Return, 2001, photo by Fred Hatt
Inside Outside, 2001, photo by Fred Hatt
Today is the Vernal Equinox, the time when day and night are of equal length, and in the Northern Hemisphere the official beginning of Spring. Transitional times tend to arouse the symbolic impulse in a person of pagan tendencies like me. These are Nature’s magical moments. I live in a very dense city, where Nature expresses herself despite all our human efforts to neutralize and ignore her.
I often carry a camera with me, photographing my urban environment, its patterns and textures, light and shadows, structure and disorder. I’ve never shown these city snapshots as art, but they have been for me an important exercise in sharpening perception. I’m fascinated with the act of framing what I see, and with seeing how different films and cameras and lenses render images and how that compares to the image in my own eyes or mind. I really believe seeing is a faculty that needs to be practiced and exercised constantly.
Taking pictures also challenges my creativity. Anyone can get striking images by going to an exotic locale or a special event – but isn’t it a bit depressing to be at some obvious photo opportunity and see throngs of lens-jockeys? A much greater assignment to give yourself is to see the photographic potential in the mundane environment you move through every day. That’s why I carry a camera when I’m going out to run errands or go to work or visit friends. Activating the image-hunter’s eye can enchant the most quotidian journey.
All the images I’ve chosen for this post were taken within a day or two of the March Equinox, in various years. I wasn’t trying to express anything particular about the season, but looking at them in a seasonal context may evoke something.
Totem 1, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt
Totem 2, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt
In the urban environment, Nature expresses not just in the unavoidable elemental phenomena of weather and growing things, but in a kind of dynamic chaos that results from the density of forces and beings struggling to make their mark.
I’m often attracted to patterns that are twisted, tangled, and layered.
Tangle 1, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt
Tangle 2, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt
Tangle 3, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt
I’m also fascinated by reflections. The city is full of water and glass and metal and other shiny things. Sometimes multiple reflections nest patterns within patterns in a dazzling way.
Rereflection 1, 2007, photo by Fred Hatt
Rereflection 2, 2007, photo by Fred Hatt
The buiding above, with its rigid rectangles broken by distorted reflections of the other rigid rectangles across the way, becomes a thoroughly psychedelic labyrinth when seen in the wind-stirred reflecting pool in the plaza at its base.
Hail spring and the rise of bursting freshness, color and light! And keep checking back here – more drawing and painting are coming over the weekend!
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that reflecting pool photo is truly amazing. that’s the kind of scene CGI artists still can’t depict–the fractals are insane!
I know, Bob, I’ve taken lots of pictures of water, but the white lines and outlined areas of color give this one a compelling twisted geometry.
That reflecting pool is somewhere on Park Avenue. I’ve sometimes thought about seeking it out again, but I’ll bet the wind or the light or something would be different and it wouldn’t work. When I took that one there were all kinds of business-suited people sitting around that pool eating their lunches or whatever, but nobody seemed to notice the fantastic reflections.
I love a man who writes the word “nature” with a capital N. Mother Earth appreciates your reverence
Awesome pictures.
Claudia, you’re going to have to accompany me to one of the pagan festivals this summer.
We interrupt this blog for an important message from Fred’s downstairs neighbor, Alex but please, call me Bob. First of all, enough with the naked people. You want to be an artist? Go to the Hudson river and paint a sailboat at sunset. Like a normal artist. Or a sad clown. See, that is art. Naked people should only be seen with their clothes on. You want to do something different?
Paint a dog sitting in a psychiatrist chair and a woman lying on the couch. And they do lie. Even to a dog.
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