Serendipity (or more accurately – the faith therein) is a significant part of my photographic repertoire. It’s a simple, elegant and useful tool, and a guidepost along the lines of Yogi Berra’s adage about baseball, ” 90% of this game is half mental..” My longer trips into the North Country, for instance, generally begin with only the vaguest of destinations in mind, and the wandering that follows, the heart and soul of the trip, will rely on circumstance and luck for image making. Call it the Yogi Berra/William Least Heat Moon school of photography.
There are places that call me back, though, like this vista. As on my first visit, however, the light and the time of day were not the best – for color images. Rendered in black and white, though, it becomes an entirely different (and pleasing) story. Two years later this same scene popped up in VT Life magazine as a color photograph, a truly spectacular shot. And that’s how it sometimes goes with photography.
There were a few days of heavy rains in the area earlier in the week; but on this day, lots of sun and a big blue sky, with a steady stream of huge cumulus clouds rolling through. I had already taken a few images of this scene (see below), and not wanting to overstay my welcome on the property, had returned to the car. Then the sounds of the tractor working the field came up, and back I went. John, the very congenial property owner, trades the alfalfa to the neighboring farmer for some cord wood, and everyone benefits, especially the cows. That freshly mown alfalfa had the sweetest scent!
Karme Choling is a Shambhala Buddhist meditation retreat center situated on a former dairy farm in the Northeast Kingdom of VT. The old incarnation is still very much in evidence: the same meadows and streams, and maybe even the same buildings, albeit reinvigorated for a community of meditation practitioners. The two latest incarnations, of how many?
