Long Meadow North. 2005. Photograph by Joseph O. Holmes.
Jan 17, according to a recent study, has been deemed the "most depressing day of the year". This finding by social psychologists was made by calculating how long it takes for us to break our New Year's resolutions, for the holiday bills to pile up, and the effect of the weather and the dark. Not surprisingly, January is also considered the most depressing month and according to my own highly unscientific study, this January in particular is dragging along at a much slower pace than most Januaries.
There are, however, a few metaphorical (as well as actual) bright clouds and one of them for me is walking my dog in the morning when Central Park is still blanketed with white snow and before the dirt of the city turns everything to grey slush. I try to time my walk so that I get into the park just as the sun is rising and this week with its pale blue morning skies and golden red sunrises has been particularly beautiful.
Add to this that after 11 years our semi-wild collie/lab/sheperd/chow mix has finally mellowed enough to be let off the leash and not take off for parts unknown and you get a morning walk that is at once serene, invigorating, and joyful. There's nothing quite like seeing a happy dog bounding through snow!
Another bright cloud is seeing a good show by a friend and I finally got the chance this week to catch up with Joseph Holmes current exhibition “The Urban Wilderness” at the Jen Bekman gallery in Soho. It’s up until January 23 so there’s still time to catch it.
Joe’s pictures were taken in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, not Central Park, but they convey the same magical feeling of the urban metropolis transformed into a wintery Eden. And they’re nearly all about dog walking! (As well as about light, and color, and composition.) Joe values may be old-fashioned – he’s someone looking to find the sublime or the memorable in the everyday – but his pictures have a nice contemporary feel due to their color and scale. And the show is a sure cure for those January blues!
Above and below from the current show:
Nethermead
And two brand new photographs from this December:
Long Meadow North No. 2
The White Oaks.
8 comments:
Terrific, I completely agree. Saw the show and it was fantastic!!!
Love it, love it, love it! Thank you. :)
With the glut of "high conceptual" photo shows in Chelsea it is refreshing to see someone who takes pleasure in photographing the contemporary sublime. With all the gloom and doom going around it is nice to be reminded that life can still be beautiful. Nice show.
so tomorrow is our professional holiday.
btw your photos are so clear and calm and the amount of dogs on the second one is truly impressive!
Awfully weird how that works. November, December and January are my favorite months. It's June that I dread. In the lengthening days of spring and early summer, in all that bright optimism and sunshine, I see only failure and a loss of hope. Then, at some point after the long painful grind of summer, Halloween appears around the corner, and I begin to smile again. I experience the spring in the fall. Go figure.
Great show, great photos, great guy. Thanks for highlighting Joe's work!
man, the pictures are awesome! GREATT WORK, I'm lovin it
it looks like half-painting and half-photography. Very evocative...
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