QUAHOG MOMENTS

The Blue Bird
Susquehanna River
Stephen W Pidcock 2012

I am a bit reluctant to reveal that I am still so fascinated with nature’s design.
It’s a kid like “wonderment” at times.
Oceans are an amazing and awe inspiring environment found only in books and on
National Geographic specials on TV where I grew up in semi-arid northwest Colorado.

Moving to the mid-atlantic area gave me some exposure.
One day walking the beach with my wife, I found an amazing shell, and the living resident along with it. My wife educated me on the creature. Even though I studied biology in college I had not seen a quahog this large before.

I am sure that many quahogs wash ashore and make their safe return to the ocean as a projectile and many more onto seafood menus.
These shells seemed to be strong and inpenetratable alien space ships, aeronautical forms, yet meant to be slow steady creatures with one foot on the ground.

"The Cloak”
Susquehanna River
Stephen W Pidcock 2012

The enclosed structure was fat, bulky, colorful and captivating. I studied the details of the ridges, layers and symmetry. I looked closely at the designs where the two halves joined. A playing card spade, or a heart shape. I wanted to press the form into mud or clay to retain the shape and make a plaster mold of it. I took this creature on an adventure pressing the butt end into various degrees of wet sand that I could find hoping to keep the design somehow. I went farther from the water looking for any kind of left over pool or mud, to no avail.

I stumbled upon another windswept design in the sand of diamonds patterns crisscrossed in perfect ratio. Caught again by design, I returned the quahog projectile fashion back safely to it’s home and then was back to study the sand patterns.

I don’t recall if anyone else was on the beach that day, but if they were watching me it may have been amusing to see me discover the wonders of the universe in the simplest of elements.

It’s this fascination with nature’s art that I find the vision of natural water reflections. Shapes, textures, and colors that symbolize the familiar forms that I photograph. I find the rush and pace of life that our culture and society whirl through time with leaves out so many images and experiences with earth.The small amount of time on the water has allowed me to reconnect with the art of nature.

I value these images and capture moments of sitting and watching nature reveal itself to me in unique form. I hope you enjoy the journey with me.

Join me this week in Wilkes Barre Pa for the art festival May 16-19 2013 for more prints of natures amazing reflective art.

Steve

“Your Passport Please"

“Musquakie, Chief Yellowhead”
Georgian Bay Ontario Canada
Photography Stephen W Pidcock 

“Your Passport Please”

I have been granted a passport into an imaginary land.

I usually pass through the customs gates and am required to

turn over any logic of vision. The port of entry can be an easy

unencumbered stroll through security or it can be a

brutal interrogation of why I would dare show up in such a 

hurried state of mind. If I am denied entry it is based upon my

rational thoughts holding me hostage and entry requires me to

unpack the cares of the day, leaving some items at the gates.

That takes time, and time is precious when light changes.

I like the evening to photograph, the stillness of calm twilight. Beginning

moments of shadows that grow into hollow eyes and cheek bones.

I want the world to stop. I want the sun to hold it’s position. I want the

moments of perfect light to stay and not pass by so quickly. 

I can’t capture it all. I think I will return tomorrow afternoon and 

start again but the stillness may not be there, the water level may change,

the wind may be blowing, the clouds may not be the same. 

I may not be given entry to this imaginary land again.

I think the time to savor the moment is now. 

In my journeys, the inhabitants have allowed me to bring back their portraits.

Some resemble co-workers, past school teachers, (Shirley)

celebrities, faces from the dark side, humorous beings,  

and beings within beings.

I am often asked if I see these faces before I take the photograph. 

I do... and as I process, print, and enjoy the art  on my wall I usually 

find more than what I initially photographed. Like little gifts hidden in my

luggage by those who have a story to tell. “When you get back to your 

country tell them about us”. Like old friends with different moods,

they can reveal themselves and be so open and other times they

can hide behind a mask of rock and waves. 

Dark falls. I put my camera away. I am forced from this country. 

No one asks for my passport on the way out. 

I am ushered out to a lingering blue light on the horizon and stars begin

to peak through a dark background. I am aware of the water pushing against

the bow of my boat and the splash of the paddle. In the summer I hear

frogs and insects calling. In the fall I see wisps of fog rising as the temperature

changes.

I navigate to the landing. 

At home again, I print and display these images and I am reminded of 

moments inside a place that I will never enter again. 

Not that I won’t return.

I will enter the same river, the same portal, and the same customs agents 

asking for my passport please and hopefully, with a new perspective, 

enter a different land.

Steve Pidcock

April 6-27th 2013  “Faces of the Susquehanna” is on display at The Framers Gallery 3708 E Market St

York PA