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I am happy to again possess this image ... Woods Pond in Massachusetts Berkshire Mountains ... it is beautifully bittersweet.
Another Pond in the Berkshires of Massachusetts
I spent quite a bit of time in Boston, Massachusetts. I have stylized this image of the Public Garden ... it is now my "painting."
A week or so ago, I posted an article about the "loss" of some 8,000 photos ... the work of about 20 years. If you haven't seen it, please ... it's here ...
http://immaginedigitalimag.newsvine.com/_news/2012/01/31/10278960-personal-losses-in-life-literally-and-figuratively-they-are-relative-and-to-varying-degrees-painful
In part, the article told ...
My images and artwork are represented on a world-wide basis ... some via websites that I manage, others by agencies in New York City, Chicago, North Dakota and other locations in the U.S. . The owner of one of the agencies passed away ... about a year-and-a-half ago ... and his family decided to dissolve the business.
Some months after the owner's death, his family began the daunting task of sorting about 500,000 thirty-five millimeter slides ... by photographer ... then boxing and mailing them. The slides were filed by subject, NOT photographer so you can just imagine the scope of such a project.
I waited a good year after being notified of the death of both my agent and his agency and then, I inquired about my 8000 slides. Long story short, after a second inquiry some months after the first, the owner's widow expressed her sadness and devastation and lamented ... "I doubt that I can get through all of the slides in my lifetime."
She informed me that she would send the 621 slides she had to date set aside for me ... which she did ... they arrived yesterday ... and I promised her I would make no further requests. I wished her and her family peace and I assume, that-is-that.
I haven't shot film of any kind nor submitted slides to agencies for at least a dozen years; it's the digital age and photography has changed significantly ... at least the technical aspects. If your work is going to stand out, exposure and composition are as crucial as ever (even though Photoshop and other editing software can correct some flaws - but, start at near-perfect and go from there ... my advice). Digital images can be made from prints and slides and other digital images, and, shared, submitted for publication, published simultaneously and still retained as files on your computer. As I said before, digital imagery is a "have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too" world.
But a photograph is more than just a "picture;" it is a moment frozen in time for as long as its image exists! And it can, as such, be a memory ... evocative, enthralling ... heartbreaking.
And so it comes to be, among my "lost" images are some, were I to again possess them ... that would make me laugh, make me cry ... regale my eyes and ...
... break my heart.
I find that to be ironic; while the loss of the images is heartbreaking ... it is further heartbreaking that I will likely never see again, the ones that surely would ...
Break my heart.
I never used to be the hopeless romantic I have become in my later years.
© All rights/reserved, Article & Image(s)/A. Macarthur
