Nelson Armour

Nelson is a new member of our critique group and is proving to have a wonderful eye. The following work is from his travels to the Apostle Islands, located off the coast of northern Wisconsin.







In Nelson's words...

"Apostle Islands

In July of 2012 my wife and I charted a sailboat to explore the Apostle Islands. This National Lakeshore of the U.S. National Park Service constitutes twenty-two islands in Lake Superior within twenty miles of the northern coast of Wisconsin, off of Bayfield, Wisconsin. If you can picture the beauty of northern Wisconsin, transport these north woods into Lake Superior as numerous uninhabited islands with the exception of one.





Most of this series of photographs were taken on Julian Beach, the east side of the island. This beach faces directly into Lake Superior without the protection afforded by other islands. Thus, the storms of Lake Superior, huge and often frightening, bear down on this beach with high waves and gale force winds. The trees and driftwood on the beach bare the scares of these storms. Our morning on Julian was on a glorious summer day with a calm Lake Superior lapping on the beach. In exploring the beach, we also found as estuary colored by the tannic acid of decaying trees and organic matter. One final photograph was taken at dusk in Raspberry Bay, looking north at sundown into an eerily colored sky.





For me, photography is an act of artistically capturing something real. I attempt to see and frame a composition that will motivate a viewer to remain observing the image rather than quickly moving on. Many artists often spend considerable time in developing ideas and in executing their work. Yet, for some photographers obtaining an image occurs quickly, allowing little time to carefully compose the frame and consider thematic elements. In “post-production,” the term for digital darkroom work, the effort is often elaborate and time consuming, but the initial moment of creation can be brief. For these photographers, the challenge is to compress previous work, effort and study into a brief, click of the shutter."



You can see more of Nelson's work HERE.

There seems to be lots of art coming out of that state...I am currently reading a beautifully written book, Driftless by David Rhodes and it is about a small town of Words, Wisconsin. An amazing read...