Category: Personal
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What does it mean? It’s a frightening tree, but why?
While we were in the woods to photograph Genaro’s tree another one was tugging on my sleeve, seeking attention, though apparently invisible to my present company who were deep in discussion about times gone past. From my vantage point this new tree was obscured, though its branches stretched overhead, longer and more angular than those…
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Into the belly of the beast to encounter Genaro’s Tree
There are no lions, tigers or bears in these parts yet I seldom venture too far off the trail. My attitude toward this has definitely changed after my recent adventure off the beaten track at the invitation of Genaro, a neighbor in the village. As a boy Genaro would gather chestnuts with his grandmother under…
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Silly Symphony actor on the lam in Galica
Appearing at the intersection of two of my great loves, animation and painting. This tree in repose echoed both Manet’s Olympia and Walt Disney’s Silly Symphony, Flowers and Trees.
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Looks like the beginning of a beautiful sugar rush
There must be something special about our first sweets that creates a taste of home, that sense of where we belong. When I came here first ten years ago there was a strange tang to their sweetness. A bit like the disappointment of that first Hershey in 1977 when we moved to Connecticut. When you…
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The water recedes, the floods are quickly forgotten
“This too shall pass”. Wise words from a teacher, wasted on a class too young to appreciate anything outside of the present moment. I do hope he was aware of how important that phrase would become over time. There are teachers and there are Teachers, somewhere in the latter group are teachers who read. The…
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A product of time, labor and love
The over ground cemeteries, like the ones here in Galicia, create unintended corridors of light and dark punctuated by pruned foliage. Not that I am a graveyard junky who spends his time mooching from cemetery to cemetery, but they are always an interesting window into their communities. It is in this way that, though structurally…
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Last light
As the dead rest their heels the sound of kids screaming and laughing can be heard over the drone of SpongeBob SquarePants’ bouncy castle air pump.
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Watching the dog fetch a ball in El Río Tea
Saturday photowalk with my son, exploring the rivers that pass through Ponteareas. It’s very easy to take the clean waters of Galicia for granted but they are remarkable when compared to the filth of 1970s Irish waters of my childhood.
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Fairy trees on the Camino Real, Esgos
Probably not fairy trees but if they were in Ireland they would have a range of myths around them and how they appear to be dancing together.
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Cow with an umbrella,sheltering from the rain
The owners of this cow always make an effort to keep it prepared for the often extreme weather that takes place in Orense. This photograph is from my diary/sketchbook.
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Project work, Immigrant Trees
With my back to the last subject of my previous project I look out on the subject of my next. A small crop of eucalyptus trees by the side of the road that leads from the village to the chapel on the mountain. Photograph is from my diary/sketchbook.
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Camilo’s Tractor, Loña Do Monte.
Loña Do Monte in the mountains east of Orense in the Ribeira Sacra area is the source of inspiration for most of my current projects. Black and White photographs such as this one made on old film cameras are from my diary/sketchbook.