Roger Deakins, byways, and me

Earlier this week I made a very chilly walk over to the Athenaeum Center for Thought and Culture to check out the exhibition of Roger Deakins' photography. Deakins is one of the greatest cinematographers ever and has a country ton of classics to his name including Sid and Nancy, The Shawshank Redemption, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Skyfall, Blade Runner 2049 - the list goes on and on.

It was a really neat exhibition as I don't get to see many physical photographs these days, much less those blown up to 20"x30" with a wealth of detail to see. It's just a different experience from looking at a photo on your phone and zooming and repositioning.

I was immediately drawn to a photograph called "Sheepdog and Cow":

The road with the canine and bovine subjects is off to the right with a fence separating it from a field on the left. That's how I would have done it! I often put a path or way off to one side in my photographs such as this one:

I have the same photographic aesthetic as the great Roger Deakins. Ha!

That Old Time Religion

These are pretty neat:







The photos were taken by Charles Fréger, a French photographer for his "Wilder Mann" project. Fréger photographed men in traditional costume around Europe.

A primal heart still beats in Europe. Deep beneath the gloss of cell phone sophistication lie rituals that hark back to harvests and solstices and fear of the winter dark. Monsters loom in this shadowy heart, but so does the promise of spring’s rebirth and fertile crops and women cradling newborn babes. It turns out that Europe—at least pockets of it—has not lost its connection to nature’s rhythms.

That connection is rekindled during festivals that occur across the continent from the beginning of December until Easter. The celebrations correspond to Christian holidays, but the rituals themselves often predate Christianity. The roots are difficult to trace. Men—and until recently, it has almost always been men—don costumes that hide their faces and conceal their true forms. Then they take to the streets, where their disguises allow them to cross the line between human and animal, real and spiritual, civilization and wilderness, death and rebirth. A man “assumes a dual personality,” says António Carneiro, who dresses as a devilish careto for Carnival in Podence, Portugal. “He becomes something mysterious.”

Apparently the first photo is a bear. OK, but are we talking a Lovecraftian bear?

I cannot figure out whether the costumes were worn for ceremonies and festivals that are religious in nature or if they were worn for more secular ones that incorporate old pagan elements. Regardless, they are some hoopy costumes. In addition to lots of bears, stags seem to be very prominent as well.

I have to admit, though, that the guy dressed as a tree make me chuckle as it reminded me of The Gamers: Dorkness Rising.