Strange Fruit

And now for something completely different:

I am finally breaking my extended fast (has it really been eight months?) from posting to this venue. While I will continue offering my thoughts and musings concerning the arts, in general, and photography, in particular, I expect to range farther from this target on a frequent basis. This post is evidence of that.

A couple of days ago it was June the twenty fourth. The Vatican's calendar of feasts celebrates it as the birthday of John the Baptizer. John is also variously noted by different traditions as the Forerunner, the Last Prophet, and as the Herald of the Lamb. My own smartphone calendar buzzed an alarm in my pocket and I remembered this was my day to harvest the fruit waiting for me down at the end of our driveway.

Green walnuts waiting to be harvested
© Bill Brockmeier, 2014

The fruit waiting to be plucked were not at all typical. So unusual they were, that I might be the lone human on the planet harvesting them. The fruit is very green, very unripe. They have the size and sphericity of a ping-pong ball. Their material consistency lies  somewhere between that of balsa wood and cork. In South Texas we call the tree on which it grows a "nogalito," the diminutive form of "nogal" ("walnut"), or, "little walnut."

For twenty years this little tree flourished at the edge of our Hill Country property. I say "flourished" but it neither grew fast nor tall. Having grown up in the Midwest I was familiar with the native American "black walnut" and when we moved to this property I recognized the little sapling struggling to survive. At least I thought I did.

Every day as I walked down to the mailbox I passed my baby walnut tree. Every time I saw it I imagined what it would look like some day in the future. Of course, it would become like every other black walnut I had seen: majestic in stature, abundant in provision, showering my yard with shade and bushels of those pungent, sweet, delectable nuts. "Ahhhh, I can't wait" I thought. But I would have to. Trees like I imagined took decades to produce.

Year by year I surveyed my little walnut. It grew, but slowly– very slowly. Would it ever produce anything?

Finally, it flowered one spring and I could imagine the nuts to follow. But when the nuts formed that summer and began to fall that autumn there was no joy. I picked up one of the nuts and knocked away the drying husk from around the hard shell. My excitement faded and I felt as though some evil trick had been played on me. Inside the husk was, indeed, a black walnut shell like I had seen so often in my youth– with one exception. The hard shell on this nut was no bigger than a small grape.

I found a limestone cobble a little bigger than my fist and expended the impact of its momentum upon the little nut as it rested on a much larger rock. The stone-like shell of the walnut gave under the collision and the nutmeat hidden inside was now revealed.

In comparison to the common English (more properly, Persian) walnut, the nutmeat in a normal American black walnut is small– maybe half the Persian's volume. But the nutmeat in the little shell I had just violated was almost non-existent: like two grains of rice. To accumulate enough of these nutmeats to fill even a little half-pint jelly jar, I could imagine it would take all of the nuts from all of the trees in a square-mile walnut orchard. And it would probably take ten man-years of labor to liberate the meats from their tiny hard-shell prisons. Disappointment abounded.

My Nogalito, about 15 feet high
© Bill Brockmeier, 2014

Over the next couple of years, the nuts continued to show up on the little tree, which never did grow much taller (less than twenty feet). And the nuts, likewise, refused to bulk up (no more than a centimeter in diameter). What was going on here? Via the internet I began investigating the walnut botanical family. I soon discovered that my little tree was not the classic American "Black Walnut" (Juglans nigra) but a somewhat different regional species known locally and variously as the "Nogalito," "Texas Walnut," "River Walnut," or "Little Black Walnut." "Little" Black Walnut, indeed! The botanical name for the species is even more revealing: Juglans microcarpa, or literally, the "walnut with tiny fruit."

The diminutive stature of the nogalito probably came about as the American Black Walnut arrived at the doorstep of the Chihuahuan Desert in southwestern Texas. The arid conditions, coupled with the lack of deep soil on the Edwards' Plateau most likely selected dwarfed forms of the tree. These miniature copies of the majestic Black Walnut would be imminently more suited to survival on the edge of a desert.

I was crushed. I loved the little tree, but a little tree, with little nuts, it would stay. No large havens of shade in the front yard. No bushels of wonderful black walnuts to enjoy. Oh, the humiliation...

A couple of years later I had acquired an interest in developing new liqueurs. In the process of educating myself about the history of liqueurs as well as their current state, I stumbled across an obscure strong drink created by the farmers near Modena (home of  Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Maserati) in Emilia-Romagna of northern Italy centuries ago. The libation (actually, a digestivo)  is called "nocino" (pronounced "noh-CHEEEE-noh") and is based on a grain-spirit extraction of, amazingly, green unripe walnuts. The concoction is not a large-scale, commercial liqueur that can be found at your local package store, but is only available in very limited quantities from the farmers who craft it.

The recipes for nocino (also known as "liqueur de noix' in France) vary considerably, and their details are often entrusted from one generation to the next. But they typically combine a handful of diverse (and usually secret) spices and herbs with the constant of unripe, whole walnuts. The mix is combined with a high-proof grain alcohol to extract all of the aromatic oils and essences, mainly from the nut's green husk, and commonly aged for several years– the longer, the better.

The walnuts are traditionally harvested on John the Baptist's feast day (Festa di San Giovanni) on June 24. Taking the nuts this early in the summer insures that they are quite underdeveloped, with the shells beneath the husks still fleshy and easily cut up with a knife. Quartering them allows the alcohol to fully penetrate the body of the husk, shell, and nut and draw out all of the wonderful nature within.

Descriptions of the final liquid are near universal: inky-black in color and constitution, and possessing flavors and aromas that border on heavenly. The ink-like color is attributable to the walnut husk's chemical makeup. The compound juglone is responsible for the blackness of the liquid, and it has been used in years past for making ink, fabric dye, herbicide, and henna temporary tattoos. The FDA refers to it as "Natural Brown Dye No. 7." Who would be tempted to drink something an opaque black in color? It would not only be like drinking ink, it would, literally, be drinking ink. But everyone who has tasted nocino raves about the indescribable and unmatched flavor.

As I began thinking about it, I wondered how I might get a hold of some green walnuts. They would certainly not be available at the supermarket, for one even as well-stocked as ours. And then the light came on. The little nogalito at the end of our driveway-- it grows nuts, doesn't it? And in this case, size certainly does not matter.  This could be the perfect use for such a useless tree bearing equally useless fruit.

A portion of the harvest
© Bill Brockmeier, 2014

Although it was already August and the feast of John the Baptist was long past, I collected an ample supply of the still green nuts. As I picked them a marvelous aroma began to fill the atmosphere. Both the nut husks as well as the leaves near them would bruise from my efforts to locate and pluck them from the branches. In response to the bruising the tree exuded a powerful aroma, difficult to describe. The olfactory effect is wonderfully fresh, yet earthy and dark. Something of the pungency of that wonderful Asian spice, cardamom, was in the background, with a myriad of other less identifiable herbs. Once having smelled it, calling up deep memories of this aroma is easy, and yet, it seems to escape being captured in words.

I gathered four pounds of the nuts and then attempted to prepare them for the alcohol extraction. While most recipes describe quartering the whole nuts with a heavy kitchen knife or cleaver, the shells on these nuts were already beyond that process. The tiny nut shells inside were as hard as stone and unyielding to a steel edge. Since the details of making nocino seem to be a collaboration between tradition and improvisation, I chose the latter in opening up the nuts.

I located my two-pound handheld sledge hammer and my fifty-pound iron anvil. I cleaned them both and then placed the anvil inside of a new large trash bag. Placing the whole nuts one at a time on the surface of the anvil, I struck them soundly with a quick blow from the sledge. The nut's hull, shell, and meats inside splattered vigorously inside the trash bag, leaving the anvil empty and ready to be reloaded. I carried this out until the entire four pounds had been reduced to a pulpy rubble in the bag. I moved the contents to a couple of large, bale-locked and sealed, wide-mouth glass jars (made in Italy, appropriately) and then added a mix of spices (a marriage between a traditional Italian recipe and my own secret twists) to one of the jars. I finally topped both containers by filling them with neutral grain spirits (vodka + Everclear).

I placed no spices in the second jar as I had some totally different plans for it. This green walnut neutral liqueur would become the base for a whole new direction in liqueur development (another story for another time).

Both jars would marinate in their own juices for nearly three months. For the duration they remained hidden in the dark, except for the one minute every two or three days when I pulled them out of hibernation and shook them to redistribute the stuff inside and enhance the liberation of goodness.

At the end of three months I filtered the mess from both jars through a few layers of cheese cloth in order to separate the desired liquid from the vegetable matter. By this time the liquid had become jet black (it really did look like ink) and all of the fibrous matter was equally black and unrecognizable. I had been cautioned by all I had read to avoid trying "just a taste" of the nocino at this point. To a person, they said that it would be bitter and entirely undrinkable at this stage. I saw no reason to ignore their warnings. I could wait until its time was right.

The making of a nocino is not for those without patience. Most sources say that it will only begin to be drinkable at one year. And if you can wait long enough, it apparently continues to mature in smoothness, depth, and subtlety for several years to come. But it also sounds that as it begins to become really good, not many people can keep from drinking it all up before it ever reaches the peak of perfection.

With last year's nocino still a product in waiting, my new supply of Saint John's Day walnuts– all twelve pounds of them– now lie in a bag on the kitchen floor. This year's harvest from my little tree was unexpectedly larger than my initial estimate of it. This should ultimately yield nearly two and a half gallons of nocino.

In previous months as I awaited the arrival of John the Baptizer's feast day I often thought about what I should call this liqueur. Although "nocino" would certainly be acceptable, it seemed that something else should grace its final label. And then it came to me. The little nogalito, while certainly not on most people's lists of "favorite trees of the Hill Country and South Texas," should receive the distinction it deserves. The liqueur, having made its way from rural Italy to rural Texas, should be christened "nogalito + nocino," or "Nogaliño" (pronounced "noh-gal-EEN-yoh").

While I prepare to crush my 360 walnuts (it turns out there are about 30 nuts to a pound) I think I will open and enjoy a bottle of appropriate wine I made last year– walnut leaf wine! Buon appetito!

WE HAVE THIS TREASURE

This photograph was composed at San Antonio's historic Mission Concepcion.  Although the most complete and original of the five missions, Concepcion may be the least visited. In my extensive series of photographs of the missions I have found Concepcion the most difficult to photograph– not because because it lacks any beauty, but rather, because it possesses some inscrutable, ineffable qualities that are problematic to capture.

WE HAVE THIS TREASURE,
© Bill Brockmeier, 2012
all rights reserved, also known as: 
THIS LITTLE LIGHT

This particular cropping of the image was distilled from a larger view of the sanctuary which included other elements of the sacred space. This limitation of the overall scene tends to extract the viewer of the photograph from the original location and brings more of a thoughtful, abstract quality to the image. The overall effect of this image is to cause the viewer to raise their vision upward, from the little light below to the more celestial bluish light that illuminates the upper portion of the image. The objects in the image become unconnected to the floor upon which the viewer would be standing and this moves the viewer's thoughts from down here below to up above.

While the depth of the original and complete image was very much locked within the original location, the depth of the cropped image is definitely moved beyond the simple physical reality of the original space. This second crop, although derived from exactly the same image as the first becomes an entirely different photograph.

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This photograph is available in a Very Limited Edition of only 8 copies, printed and mounted archivally on special canvas. The full, framed size is 20 by 72 inches.    Call now to reserve yours— 210-241-6132.

WE HAVE THIS TREASURE
© Bill Brockmeier, 2012

Eternal Light, celestial blue,
 abides above, unchanged and true.
Yet bending down He pierces through
 a dungeon dome of darkened hue.

Plunging earthward, down He dives
 intent on saving, changing lives
Downward, dawn-ward, on He drives
 'til in their gloom His dawn arrives.

He now reforms His glory light
 to fit and forge it, hid from sight.
New incandescence, warm and bright,
 emits a ray and scatters night.

FIRMAMENT

Some time ago, I was traveling by commercial airlines from the San Antonio area to Boston. I am always fascinated by the ability to travel across the continent by air and I delight in the view from such an elevated platform. When the plane's wheels touch down on the runway at my destination, it always seems too soon.

This flight was just such an eye-full since nearly the entire trip we encountered various forms of exciting atmospheric conditions. This was a great time to try some of the photographic experiments that I like to play with when confronted with such great subjects: huge, towering thunderheads, long stretches of unbroken cloud cover, and unusual sunlit conditions. Often, these experiments are interesting but never materialize in usable photographs since the cabin windows so frequently are very poor in optical quality.

Things like age-crazing, general scratching and scuffing, and big gooey smears of hair gel take a huge toll on the ability to take decent photographs. On top of that, reflections of bright things in the cabin can dominate the view as well. To mitigate some of these issues, I usually try to bring with me micro-fiber cloths to clean the window, and it's also a good idea to wear as much dark clothing as possible to reduce reflections. This trip I was doubly-blessed with a high quality, clean window, and sunlight directions that minimized any reflections.

At one point in mid-flight we were flying near 30,000 feet (over 5 miles up) and traveling along between two layers of clouds: a very high layer of thin clouds, and a lower stratum of complete cloud cover (the earth's surface was entirely hidden behind it). The colors of the sky, where it could be seen, were absolutely entrancing– from a light cyan/turquoise near the surface of the earth (the normal sky-blue we see from down here) graduating to a much deeper and purer blue looking up above the horizon.  When gazing up as high as I could see out of the window, the sky was nearly black, but still discernibly blue (maybe a blue-black or "midnight blue").

FIRMAMENT, © Bill Brockmeier, all rights reserved

I tried some different techniques to capture some of this scene, which overwhelmed me with the vastness of the layering of the clouds, and the pure beauty of the unadulterated colors.

I didn't look at the photos until several weeks after the trip, and when I did I found quite a few semi-interesting shots, but nothing that really stood out to me...until I came across one that I took as we flew between the two layers of clouds.  The image really took me back to when I was observing and enjoying it in person.

Recently, I decided to go back to that photograph and try it out in large scale on canvas. After the photograph had been printed, coated, mounted, and framed I sat the completed work up against the wall in my studio and was amazed at how it had come out. It looked to me, and had the feeling, much like the abstract paintings that I so admire. Then it hit me. Turning it upside-down, I thought "let's make it a little MORE abstract." This new composition, which placed the earth at the top of the canvas and the sky below it, was definitely superior to the conventional view.

The very dark blue of the highest atmosphere was now at the bottom of the image, giving it much more a sense of stability and solidity.  The light gray solid cloud cover was now a band of light towards the top, with the brilliant cyan/turquoise streaking between the two. The deep blue below, although actually a view of the high atmosphere appears to be almost water-like. But if it looks like water, where is the horizon, the distinction between the atmosphere and the ocean? The whole effect is a bit mystifying and one is reduced to the pure simplicity of enjoying the colors and the structure of the image, without being able to really ferret out what is going on.

The more I have looked at this image, the more it seems to me shrouded in the enigmatic mists of the original Creation itself.  Some of the opening phrases of Genesis ("Beginnings") say that "...God made the expanse (the firmament) and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse 'sky.' And there was evening and there was morning– the second Day."

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This photograph is available in an Extremely Limited Edition of only three copies, with just two remaining. The full, framed size is 20 by 72 inches.    Call now to reserve yours— 210-241-6132.

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Note: this article is the first in a weekly series that will showcase my Very Limited Edition photographs. For more information on these editions and how I produce them, click here or on the Very Limited Edition link in the upper right. 

Center of the Perception

After the Prime Location– the Center of Perspective– has been selected the second dimension of editing that a photographer normally enters into is the direction into the universe that the camera is aimed. Before this choice is made, the camera is free to rotate in any direction, pivoting about the center of perspective. This pointing in space is the axis, or vector, that further defines the image to be created. Just as the location of the center of perspective is a choice of one spatial point out of the infinititude of possible points, the direction that the camera is ultimately to look must be a single choice out of equally infinite possible directions.

Direction of View, A

And as the point of perspective defines the center of the photographer's perception, so the direction of view of the camera will define the center of the final image, or the center of interest for the final observer of the photograph (this is part of the "what?" dimension of editing). While the point of perspective is the place the photographer is looking from, the direction of aim (direction of view) is the point infinitely far away that the viewer of the photograph will be looking toward. This is not to say that the major point of interest for the photograph's viewer is always the geometric center of the image, as that is rarely the case in reality. But it is to say that this is the cardinal reference point for the viewer– the point to which all items of interest in the image are referenced or related.

One could think of the point of perspective as the center of the perceiver (or the camera), and the direction of view as the center of the perception (the image).

Direction of View, B

 There are two rotational dimensions that comprise the camera's aiming direction. These are commonly called the elevation and the azimuth. The elevation is fairly obvious– this is how high above (or how far below) the horizon the camera is pointed. The azimuth, while not quite so obvious, is basically what "compass direction" the camera is pointed toward.

The three photos to the right may not be all that interesting from a visual standpoint, but they will serve to illustrate the issue at hand. Even though the camera's entrance pupil is at exactly the same place for each shot, pointing the camera in a slightly different direction drastically changes the composition and substance of the shot. And even much more subtle changes in the camera's direction than I have used here can still dramatically change the look and feel of the final photograph.

There is another part of this rotational editing that generally occurs at the same time as the direction of view. But unlike choosing the direction that the camera is aimed, this choice is nearly always by default. This is the orientation of the camera, or the angle of rotation between the bottom edge of the image and some reference plane in the universe (for instance, the surface of the earth).

Direction of View, C

Nearly always, the photographer leaves this to the conventional choice and doesn't even think about it. That, in itself, is a choice. Convention would declare that the bottom edge of the image should be parallel to the horizon– and that "down" in the image should conform to "down" in the real world. But there is nothing that says this orientation is the only useful, significant, or valuable orientation possible. It's just the most obvious. In fact, if this orientation is actually allowed to be anything within the 360 degrees of rotation, whole new possibilities of creativity begin to reveal themselves.

We saw previously that the point of perspective is defined by its location in space, and this location is  composed of three translational dimensions– how high, how far left or right, and how far forward or backward (or as the mathematician has it: the X, Y, and Z).

Interestingly, the vectors that define the aiming of the camera are also three dimensional. There is the single rotational dimension of the image's orientation, and then there are the two rotational dimensions (elevation and azimuth) that define the camera's pointing direction. These two sets of three dimensions (three translational and three rotational) comprise the complete complement of what the physicist or mathematician considers the six spatial "degrees of freedom."  These "degrees of freedom" are what give the photographer the freedom to choose any possible shot from the limitless possibilities.

Use your freedoms wisely and don't simply settle for the obvious. 

Art & Conservation

I was pleased this past week to open an email from the Cibolo Nature Center and discover an acceptance letter for the 2012-2013 "Our Hidden Treasures" project for their ongoing "Art & Conservation" program. The every-other-year project, which began in 2007, is a collaboration between the Cibolo Nature Center, Cibolo Arts Council, and the Cibolo Conservancy.

The Cibolo Creek watershed and surrounding Hill Country region is not only a treasure to the state of Texas, but is such a remarkable gift of natural diversity that people from all over the nation come here to enjoy its richness.

The "Art & Conservation" project juries applicants from a wide spectrum of the visual arts and then pairs the selected finalists with varous landowners from the region (the image I submitted for the jurying process appears below). The properties chosen for the project are veritable jewels of our natural heritage and this collaboration is aimed at highlighting these spaces' unique and precious gifts through creative expression.

DARK MIRROR, Pedernales Falls State Park, © Bill Brockmeier, 2009

The selected artists will visit the places that they have been paired with over a period of mostly a year and will have the opportunity of experiencing the seasonal changes in the land. The creative focus is on the natural and unique ambience of these places, and a determined goal of the project is to avoid the inclusion of man-made structures and common artist cliches.

I am certainly looking forward to experiencing and expressing the wonder of the place I will visit— a ranch on the Guadalupe River east of Comfort, Texas. As the project unfolds, you'll read about it here.

Christmas Fun

The first day of December I embarked on what has become an interesting photographic project. My daughter recently moved to Kharkiv, Ukraine for a couple of years, to be with her husband who has been running a small software development company there. Since she was going to be out of the U.S. and away from most of her family for much of the holiday seasons, I thought I would attempt to bring some of "home" to her, by way of the internet.

When our daughter was a little girl, growing up in our home, one thing she always looked forward to at Christmas time was the Advent calendars we had. She enjoyed the daily ritual of opening up each day's new "surprise." So, I thought I would come up with my own Advent calendar for her this year, by daily taking a new photo of some little Christmas tidbit around our home, and posting it in a private Christmas Advent page for her somewhere on this blog.

Three Muses Attempt To Stay Warm

This has been a very interesting experiment and project. Each day I have had the challenge before me of how to come up with something entirely new for her. I didn't want to spend a long time composing and taking each shot, but wanted to have something much fresher, and even casual in manner. Some days the resulting photo has been serious in tone, sometimes it has been decidely humorous. But each day, I have tried to produce something that might grab her attention personally, as this project is specifically aimed at her.

It is wonderful every once in a while to take on a photographic project that requires us to stretch ourselves, to do something consistently (maybe even every single day) over an extended period of time. When our subjects are limited but we have to produce something effective anyway, in a very limited amount of time, it can cause us to advance as an artist, and to think and create in modes we might not find otherwise.

Merry Christmas!

Looking Up

The conventional format for a panoramic photograph is a "landscape," or horizontal, layout, and perhaps this is due to the fact that we humans possess binocular vision, with the two eyes paired in a horizontal arrangement.  This arrangement causes our field of vision to be spread out left and right, taking in as much as possible of the horizon and, in fact, the horizontal plane on which we stand and walk.  This mostly horizontal orientation to our vision (and much of our life) becomes the main reference from which we tend to view and understand things.