John Wawrzonek
photographer ~ caring for the earth
The Hidden World Of The Nearby
—Boston Phoenix
—Boston Globe
this slide show is landscape only ~ go to galleries for other slide shows
click double arrows (above-right) for a full-screen show
Three Bodies of Work
Landscapes is the largest and focuses on uncovering hidden gems.
Flowers has a number of unusual interpretations of flowers.
Music was inspired by the beautiful design of musical instruments.
Being In Love With The Earth
Landscape Photographs
It seems to me that most landscape photographs are made by heading for a place that is famous for how often it is photographed. I tried this and found it impossible to photograph something new and beautiful. There was too much competition and I had to be able to return often to a promising site.
But I lived in a place that was beautiful too: ponds, lakes, rivers and streams, to begin and of course seashore but to make photographs that showed my love I had to look for a long time, drive hundreds of thousands of miles and above all, pay attention to the road side.
The first views were of valleys filled to level the Pike and let me look down on tree canopies, at least not with a view camera on their backs. So I just hiked and drove. It took seven years and then I found a view I had never seen before. When the Pike was built, valleys were filled and so I could be level with or over the tree canopies.
To explore go to the landscape galleries index.
Above: New England Monthly, October 1985
A view of the tree canopy from the breakdown lane in Weston, Massachusetts.
Silent Music
A beautiful image has rhythm, melody and harmony.
Could there be images of music hidden in photographs of musical instruments? For thirty years I have searched for music and dance in the shapes and forms of french horns, pianos but especially the wonderful curves and keys of the saxophone. It has been a difficult but exciting search, a bit like finding the exact notes of a long musical phrase and then variations, key changes and, my goodness, virtually unplayable time signatures.
Note that (with the exception of the sassy saxophones), each image is based on one photograph of one instrument. Colors, however, are wherever my imagination takes me. I did not have a studio when the instrumental images were made (the mid-90s) so a great studio photographer, Douglas Saglio made them for me.
Two Baskets of Blooms
One Garden ~ One Gardener
Susan, my wife, loves flowers and she has made possible a whole flowershop in one photograph. Two baskets of blooms became an inspiration for me, a mélange, a garden of blooms in one image.
The lighting is shadow-free daylight and the digital image shows every nuance clearly and vividly and can fill any wall. Our own is ten feet, and the clarity does justice to nature.
Northborough, Massachusetts. cat. 6310