Monthly Archives: July 2005

Every Crystal, Every Flower…

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“The radiance in some places is so great as to be fairly dazzling, keen lance rays of every color flashing, sparkling in glorious abundance, joining the plants in their fine, brave beauty-work—every crystal, every flower a window opening into heaven, a mirror reflecting the Creator.”
John Muir (1838-1914). 26 July 1869, “My First Summer in the Sierra, 6 (“Mount Hoffman and Lake Tenaya”), 1911

Ugly Duckling / Beautiful Swan

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“To photograph is to confer importance” Susan Sontag (1933-) On Photography, 2, 1977

“So successful has been the camera’s role in beautifying the world that photographs rather than the world, have become the standard of the beautiful.” Susan Sontag (1933-) On Photography, 4, 1977

Admiring Friend: My, that’s a beautiful baby you have there!

Mother: Oh that’s nothing–you should see his photograph!
Anonymous: In Daniel J. Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America, 1 (epigraph), 1961

A Beast the Color of Winter

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“When the goat had finally gone as far as it could, there was not enough room to turn around. So, Chadwick writes, ‘after some tenative foot shuffling the mountaineer braced its front hooves on the ledge and slowly raised the rear of its body off the ground. Clenching my hands tighter and tighter on the binoculars, I watched the beast lift its hindquarters higher and higher and begin to roll them straight over its head. The rear hooves touched the wall here and there for an instant, yet what the creature had effectively carried off by the time it was finished was a complete slow-motion cartwheel, or technically, what gymnasts call a rollover. I put down my binoculars and remembered to breathe, and this mountain goat, an averaged-sized billy, strolled off in the direction from which it had come.”
David Rockwell, “Exploring Glacier National Park”

Rainy Day

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Lake McDonald, Glacier National Park
“Good luck and good work for the happy mountain raindrops, each one of them a high waterfall in itself, descending from cliffs and hollows of the clouds to the cliffs and hollows of the rocks, out of the sky-thunder into the thunder of the falling rivers. Some, falling on meadows and bogs, creep silently out of sight to the grass roots, hiding softly as in a nest, slipping, oozing hither, thither, seeking and finding their appointed work. Some, descending through the spires of the woods, sift spray through the shining needles, whispering peace and good cheer to each one of them.” John Muir (1838-1914)