show the jungle around us in this Costa Rica city of La Fortuna. I took another look at it recently and changed my mind. I like the patterns and negative space of the roof tops and then, of course, there is the cat on a hot tin roof. Makes me laugh. There’s just enough of a hint of jungle to help make it more interesting, in my opinion. I often run into this, that I can’t see a photo for what it is until some time has passed and my sight isn’t blocked by my expectations. I guess that can apply to many things in life. Lesson as a photographer? I often now stop and try to make myself see differently, make myself drop any ideas I have about what is in front of me. Oh and wait awhile before deleting anything.
This and other fine art prints now available at www.petehendley.com. Look in the Animal section for this one. Oh and sign up for my email list if you aren’t already on it. Thanks.
Pete Hendley
Ralph Gibson the Photographer
The photographer Ralph Gibson said about his first book, The Somnambulist, which launched his career in 1970, “…it became apparent that if I wanted total autonomy over the project I would have to publish it myself. So I formed my own imprint…” He is still alive today and in his 80s. He went on to self-publish many books as well as his friends’ books. He’s a fascinating character. He knew everyone back in the day, Annie Leibovitz, Alfred Stieglitz, Ansel Adams, Cartier-Bresson, you name it. His more recent book Self-Exposure is full of anecdotes from those days and wisdom from his years of experiences. It’s also full of great photos. Definitely worth a read. I think he would whole-heartedly approve of photographers’ new ability today to self-publish their work much more easily than in the 1970s. Take a look at The Somnambulist, if you can find a copy. Some very interesting photographs, like these on the covers of the two aforementioned books.
www.petehendley.com
Fine art prints are now available on my site. Buy one now!
