Central Ohio Winter - Lovely Dead Crap

Alfred Russel Wallace discovered the theory of natural selection and evolution.

Who in the hell is Alfred Russel Wallace?

Charles Darwin

Gustave Whitehead discovered human flight.

Who in the hell is Gustave Whitehead?

Wilbur Wright

Homo erectus discovered how to control and use fire.

Who in the hell is Homo erectus?

Shlomo the Neanderthal.

There are so many creative, inventive, intelligent people in our world. To discover or to invent something entirely unique is a rare proposition. As a cultural anthropologist with a specialization in culture change, I am aware that borrowing an idea or technology from a different group is much easier and more common than coming up with something entirely new. That is the reason why societies give special recognition to those who change our lives through their new ideas or inventions.

I was out this winter with my camera much more often than I have been shooting over the past few winters. As described in previous articles/blogs, I know what I like, I have become much better at seeing it, framing it, and creating it. As the winter progressed, I was believing that perhaps I was doing something with my photography that was utterly unique. It was all entirely within my photographic wheelhouse. Shallowest depth of field to set a subject off from the background. Backlit when possible. Minimalist subject matter. Attention to the shapes, textures, patterns, and colors in the backgrounds. There are times when my activity is deliberate, and there are times when my searching, seeing, shooting is on autopilot. I do so much of it; the results are often the same.

My behavior was becoming so patterned and regular that I started to characterize this photography. I started telling my family that I was out shooting lots of dead shit. Accurate but not a wholesome way to communicate about my passion to the grandchildren. Those were the words, however, that came to mind when thinking about my activity. All this photography was going on within my greater focus on impressionist abstracts and minimalism where possible. My work was evolving and what was a less structured process over the past years became more focused and intentional. I was loving the results.

Sandy Siegel discovers a new way to see and photograph nature.

Who in the hell is Sandy Siegel?

Every member of the Instagram group, Lovely Dead Crap.

As algorithms own our brains and our lives, I started to see images in my Instagram feed that looked very much like the dead shit I was considering truly unique, beautiful and worthy of gallery walls the world over. I started to pay attention to the hashtags associated with these images, and lo and behold, there’s not just the lovely dead crap group; there’s the lovely dead crap 2 … because the numbers of photographers capturing lovely dead crap is just too large to be stored in only one container. Thanks for the moniker. Lovely Dead Crap is considerably more eloquent than dead shit. Hey, Bonzi, guess what Zadie has been out shooting?

As I get older, I find myself less able to tolerate the cold. Unfortunately for the planet and future generations, global warming has created much more opportunity for outdoor activity in central Ohio than was ordinarily the case since the last glaciation during the Pleistocene. We had about a week of way too cold and snowy weather. That event occurred just after Christmas. The rest of our winter has been incredibly mild with hardly any snow and temperatures often going up into the 50s, 60s and even 70s. The winter still produced an abundance of lovely dead crap, and offered temperatures that allowed this delicate flower of a human being to traipse around with his very heavy camera and lenses. I’ll be forced to find a new genre if our plants begin to stay green all year round or we start to sprout tropical flora. I do love the abstracts I can wring from a fern.

I also got out more often to shoot because I went back to college. I started taking classes at Columbus State Community College in 2011 when I turned 60 and retired from my day job. This college has an excellent and nationally recognized photography program. I had taken numerous courses, including in Photoshop, Lightroom and Premier Pro. I took what I thought was going to be a short break to finish my book on the patient experience with transverse myelitis. And then Pauline died. I had no room in my brain for photography for a while. I had even less space in my head for college. Time and medical marijuana have arranged sufficient space between my ears to make college possible again. I decided to start back at the beginning as a refresher and signed up for introduction to digital photography. There are a lot of shooting assignments in this class. The assignments are aligned with all of the different lessons surrounding the basics of exposure (depth of field, ISO and shutter speed) and composition. The class has me doing lots of photography that I would not ordinarily do on my own. A few of the assignments have allowed me to use my focus on lovely dead crap. I am not going to retake every class. I’ve been through more than half of the courses they offer in the program. My plan is to take the classes I’ve not yet had. When I’ve completed the program at Columbus State, I'll start classes from the Art Department at The Ohio State University. I will also look into the art program at my other alma mater, Miami University. Hopefully, they offer some virtual classes. Old people in Ohio are allowed to take classes for free at any state college or university. You don’t get credit, but I already know that I’m not interested in doing anything when I grow up.

I do love being back in college. I take the work seriously, but I’ve come to terms with the notion that getting a B does not make me a bad person.

I did experience about a month hiatus in my photography and about every other kind of activity. After escaping the viral mayhem over the past few years, I finally had my personal run-in with the Covid. I had been fully vaccinated and boosted and was beginning to feel fairly invincible about this viral happening. My sister had a big birthday bash in Boston to celebrate her 70th birthday. All her family and close friends congregated at a hotel for a wonderful dinner and dance party. She fell while dancing and broke her wrist. Nancy found out on our way home that a good childhood friend had died earlier that morning. I came home with covid. Happy birthday. I spent a week in bed with only the energy to look up at my ceiling. It has been almost five weeks and I still have fatigue and more than my ordinary brain fog.

I’m looking forward to posting my photographs from the winter in central Ohio. Most but not all of what I am going to post is lovely dead crap. I hope you enjoy looking at my photographs half as much as I enjoy creating them.

Boyer Nature Preserve

Inniswoods Metropark

Olentangy River and Trail