Indiana – Page 19 – The Inner Frame

Happy Second Birthday!

This little blog is now two years old. As a birthday present, here is yet another visit to Strahl Lake in Brown County State Park, this time at a full moon.

DSC 7300

This turned out to be more difficult than I thought, and I tried it twice this year to capture the lake front in moonlight. The image up above shows how dark it really was. Below is a picture an hour after sunset.

DSC 0821

Of course, the camera allows you to expose as long as you like, capturing more light than real. Below is what the camera thinks it should look like, assuming all images require the same amount of photons on the camera sensor.
If not for the stars, this could be a faded color print of a daylight photo. Eerie.

DSC 7304

Let’s end this year with a little more realism. We will need the light.

DSC 7302

Yoga for the Soul (Treescapes 2)

After a light freezing rain I went at sunrise to Brown County State Park to admire the trees. It was very cold, but, as I said before, I enjoy that these days.

DSC 8220

So yes, you can have views even in Indiana. Nothing man made visible here.

DSC 8265

The trees have been temporarily transformed. I am tempted to say that they appear to be frozen, but that is what they are.

DSC 8276

They seem to move even less than usual.

DSC 8259

I wish this would happen to us, too: For a couple of days being forced to stay put, to contemplate and reconsider, and then to be allowed to thaw.

DSC 8267

Sofia

I like local produce. And I like cheese. One of the warnings I got from my European friends was that the people in America would spray their cheese on crackers. While it is true that one can buy something named cheese in spray cans and do whatever with it, this is still a free country, so nobody forces anybody to do so.

Moreover, there is no such thing as the people, and there is tolerance for perfectionist cheese makers. One of them are the family from Capriole Farm in Southern Indiana who make amazing goat cheeses. Above is Sofia, allegedly named after one of their daughters.

Beets

Of course this cheese goes well with good bread (more about that at a later point). I also like minimalist recipes, with a maximum of three ingredients. For instance:

Red beets, goat cheese, sage:
Slice and sliver everything. Bake 15 minutes
at 400 degrees. Serve warm.

DSC 1192

Enjoy.

Points of Support

Three points make a triangle.

DSC 7244

After witnessing the remnants of the American democracy in free fall during this year’s election, I found some peace in contemplating the stability that is achieved by three points
on a long walk through Turkey Run State Park’s maze of canyons.

DSC 7126

Fall is almost over here, and the dead leaves and trees are awaiting the mercy of frost and snow.

DSC 7217

There is beauty still in all of this, maybe because it cannot be made a target of hatred.

DSC 7221

Let’s call this a prayer, if such thing still exists.

DSC 7213

Yellow

When Giacinto Scelsi went through a personal crisis, he spent hours listening to the sound of a single key on his piano. The haunting music he composed afterwards is my favorite music for the Fall.

DSC 7054

Appropriately once in a while the leaves make a concerted effort to display just one color.

DSC 7079

The yellow fall color is particularly difficult to catch, because the leaves fade too quickly when on the ground. This fragility makes yellow ideal to increase tension in an image.

I have difficulties pinpointing what I like about the image below. I keep returning to the pale yellow tree in the center that seems hover over the slanted lines of nearby rocks and trees,
ready to exert more pressure downwards, but not quite doing it yet.

DSC 7040

Fragility is also part of Scelsi’s music. The first time I heard his music was at a concert in Cologne, and one piece was for solo guitar. Half way through the piece a string broke. The player just sat there for a minute, seemingly uncomprehending. When he recovered, he looked into the audience, went up to get a new string, and recommenced playing. This one minute of silence could very well have been part of the music.

DSC 7101

Asleep and Awake

DSC 6781

After visiting Brown County State Park on a very foggy earl Fall day, revisiting the same location two days later on a very sunny day shows a different landscape.

DSC 6680

Just before sunrise, the lake is still partially covered with morning fog, but within an hour, the appearance changes completely.

DSC 6723

That one hour of snoozing gives plenty of time to walk around Strahl Lake,

DSC 6699

slowly separating dream and reality.

DSC 6708

Landscape in the Mist

Fall has arrived.

DSC 6524

As you can see, the Indiana landscape does have opportunities for outlooks, at least in theory.

DSC 6546

I used the first rainy fall day to revisit Brown County State Park with its two lakes.

DSC 6549

My favorite lake front at Strahl Lake has changed only little since my first post about this place, even though some trees are dying.

DSC 6553

There is also Ogle Lake below, which is larger and not as intense.

DSC 6587

The far side of it is more interesting, with groups of trees guarding the secrets of the place.

DSC 6608

Walking through a landscape in the mist has become a ritual since I first watched the film by Theo Angelopoulos with the same title. Fog, light, and borders will never mean the same again.

DSC 6664

Up?

Let’s continue the delightful examination of the green-white-black pre-Fall landscape of Indiana.

DSC 6130

Once in a while it overcomes me and I want to be able to look around. Unfortunately, most of the Midwest of the USA has no mountain peaks to climb, so one is pretty much limited to a horizontal, 2-dimensional perspective.

DSC 6033

This gets worse in Clifty Falls State Park, where the main (and most exciting) option is down. At the bottom, one can only walk along the creek, and is reduced to a 1-dimensional perspective. There are traces from a still existing outside world, mostly in the form of large boulders.

DSC 6089

We do not ask what’s underneath. And yes, there is life, if given time.

DSC 6094

Thoughts about a way out seem preposterous. How dare we think about an up when there is only forward?

DSC 6059

So, instead of the longed for outlook I had another look inward, reducing everything to the very next step. There are many ways rinse oneself.

DSC 6099

The Loop

Once again I am returning to the fascinating Pine Hills Nature Preserve in Shades State Park, walking the loop trail there.

DSC 5765

I have done this several times, at different seasons, and both the fact that I keep repeating this hike and that it itself is a loop (returning to its beginning) makes be wonder about the purpose of this.

DSC 5769

Return and repeat: Aren’t these early signs of failure? Wouldn’t it be better to give up and move on?
After being exposed to Iceland’s permeating Black, Green, and White last summer, I was surprised to find the same monochromaticity here, in late summer.

DSC 5779

Green is a difficult color, and doesn’t pair well with a single other color I think, but it does exceedingly well in combination with black and white.

DSC 5801

When we return, we are different, and view things differently, and possibly even the completion of a loop teaches us something new. That what makes us repeat is maybe the feeling that there is unfinished business, that the circle has been left open, in the way the ensō brush stroke is often left open.

DSC 5811

So the loop, as a pattern, is nothing but a sophisticated mechanism to move on.

DSC 5857

Pictures are Better than Words

DSC 5652

With Fall around the corner, it is time to revisit a few friends. One of the less traveled trails in Shades State Park is the loop #2 in the eastern part of the park (but still west of Pine Hills Nature Preserve).

DSC 5654