But has winter been beautiful, you might ask? Of course it has.

Zine Feedback

Our first zine launched in January where we debuted (in print only) a project entitled First Frost / Final Bloom. This act of packaging up the printed work and sending it out, and then a week later receiving a thoughtful response was a world away from debuting the work online and getting likes and comments. Instead we got phone calls, FaceTimes, e-mails, text messages and in-person conversations from people who received their copies and simply had to spontaneously react to seeing the work. We felt real magic in these direct conversations…

“Just opened my beautiful photography zine, and took time to review the photos. They are so gorgeous. When you and Tom sent the email about this, something in the email resonated with me about holding the photos in my hand, not just scrolling through on an email. I feel like things at work are moving 1,000,000 miles a minute, and I’m trying to prioritize mindfulness around managing my time. I really appreciate how looking at beautiful art can help me do that!”

and

“The absolute magic of a frozen dahlia...I simply can’t. Thanks for sharing such a lovely slice of the world. What a salve for the soul.”

and

“Well done, a lovely well produced volume.
A very nice selection of images that are great series.

It’s always rewarding to have these in book form as you travel from page to page and image to image. It gives them a sense of pacing as you make connections, comparisons and build a visual knowledge of a place and a time. Beautiful. The images are at once fragile yet also very strong. Architecturally robust even. The delicate nature of the flower petals and the rigidity of the frozenness is such a classic juxtaposition.

There is also such delicacy in the colors. The muted dark greens (mainly) as a backdrop allows the pinks, purples, oranges etc to glow like a lantern rather than pop out.”

and

“I’m sitting here in my library, with quiet music and a candle, savoring ‘First Frost / Final Bloom’. What a wonderful work of art.”

and

“The photos themselves are wonderful but the storytelling and the overall care in how they designed and packaged it really shines.”

Thank you to those of you who bought a zine for yourself or as a gift, and for those of you who joined us as a paid subscriber to obtain a copy and support us. It was a pleasure to create the work and send the zines out to you! Is this the first you are hearing of First Frost / Final Bloom? Maybe you’d like to have a copy too? The limited edition of 30 has just sold out but we have a few open editions in stock, with a new batch on the way to us from the printer ahead of supplying a couple of shops in California and Massachusetts.

Order First Frost / Final Bloom

In other news, we can barely get any work done without constant interruptions of extreme cuteness and epic mischievousness – we adopted a young cat named Stormy who has now taken over the house. She wags her tail like a dog, rips up cardboard boxes like a predator pulling meat off a carcass and purrs like a truck. She is very sweet when she isn’t tearing through the house like a chittering raccoon with her tail puffed up beyond belief. Apparently cats get ‘the zoomies’! She may or may not occasionally feature in this newsletter but just know that behind the scenes she is bringing us a lot of joy and seems to be happy in her new home.

And finally, last month we launched Meet the Berkshires, a very local publication profiling the makers, artisans, and small businesses we discover here in the Berkshires, MA.

We enjoy this work because it draws on our combined strengths as photographers and represents what we excel at: entering a new space with our cameras to capture the details that intrigue us.

Meet the Berkshires is where we’ll share work that we haven’t really covered here. It’s the kind of work that’s hard to label – workplace portraiture/visual storytelling/environmental portraits (call it what you will) – combined with our eye for detail, texture, and an appreciation of the everyday.

We’ve kept the two publications separate but if you’re curious, check it out. First up: Ann McCallum of McCallum Industrial Pottery, who brings an architect’s eye to her pottery studio in North Adams. Read the full profile at the link below. The next edition is currently in the works.

Meet the Berkshires

McCallum Industrial Pottery

Meet the Berkshires is officially launched today with our profile of Ann McCallum. You may know her as an award-winning architect working with Andy Burr at Burr and McCallum Architects in Williamstown, MA – but she’s also the artist behind McCallum Industrial Pottery. Is there overlap between architecture and pottery? How did she end up in the Berkshire…

Read more

2 months ago · 16 likes · 7 comments · PappasBland

Thanks for reading, and happy Spring.

Diana & Tom

We don’t paywall our work here, so your support means a lot. If you’d like to show your appreciation, this page on our website gives you a few options.

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The incoming frost was more like a freeze, and Maria and Dustin’s dahlias were growing in blissful ignorance to this weather event. On the night of October 9th the temperatures plunged into the 20s. The following morning Tom and I arrived at the flower farm ready with our thermals, coats, mittens and cameras.

The grass crunched underfoot, blackberry leaves were edged in white and aside from the curious clucks of chickens there was a stillness and a silence to the morning. We walked through frozen rows of dahlias, papery and stiff to the touch, transformed by the freeze into sculptures, their vibrant colors both dulled and highlighted by frost as if they were candied violets.

Photographically, the dahlias couldn’t have been more interesting. In the moment of their death there was such beauty, beautiful beyond what they would have been if seen a day earlier at their peak.

The different forms of dahlias responded in different ways to the frost. Ball dahlias stood defiant in the face of the freeze while dinnerplate dahlias totally capitulated, reaching for the ground in urgency when prior to the frost they were reaching for the sky with all the time in the world. It felt very much like time had stopped and we could explore this in-between space between life and decay. The moment felt special, and we knew as we pressed the shutters on our cameras that the photographs would reflect it.

The sun eventually made its presence known and for a time the frozen crystals resisted its warmth, with frost and sunshine coexisting to make a sparkling, glittering effect on the flowers and foliage. It sounds reductive to call the moment magical, but honestly that is exactly what it was.

We would love to show you these photographs, every single one of them. But they are not meant to be scrolled through in a fraction of a second, forgotten almost as soon as they were seen. If photography has the ability to pause time, we are aiming to pause it further, slow it down. This work will only be experienced offline and on paper. It won’t be seen by many, but it will be seen deeply.

We’ve spent the last 3 months turning these photographs into a publication.

Is it a book? No. A booklet? Not really… Should we call it an art zine? Maybe! But really it’s just a walk among frozen dahlias, with no outerwear required. Featuring 21 previously unseen photographs, it’s full color throughout, 32 pages, and measures 6.75 x 9”.

• Limited edition of 30, signed and numbered (includes a 4 x 6” print, on 5 x 7” Aurora Art Natural 300gsm paper)

• Open edition also available

Rooted in our Berkshires community with an evocative introduction by writer and gardener Lee Buttala and a Q&A all about dahlias with Maria and Dustin from 11 Lenox, First Frost / Final Bloom is now available on our website at pappasbland.com/fffb

Order First Frost / Final Bloom

Locally, there are some open edition copies for sale at Shaker Mill Books in West Stockbridge, and a non-circulating copy at West Stockbridge Public Library too.

If you are an annual paid subscriber to our newsletter, a limited edition copy of First Frost / Final Bloom with a signed print is already in the mail on its way to you. Please enjoy and take your time viewing the dahlias, as intended.

It feels good to start the new year with this body of work. We hope whoever gets their hands on a copy of First Frost / Final Bloom enjoys it as much as we enjoyed experiencing the dahlias in frost.

Diana & Tom

We don’t paywall our work here, so your support means a lot. If you’d like to show your appreciation, this page on our website gives you a few options.

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Each release was accompanied by some writing and all of that work took time, brainpower, effort and energy, and some stars aligning just right. It was an accomplishment and what we say next should not diminish that.

You see, around April we hit the wall. We pushed through for a few months but just couldn’t continue when it came time to release our art drop on August 1st. Or September 1st for that matter.

There was nothing to release.

The intention with the art drops was to push ourselves to create for a deadline, leading to work we wouldn’t have made otherwise – and that indeed happened. The art drops we enjoyed the most were ones where the photography and the writing flowed easily and either complemented each other or were a perfect whole. But it was less satisfying when we were not entirely happy with the photography, or the writing, or both – which is no doubt true in so many creative fields. Surprise, surprise – inspiration didn’t abide by our schedule!

As a result, Writing with Light will see a few changes. Art drops will become more occasional, but photo essays, liveblogging photo walks, projects, zines, and general reflections on process and life will step up. Okay? Okay. Let’s get to it then! We feel good about what comes next and we’ve actually been working on something pretty cool…

The Art Stand

Farm stands are everywhere but have you ever seen an Art Stand?

We hadn't either, so we made one.

We had big ambitions of building the art stand of our dreams, largely as a result of imagining all the potential problems with displaying art outdoors. What if it rains – do we need a roof? What if it’s really hot – how do we keep it cool? We were inspired by local farm stands like these below:

Tom had been diligently collecting free scrap wood whenever he saw an opportunity, but designing something with walls and a roof and the prospect of constructing it became this daunting thing that delayed us. The idea of spending time and money to build a grand art stand didn’t make much sense when we weren’t sure how big it needed to be, or how the concept would be received. Would anyone even stop to check it out? So instead we opted for a lo-fi setup that we’ll just adapt and improve upon when we need to.

We repurposed some saw horse legs made during construction of our home, and bought some plywood that we sanded, primed and painted for the top.

You might think it looks nothing more than a table, and you’d be right. To protect the artwork we are using styrofoam coolers that do a decent job of preventing the contents from overheating.

We put out an ever-changing selection of our photography prints every day in sizes from 4 x 6” up to 12 x 18”, with some postcard sets, instant prints that can stand on your shelf, and glitch art too. On some days we also have flowers and garden produce available too, like serrano peppers. No tomatoes though because we need all of those!

We began with all the artwork priced individually but have now transitioned to a pay-what-you-want approach instead. Ultimately we want anyone who takes the time to visit to be able to walk away with something they like.

Have we had any print sales yet? Absolutely not! But we have barely promoted it, and yet people have still visited. Someone did stop to buy some flowers on her way to a baby shower. Our art stand is this new, weird thing on the street and we fully expect it to take time for passers-by to get used to seeing it. We see people drive past and then crane their necks to look back at it, but time needs to pass for that curiosity to grow and for the art stand to reach its fullest expression.

So V1 of our art stand is now very much up and running in West Stockbridge, MA (when the weather allows). Drop in if you are ever nearby. More info at pappasbland.com/artstand.

This is one of a number of ventures we have been developing that are very much of a hyper-local nature. We intend to be rooted in this new-to-us community and for us it is all about meeting people, leaving gifts of free art and zines in the information booth in town, displaying our art drops in the library, and now even a roadside Art Stand at the end of our driveway. More to come!

Diana & Tom

We don’t paywall our work here, so your support means a lot (if you are able). Until Substack finds the will to launch micropayments, one-off tips/donations can be sent via Buy Me A Coffee. If you’d prefer to support us with Bitcoin you can send some sats via the Lightning network here. Better yet, add some art to your space with a print from our Permanent Collection.

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In the heart of our small town there is a little info booth, a postage stamp of a visitor’s center. People come to the Berkshires for idyllic summer days surrounded by mountains, lakes, farms, meadows, and cute towns peppered with farm stands, antique shops and top-shelf cultural attractions – you get the idea. The info booth has information for local venues and businesses, arts happenings and farm dinners. People come in and grab a few brochures and magazines and go off and enjoy their time in the Berkshires.

They can also leave the info booth with a piece of artwork.

A few months ago an idea started brewing in my mind, a culmination of reading about the gift economy in The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer and my experience as a member of ’s excellent and the liberating idea that anyone can publish a zine as evidenced by the variety of work (both polished and unpolished) curated by on .

We had a printer, we had paper, and I had had pent-up frustration with the digital landscape – it was time to make a zine and disperse it in our local community.

It was liberating to make something purely experimental, almost speculative, like a rough draft that I was ok with people seeing. Would people pick up a zine? Would they be curious about our work?

The first zines buckled in the changing humidity and weren’t picked up by anyone. Undeterred, I decided to take a risk and try something slightly rebellious with my artwork. What if I just gave it away? I pivoted to putting the zines in protective sleeves with the surprise gift of a signed 4x6” print and let me tell you, those zines have been flying off the shelf. I’d guess maybe 65 zines have been taken in the last month, that means 65 of my photographs are out there in new homes, and we know of at least one big print purchased from us because someone was impressed with our zine in the info booth.

This zine + artwork combination is about as opposite of an Instagram post as you can get. It’s hyperlocal rather than broadcasted to the whole world. It is tangible instead of existing in the digital ether. There are no likes, no comments, either people pick them up or they don’t. And if they pick them up then we have made a connection. My art exists in their world, maybe in a frame, maybe pinned by a magnet to a refrigerator, maybe as a bookmark, maybe it was gifted to someone else who would appreciate it more, and yeah maybe some have ended up in the recycling bin. I won’t know and the not knowing is okay. Art can go on its own journey independent of the person who created it.

Speaking of journeys… we have to acknowledge some lovely gifted printed material that is living on in our space, each one coming with handwritten notes. At a glance, have a peek at what has arrived in our PO Box lately:

In detail, we’d love to give attention where attention is due. In no particular order we have:

sent us two photographs of layered graffiti and advertising in Bangkok and they are awesome, especially for their covetable rounded corners and the most creative note spanning the two postcards – it blew my mind!

sent us a thank you print with our purchase of his dreamy publication Imaginary Landscapes. Also included: a note saying FIND YOUR PLACE. We’re working on it, Davin, thank you!

sent over a token of appreciation that I used as a bookmark recently, accompanying me through Elif Shafak’s novel, The Island of Missing Trees. “Live Fearlessly” is the message with a gorgeous poppy, but the reverse also has the most thoughtful note in truly beautiful penmanship.

sent us some of his Oshi stickers to disburse into the stickerverse and spread the “Bitcoin is money” message. Colin also has an amazing signature that I seriously envy. Am I the only one still signing my name the way I learned in third grade?

sent a couple postcards our way with our purchase of his Protect The Network zine. We unabashedly display these as artwork around the house…

And finally Lara Frederick sent me this surprise zine loot as part of the Zinestack chain mail loop and I just love the handmade urgency behind the zines, no straight cut lines, and heck yeah, “Support + Defend our Libraries!”

On the subject of libraries… stop me if I’ve told you already but we share our monthly art drop in our local library complete with the analog version of our newsletter! Yes, you can sit in a comfy chair, take in the artwork and read all about it without ever looking at a screen.

Displaying artwork in the library and dispersing zines with gifted art obviously doesn’t pay the bills, but there is something pure and satisfying about the work being received and experienced by others. We have ideas – a lot of ideas! – for where this experiment goes from here, but for now we’ll just say thank you for reading and see you August 1 with our next art drop!

Diana & Tom

We don’t paywall our work here, so if you enjoy what we do it would mean a lot if you supported our newsletter (and zine-making!) in some way. Consider becoming a paid subscriber or perhaps make a one-off tip via Buy Me A Coffee, or Strike if you’d prefer to support us with Bitcoin. Better yet, add some art to your space with a print from our Permanent Collection or an art drop. Just the simple act of liking this post, commenting, forwarding it on, recommending it to others – it all helps and we really appreciate it.

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Last year, arriving when we did, the milkweed was just a green plant amongst a sea of other green plants. In the fall, the milkweed dried up and looked like some kind of weird land-based crustacean breeding ground. I see shrimp, don’t you?

But being here through spring and early summer has allowed us to see how the meadow wakes up and absolutely revels under repeated lashings of both rain and sun. In front of our eyes these lush and succulent milkweed plants have developed on the fringes of the meadow and they are now flowering. Just two weeks ago the milkweed looked like this:

Now it looks like this:

Inevitably I felt the pull to document this peerless pollinator plant in its prime, but photographs like those above weren’t hitting the mark for me.

Sometimes less is more. It was time to break out the diffusion box.

The Diffusion Box

Originally constructed late last summer for Art Drop #17, the diffusion box was essentially the sum of construction materials + inspiration. You can read all about it in Art Drop #17: Meadow's End if you like. Since then, it was disassembled – we urgently needed a box to form a makeshift “living room” for the school rabbit when she came to visit, and from our 7-year old’s perspective rabbits take priority over art. So it needed some repairs, but those were easy enough. We attached Aunty Dil’s blanket once again and took it out.

Art Drop #26

Using the diffusion box is an evolving process of trial and error. The parameters at play are the light (does the subject need to be backlit or not, in full sun or shade), the distance from the plastic to the subject, and the structure and height of the plant. Physical discomfort plays a role too. It’s hot inside the box and annoying insects love to venture inside and crawl around on my composition. For Diana in her assistant role of supporting the box exactly where I need it and preventing light leaks, she contends with deer flies and baking sunlight. It’s not a fun time, but we enjoy collaborating out in the meadow.

There’s a sweet spot to be found when making photographs with the diffusion box, and I think for this piece below all the myriad of factors came together in a harmonious way.

Diffused Milkweed
West Stockbridge, MA, USA
by Tom Bland

Prints of this photograph are only available through July 7, 2025 with no further production of this work for at least a year. To learn more, order a print, or request a larger size click the button below to visit the art drop page on our website.

Order a Print

We have one 5 x 7” print to giveaway to the first person who steps forward to request it (Update: this has now been claimed), and all orders receive a free homemade zine. Yes, you heard that correctly! More on that in our next newsletter…

Until the next time, thanks for reading!

Tom

We don’t paywall our work here, so if you enjoy what we do it would mean a lot if you supported our newsletter in some way. Consider becoming a paid subscriber or perhaps make a one-off tip via Buy Me A Coffee, or Strike if you’d prefer to support us with Bitcoin. Better yet, add some art to your space with a print from our Permanent Collection or an art drop. Just the simple act of liking this post, commenting, forwarding it on, recommending it to others – it all helps and we really appreciate it.

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When did the sight of a dandelion bloom go from being the fluff that childhood dreams are made of to the scourge of the lawn? When did we stop painting our cheeks with these yellow flowers?

When did we stop delighting at the pure joy of launching the seeds into the air, caring not where they landed, only loving that we were the ones with the power to send them forth?

When did we stop eating the weeds that feed us only to buy a bunch of organic kale at the grocery store for $4.99? Did we lose that knowledge? Did we lose the curiosity of reviving that knowledge? Or is it just easier not to forage for the greens and spend the time washing off the dirt and blanching them… I get it, who has the time?

Well, I definitely did not but I took the time anyway. Mainly I just wanted to spend less on groceries and get more nutritious food onto our plates, and I wanted to explore what the meadow could provide for us beyond a source of photographic fodder and space to play backyard naturalists. Could it feed us too?

We are not the only ones eating the dandelion buffet in the meadow, of course. Did you know goldfinches love to eat dandelion seeds? American goldfinches, the males at least, are impossibly yellow. You might argue the only thing more yellow than a goldfinch would be the yellow of a dandelion in flower. I love that the two are connected. The goldfinches will land on a seed head, weighing it down with their 13 grams. The stem nods in acquiescence as its seed head is picked clean. The goldfinches seem to enjoy this harvest even more if the seed heads are soaked with rain, less fluff to get in the way.

Noticing that our land is absolutely rife with dandelions this spring, I would sheepishly, almost apologetically go out and pick flowers for fritters, and leaves and buds for sautéed greens, thinking at least I was doing something to mitigate their spread. My internal monologue when surveying our lawn was “What must the neighbors think?” But then I looked around and noticed that our neighbors’ lawns are also full of dandelions. Soon thereafter I noticed the goldfinches enjoying the seeds, and then I decided to just chill out about it and enjoy the dandelions existing. In that place of acceptance and ease, another question naturally followed – could I make art out of them?

Art Drop #25

Weeds, food, wildflowers, medicine, bird food, wishes waiting to be launched in the air, cordage waiting to be woven, it’s all here in the palm of my hand, the latest Hand Bouquet in my ongoing series and the first one to be created in the pouring rain.

Meadow Hand Bouquet, Spring Dandelions
West Stockbridge, MA, USA
by Diana Pappas

Prints of this photograph are only available through June 7, 2025 with no further production of this work for at least a year. To learn more, order a print, or request a larger size click the button below to visit the art drop page on our website.

Order a Print

Thanks for reading! Now go forth and launch some dandelion seeds…

Diana

We don’t paywall our work here, so if you enjoy what we do it would mean a lot if you supported our newsletter in some way. Consider becoming a paid subscriber or perhaps make a one-off tip via Buy Me A Coffee, or Strike if you’d prefer to support us with Bitcoin. Better yet, add some art to your space with a print from our Permanent Collection or an art drop. Just the simple act of liking this post, commenting, forwarding it on, recommending it to others – it all helps and we really appreciate it.

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Words by Diana Pappas
Photographs by Diana Pappas & Tom Bland

Eyes closed, my senses are already happily overwhelmed. The air smells like honey, perfumed by wild fennel, Greek mountain sage, and the yellow flowers of Spanish broom. The chattering of barn swallows is an almost constant refrain and every so often you hear the gentle sound of bells worn by a herd of goats in the distance. Eyes open, and the beauty of Kefalonia is almost too much to bear.

The whole place invites exploration – overgrown paths to secret beaches, dirt roads over the mountains, through thickets of wildflowers, past ancient olive groves and Venetian ruins scattered throughout the extreme landscape.

In 1922 my grandmother and her mother came to Kefalonia on a very different kind of adventure, as Greek refugees from Turkey. How long they were here, or where on the island they were housed, those and many other details are lost to history. Although she was caught up in post-WWI geo-political upheaval and forced migration, my grandmother remembered Kefalonia as a beautiful place with delicious fruit and it is this handed-down memory that has brought us to the island nearly a century later.

To find that memory in present day Kefalonia and see what she might have seen, we seek out the wild places to find those things that haven’t changed with the passage of so much time. We have to look beyond the resorts, full-service beaches, and sunburnt tourists, and well beyond the luxurious yachting destination of Fiskardo.

The mountainous topography and dramatic coastline, the thousands of wildflowers and the blinding sunlight, those would be as they once were. With a rental car and paper map, we seek out wild Kefalonia.

Immediately we are in awe of the Ionian Sea with its astonishing gradations of blue from navy to cobalt to turquoise to cerulean to sky blue – no beach looks the same.

Some beaches are sandy, others rocky, some you can drive down to but the most peaceful coves are the most remote, only accessible on foot or by boat. We swim into a coastal cave and shelter in its cooling shade and when we get too cold we swim out into the brilliant sunshine. The crystal clear water seems especially salty and we effortlessly float in surrender to this Greek paradise.

At higher elevations we discover ruined villages, abandoned and left to nature and goats after a catastrophic earthquake in 1953. We wander amidst the overgrown mulberry and fig trees, and see the remnants of the colorful stucco and ornate iron balustrades of the Venetian architecture that was once ubiquitous on the island, now gradually returning to wilderness.

At even higher elevations we wind our way up through switchback after switchback, watching the composition of wildflowers and vegetation transform before our eyes as we climb. Mount Ainos towers over the island, and we park as near as we can to its mile-high summit. We spot the rare Kefalonian violets and hike through the forest of equally rare Kefalonian fir trees. The intermittent cloud cover occasionally gives way to staggering views of the island and sea below, an almost vertiginous sight.

At a certain point our reason for coming here, my grandmother’s memory from 1922, fades into the background. Yes, Kefalonia is a beautiful place – and the fruit is indeed delicious – but I found Kefalonia also full of kind, generous people, eager to offer a handful of apricots from their tree, a bag of fresh-picked lemons, or a slice of walnut cake.

If you’re lucky, a local will tell you where to get the best grilled fish (that’s Lithero Fish Taverna, in case you are curious). Here you can spend your days driving all over the island, letting curiosity lead the way. Visit a beach when you need to cool down, try a strong Greek coffee or freddo cappuccino for a boost in the afternoon, wander down a lush path towards a lake and count the beautiful demoiselle damselflies flitting about by the stream, their colorful wings as blue as the Ionian Sea. I can imagine that one day soon I will be longing for these moments, but for now I catch my calm reflection in the side mirror of the car, just another traveler falling in love with wild Kefalonia.

If you enjoyed this and would like to see a larger selection of photographs you can view the story on our website.

Support

We don’t paywall our work here, so if you enjoy what we do it would mean a lot if you can support our newsletter in some way. Consider becoming a paid subscriber or perhaps make a one-off tip via Buy Me A Coffee, or Strike if you’d prefer to support us with Bitcoin. Better yet, add some art to your space with a print from our Permanent Collection or an art drop. Just the simple act of liking this post, commenting, forwarding it on, recommending it to others – it all helps and we really appreciate it.

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Tom: I remember hearing some praise a couple of years ago about Wim Wenders’ film Perfect Days, but it didn’t lodge in my mind as something I had to see. But back in March during a stressful stretch of time we took a chance on this film. It was exactly the movie experience we didn’t know we needed. Without having any expectations as to what the movie was about we were instantly drawn in and deeply enjoyed its quiet meditative beauty. Now I know what all the fuss was about. Three viewings later, we’re going to have a back-and-forth about it here. If you haven’t seen Perfect Days, you should! For those of you in the US it is currently available for free on Kanopy if your library participates.

Diana: Twenty minutes into watching the film, you turned to me and said “I just want to be cleaning toilets in Tokyo.” Of course I knew exactly what you meant because I also had the exact same impulse, but anyone reading this who hasn’t seen Perfect Days might be surprised to hear that! What did the film confront you with?

Tom: I think it was mostly psychological, but it’s that allure of something else, a different kind of life. It makes no sense though because we went through a lot to get here: to relocate to the Berkshires, build this house and have a studio to help further our work. We’ve achieved a lot over the last few years, so for cleaning toilets in Tokyo to now seem appealing is ridiculous. It’s definitely a ‘grass is greener’ situation, but that’s where the movie excels – it presents Hirayama’s life as simple and satisfying, largely free of stress, and although he’s cleaning public toilets it appears to be a life he is very content with. What was your initial response to the movie and did that change with the later viewings?

Diana: I found great comfort in observing Hirayama’s routines, in the simplicity of his everyday, in the stretches of quiet and solitude, in the moments without interruption. Sure, interruption does happen, life happens to him, but he is constantly given these opportunities to reset by returning to his routine. I think this is the stark lesson of the film for me, he works hard, he enjoys his interests and for the most part finds his way back to a contented balance by living in the now. With each viewing of the film, I come to understand this lesson a little bit more.

Tom: Having been to Tokyo once, almost twenty years ago, I think the movie also recalled some dormant memories for me. It was so long ago now that I feel like it was in another lifetime, but the backstreets where he rode his bike felt familiar, and the light, and the general calm vibe of the city despite it being so vast and densely populated. I will share a few photographs from that trip below. I know Perfect Days has brought about some lifestyle changes for you, you should write about that.

Diana: Indeed – honestly I think about the film almost every day. Soon after seeing the movie I got a part-time job on an all-female gardening crew tending flower gardens here in the Berkshires. I’m away from the computer, away from the camera, working outdoors without even thinking about what time it is or what I need to accomplish on my to-do list. The job has been a real eye-opener in so many ways but I can relate to Hirayama’s exhaustion at the end of the day when he gets into bed, and also the peace that comes with working on something with your full body instead of doing a lot of mental work while sitting at a desk getting interrupted by notifications, watching the clock trying to get as much work done as possible before time is up for the day. The benefits for my mental health are obvious and I’m grateful for them. I’ve also brought a few plants home for our garden… a joyful bonus of the job that makes me think of the film too. And taking a quick shower after a full day of gardening and having that reset is just this glorious feeling that I really look forward to now!

“For A Hard Day’s Work!”

Tom: You mentioned Hirayama’s bed and I don’t think I have ever seen a movie that makes sleep look so appealing. For the benefit of anyone reading this I will explain that in building a house and not really having furniture we had the opportunity to forgo the western bed + mattress and instead opted for Japanese tatami mats with futon mattresses and buckwheat pillows. I wonder if others found the sleep scenes to be as calming and sleep-inducing, or if we relate to it more because we sleep on the same kind of mattress and pillows? I know you also enjoyed that about the film.

Diana: Perfect Days spans twelve days, and each time Hirayama goes to bed I feel this pull towards sleep myself. It’s so visceral in the film and yes, I think because we know what it’s like to sleep in that setup, just the sound of the buckwheat pillow being moved activates the part of my brain that just wants to relax and go to sleep. Which brings us to the film’s dream sequences, created by the director’s wife, Donata Wenders.

Tom: Yes those dreams were among my highlights and really they’re the inspiration for this art drop and the reason we’re here to talk about the movie. I really liked how they distilled the key moments and visuals from Hirayama’s days – and with Hirayama being a photographer himself (he takes his classic Olympus Mju camera loaded with black and white 35mm everywhere he goes), we get to see his vision, his eye, in the form of these layered, textural, analog, monochrome vignettes. It took me back to my animation days at university where I would animate digital stills or single frames from my Super 8mm and combine or layer those animated sequences with video. So for this art drop I used the Perfect Days dream sequences as a prompt to create something photographic but experimental using elements of my everyday. I’ve felt quite rudderless with my photography recently so I needed an occasion to think differently and try to find some kind of spark again.

Art Drop #24

Interior I
West Stockbridge, MA, USA
by Tom Bland

This limited release is only available through May 7, 2025 with no further production of this work for at least a year. The image is 6 x 9” printed on 8.5 x 11” Greenpix Photo Matte 100% recycled paper. To learn more or order a print, click the button below to visit the art drop page on our website.

Order a Print

“Next time is next time. Now is now.”

Diana: In the spirit of the film we’ll just say thanks for reading and if you have seen Perfect Days please join us in the comments with your takeaways from the film. If you haven’t seen it yet, you won’t regret seeking it out and we would be happy to hear what kind of effect it has on you.

Tom & Diana

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Sometimes I truly hate being an adult.

Is it any wonder we see but can’t compose? We’re breathing but we can’t exhale. We need to eat but don’t feel hungry. This knot within needs to loosen; it cannot be tightened any more if we hope to one day undo it.

I feel an internal rebellion to these unrelenting stresses of life – it is simply not my natural state. Is it anyone’s? My default is to approach the world with a sense of wonder, finding joy in what I take the time to observe, and photography is a modality to channel this way of being.

I can take it as a sign of my own resilience that somehow I actually managed to compartmentalize the stress and make some good pictures in the month of March. I also owe a debt of gratitude to some red barns, that were beautiful enough to lure me with my camera on various days in various light until I felt satisfied.

An unexpected gift of getting out of the car to photograph the barns was getting serenaded by song sparrows, red-winged blackbirds and crows. Press play to stand next to the barns with me and listen to the sounds of spring unfolding in the Berkshires:

Art Drop #23

The cheerful song of the aptly-named song sparrow (one of the most underrated birds in my opinion) always puts me in a good mood. As you enjoy the birdsong, allow me to present this month’s art drop:

Red Barns in March
Great Barrington, MA, USA
by Diana Pappas

Prints of this photograph are only available through April 7, 2025 with no further production of this work for at least a year. To learn more, order a print, or request a larger size click the button below to visit the art drop page on our website.

Order a Print

For those of you curious enough to make it this far, I’d like to offer a 4 x 6” gift of our test print. There is only one available to whoever requests it first. I’d be happy to send it your way. UPDATE: This gift has been given – yay!

Thanks for reading.

Diana

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Mud season seems like a theme right now, not only in our new environs of Western Massachusetts but perhaps more broadly in our society or at the very least it is playing out in my mind. We’re slogging along and what seemed solid and reliable is shifting under our feet. Knowing that it is a time of transition is no great comfort. At least here in the Berkshires there really is a gorgeous spring that awaits us, but we can only get there after going through mud season.

If there are hidden delights of mud season, I have yet to discover them so excuse my impulse to press fast forward and look desperately for a portal to spring. Crocuses are blooming back in New Jersey so my inner clock has been looking for signs of spring—any signs—here in Massachusetts. I’m hearing a perceptible shift in birdsong and seeing the hours of daylight lengthen and expand – but as for a beacon of springtime, there is nothing quite like a greenhouse:

Would you like to come inside with me? Shall we time travel into the future to the days of daffodils, tulips, and heady hyacinths? Maybe you too need a break from your own personal mud season and this could be the antidote you didn’t know you needed. We can explore color, shape and light and unexpected pairings as we look and discover within this small but overflowing greenhouse at Berkshire Botanical Garden in Stockbridge, MA.

Let’s go inside and feel the warmth. The sun is almost too bright but how dare we complain? We unzip our jackets and settle our eyes on a mix of bulbs and succulents and cacti and citrus and plants we think we might know the name of, but probably don’t.

Hard work has gone into the tending and growing and timing and arranging of these plants to come into harmony just for us. Sheltered from cold, wind, and an interminable to-do list, the least we can do is linger and notice and appreciate and observe.

The longer we stay, the more we see, and even plants that aren’t popping with color attract our attention all the same. Something about these plants and pipes just sing, don’t they?

I’ll close with this fever dream of spring – it is coming!

Art Drop #22

For this month’s art drop we are going to disburse some springtime out there to those that need it. We’re doing pay-what-you-want for these little 5 x7” prints – grab them before they wilt! Larger sizes are also available if you need to visually dive in to a bigger print. We would love to send some springtime out to you, wherever you may be.

This is a limited release, with these photography prints only available through March 15, 2025 and no further production of this work for at least a year. To learn more, snag a 5 x 7” print, or request a larger size click the button below to visit the art drop page on our website.

Order a Print

Thank you for joining us on this foray into spring. Until the next time...

Diana & Tom

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These are the roads that you would typically only drive down if you lived along one of them. The roads whose names you see on the street signs as they flash past while you drive, but then immediately forget. These ‘tributary roads’ usually connect in some way to the ‘main arteries’ but along them lies potential. Potential for photographs, but also relationships, and being new to the area and in need of local clients we are all-in on making friends in real life and meeting people right now.

Taking these intentional and curiosity-fueled detours feels important to not only connect the dots between how one road meets another and build my internal map of the area, but also for the opportunity to find a little piece of visual inspiration or perhaps have a chance encounter with someone.

And so when I go to Pittsfield to get some groceries, I come the long way home.

When I take our daughter to school, I come the long way home.

When I take our garbage to the town compactor, I come the long way home.

And when I go to the general store in Canaan, I come the long way home.

If I go to the drugstore to collect something for our daughter, I come the long way home.

And when I go to The UPS Store to drop off some prints, I come the long way home then too.

The often last-minute decisions I have made to take a sharp turn onto an unknown road have led to real, genuine connections. I recently had a memorable roadside conversation with a farmer whose family have a long history in our town. We talked about his farm buildings and the increase in coyotes he had noticed over the years, among other things. I look forward to our next meeting. Another country lane took me past a striking home. I researched the architects, we met with them, and we can now call them a client. On a different occasion I went out onto a frozen pond and met a few guys who were ice fishing. We talked about the weird sounds coming from under the ice and the species of fish they were catching.

Art Drop #21

This month’s art drop is a photograph from one of these detours that I have kept coming back to. I like the visual intrigue here which only presented itself as I approached on foot to photograph a different scene, so it’s an example of how minor adjustments to your X, Y and Z axes can impact a composition.

Upper West Lot
Lenox, MA, USA
by Tom Bland

This is a limited edition seven day release. Prints of Upper West Lot are available at 8 x 12” printed on 11 x 14” heavyweight luster paper. The size of this 2025 edition will be determined by the amount of orders we receive – if we receive 9 orders it will be a limited edition of 9, plus an artist’s proof. All prints are signed and dated on the reverse and include a Certificate of Authenticity. As always, if you want to request a larger size you can do so (open edition, also signed, with a Certificate of Authenticity).

Prints of this photograph are only available through February 7, 2025, with no further production of this work for at least a year. To learn more, order a print, or request a larger size click the button below to visit the art drop page on our website.

Order a Print

Thank you for reading. Until the next time...

Tom, & Diana

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Howling gales batter the cottage, thrashing pine, larch and alder trees in the adjacent forest, but we’re fast asleep and none-the-wiser, with thick stone walls silencing the menacing weather to not even a whimper. We’re in Northumberland, in the very north-east of England, just south of the Scottish border, and it’s the middle of winter. The sun is slow to rise this time of year, and doesn’t get too high in the sky before it sleepily tucks itself back in for the night. The tendency to hibernate is strong but we need to move quickly if an adventure to the coast is to be had.

The day begins with tea – always tea. The sound of the kettle boiling raises spirits and eyelids and after several minutes of brewing, tea is poured and milk is added to the desired color, with every member of the household preferring theirs slightly differently. Strong and milky, strong with just a little bit of milk, not-too-strong and milky, and so on… It’s a comforting tradition. Sometimes breakfast is as simple as toast or sometimes it is a fry-up of eggs, bacon, black pudding, mushrooms and tomatoes, but today it is Craster kippers (oak-smoked herring) with buttered bread.

We hit the road, making our way north and east. Ancient stone walls and hedgerows line our route, passing by in a blur of gray and pale purple.

We pass ruined barns, swollen rivers and flooded fields – it has been the wettest winter since records began. Wind turbines churn away, giving a hint of what the trees have to endure as they grow. Their trunks and branches are twisted and tortured, shaped by the wind.

It is undoubtedly bleak this time of year, but the beauty lies in the bleakness. Instead of the lush wildflowers of spring and summer, moss and lichen provide vivid color in winter in astonishing shades of green, yellow and orange.

Sculptural forms of bracken and thistles are highlighted with frost, the hilltops get dusted with snow and the river valleys fill up with fog and mist. We can’t resist ditching the car every so often to go for a wander.

We pass signs for towns with names like Kirkwhelpington and Throckrington and great houses like Wallington and Cragside. Sheep dot the countryside at every turn, sharing their pastures with flocks of crows, seagulls and jackdaws. This land has a long memory – Roman settlements, an iron age fort, bronze age artworks carved into sandstone still visible thousands of years later.

By the time we reach the Northumberland coast, the rain is pouring down and although it is only mid-afternoon the light has already begun to fade. Our efforts to get to Bamburgh Castle and Stag Rocks are stymied by flooded roads that we rightly think better of crossing and so we only get as far as Seahouses.

We park beside a grass-covered sand dune and make our way up and down its sandy paths to the beach. The North Sea has been worked up to a froth by the storm, obscuring distant castles and the nearby Farne Islands. High tide has left behind seaweed, limpet shells, unusual rocks and even a tree trunk. It is wild and mesmerizing.

The wind sees to it that we cannot linger there, our cheeks are red and our fingers are numb. The driving rain tests the waterproofing of our jackets and our thoughts turn from the interesting things we discover on the beach to cups of tea, being warm and dry, and tucking in to a feast of fish and chips with mushy peas, mandatory for a trip to the coast in Britain, no matter the weather.

If you enjoyed this and would like to see a slightly larger selection of photographs you can view the story on our website.

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So it was a foregone conclusion that we’d be taking Trixie home for the holidays. No, we couldn’t travel to visit friends or family, we had a bunny to take care of. On the day before winter break she was put into a cage that would fit our car, we were given some hay and kibble and litter to get started with, and suddenly we had the beloved class bunny in our possession, not to mention a lot of responsibility.

At first glance you might be thinking – that’s no bunny! But Trixie is no ordinary bunny. She is a Lionhead bunny. Their long beautiful wool (not fur) requires extensive upkeep, brushing and combing ideally every two days, but no longer than a week between grooming sessions otherwise their wool will knot and mat and then other problems develop.

Bringing Trixie home meant dropping all non-essential tasks in the days before Christmas and suddenly getting up to speed on all things rabbit. We had The Rabbit Handbook out from the library. I went deep into Rabbit Reddit and I conferred extensively with ChatGPT.

You see, Trixie wasn’t drinking any water. Day after day would go by and the level in her water bottle wouldn’t go down. Did she not like the taste of our water? I offered her a bowl of water and she let her displeasure know, hopping as far away from the bowl as possible like I was insulting her! Were we going to have a dehydrated bunny on our hands? Was she heading towards kidney failure?

A quick Google search for “bunny not drinking water” led me down a rabbit hole of diseases to look out for. Signs of dehydration include sunken eyes, but I couldn’t even see them underneath her luscious Chewbacca eyebrows!

But Rabbit Reddit did save the day. Some rabbits just don’t drink a lot of water, they get their water from fresh greens and Trixie was certainly enjoying her parsley, cilantro, kale and endive. Over time she started to really relax and get used to our house, and a few days later she started drinking from her water bottle again. The sheer relief of Trixie drinking water was the Christmas present we all needed. Because now we could stop worrying and fully enjoy her.

Just look at this thing!

“She looks like a dust mop!” declared my mom, and she’s not wrong! “Is that a guinea pig?” asked my brother. She has a reverse mullet (party in the front, business in the back). Trixie manages to not only resemble Ewoks and Wookies but looks beautiful while doing so. Her tutu of floof resembles the fringe on a rug. Her coloration is a warm chocolate brown on her back, a milky Earl Grey tea where she has her long wool, with charcoal gray ears expressively emerging from her fancy hairdo. It’s quite a look!

Can I share with you the pleasure of sinking your fingers into her big warm cheek fluffs and feel her leaning into the touch of your fingertips? The warmth, the softness, the sweetness….!

Each night she gets zoomies around 8:30pm, like a golden retriever, and also flops onto her side like a dog. She looks outside with wistful curiosity, and her munching of cilantro is a soothing ASMR experience that would break the internet if we had the right microphone to record her. Was there any doubt she’d feature in our first art drop of 2025?

Art Drop #20

So in celebration of Trixie, we present Art Drop #20. Yes, it’s a portrait of this very special rabbit who has taken over our lives these last ten days. It’s no easy feat to gently wrangle a bunny into portrait-worthy sunlight, and thankfully she just hopped into position on her own, curiously looking out the window and taking in the view. Isn’t she a character?

Trixie, December 2024
West Stockbridge, MA, USA
by Diana Pappas

Prints of this photograph are only available through January 7, 2025, with no further production of this work for at least a year. The button below takes you to the art drop page on our website where you can learn all about the paper, sizes, and pricing – but in short we are keeping these on the smaller side with 11 x 14” being the largest available, and three different papers to choose from including a recycled option.

Order a Print

For something different this month, if you become a paid subscriber to our publication (annual plans only) you can request any two of the unique one-of-a-kind instant prints shown below. First come, first served!

Thanks for reading! We can’t resist wishing you a very Hoppy New Year!

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If you enjoy what we do here, it would mean a lot if you can support our newsletter in some way. Consider becoming a paid subscriber or perhaps make a one-off tip via Buy Me A Coffee or better yet, add some art to your space with a print from our permanent collection or an art drop. Even just recommending our newsletter to others, or liking this post, commenting, forwarding it on – it all helps and we appreciate it.

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My video above shows our neighbor’s shed, aka Sheddy. Do you see the face?

Whether you observe December 21 as the start of winter or December 1 as Tom does, winter is well and truly here. Our friend Jamie observed that winter in the Berkshires hits differently – it doesn’t instantly start trending towards dirty slush the way it does in and around New York City – it tends to stay pristine for longer, topped up with a fresh coating here and there. There’s also such a thing as ‘upslope snow showers’1 and we get them at our house! It sounds like I’ve lived here for ages and know the idiosyncrasies of Berkshire weather patterns, but I’m still not entirely sure how to get back to our house from the supermarket in Pittsfield.

The natural beauty here is good for our health. Just running errands or doing the school run delivers therapeutic scenic views and calming mountain vistas. But tomorrow it’s going to be a high of 14 and a low of 0 degrees Fahrenheit (that’s -10 and -18 in Celsius respectively) so the realities of moving here are hitting both ways. Winter is gorgeous but it’s going to be brutal too. We thought maybe you’d like to see some of the scenes from the comfort of your own home – no need to put on wool thermals or bulky boots!

Happy Holidays and we will see you in the New Year with Art Drop #20! So long 2024…

P.S. Our pay-what-you-want pop-up studio sale closes at the end of the year, with a few prints still left that we’d love to send on their way to a new home.

Pop-Up Studio Sale!

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If you enjoy what we do here, it would mean a lot if you can support our newsletter in some way. Consider becoming a paid subscriber or perhaps make a one-off tip via Buy Me A Coffee. Better yet, add some art to your space with a print from our permanent collection or an art drop. Even just recommending our newsletter to others, or liking this post, commenting, forwarding it on – it all helps and we appreciate it.

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8.30am
Tom here. We just dropped our daughter off at school. Diana is driving. The temperature is 25 degrees Fahrenheit (-4 degrees Celsius).

8.42am
We're getting on the I-90 and heading west to Schodack Island State Park in New York. There's a dusting of snow across the landscape. 25 miles to our exit.

8.52am
Just crossed the border into New York and Diana saw a crow eating from a deer carcass. She observes that seeing the light snow that landed on a wooded hill or mountain is like seeing someone's scalp through their thinning hair. "Is that the kind of descriptive text you are looking for?" she asks. Absolutely.

8.57am
The sun is out this morning and the light is beautiful. There are some rich colors around; the simultaneous orange/yellow/red of bittersweet, the brick red of sumac, the pale purple haze of deciduous saplings and shrubs.

9.07am
We just passed a graveyard of old vehicles. Cars, school buses, trucks, you name it, all piled up on top of each other. I saved the location and will try to get access one day. It's called The Auto Undertakers. Great name.

9.15am
We are off the highway now and driving through South Schodack. Lots to see and photograph here; a poly tunnel in disrepair, buffalo on a farm, snow geese flying overhead. The light has gone now, cloud has covered the sky, but that might be better for our photographs today.

9:45am
Diana is taking over the liveblogging now via voice memo. We are now driving through the Schodack Island State Park. There are docks pulled out of the Hudson River, campsites winterized with their picnic tables stacked up and sheltered. We park the car and make our way on foot towards the high-tension wires, the railway bridge and the auto bridge, each towering across this part of the Hudson. On our approach to the bridges on foot we see a train coming from the east. A sign below says WARNING RISK OF FALLING DEBRIS and we hang back. Something falls from the bridge closer to the river, maybe ice.

10:09am
The sun is breaking out from the clouds illuminating the goldenrod seed heads underneath the highway. The concrete above us is broken up into almost mosaics – little squares within squares within squares. There is crazing and patches and some of the concrete is stained rust from the metal within. The rumbles come back and forth overhead with each passing truck. Tom patiently waits for the light and when it breaks through he grabs what he can, knowing it's going to disappear any second.

10:29am
We're under the railway bridge now, two-tone brown paint like the light and dark brown M&M's of yore. There is steel on top of concrete on top of older crumbling concrete. Everything is held together almost like a house of cards. Steel radiating from spokes (Tom describes them as looking like palmetto fronds), X's, ladder shapes, barbed wire shapes, zigzags, rivets, fallen debris around us.

10:32am
As we approach Schodack Creek the plant life abruptly changes from goldenrod to cattails, phragmites – very tall phragmites actually. Everything is tall here. I see seed pods of Queen Anne's Lace and can hear cardinals, Carolina wrens, American tree sparrows, house finches.

10:35am
We've reached the creek. There are gentle ripples in the water and snowy, sandy banks. The phragmites and cattails are almost bleached out by winter, matching the tones in the concrete. Tom is going under the bridge looking for a way through to the creek's edge.

10:42am
I want a hot chocolate. Tom wants a coffee. Hands are really cold.

11:03am
Tom says, “If you look at every pier of the bridge it has these sort of haphazard ladders, and if you frame it reasonably tight it reminds me of a snakes and ladders board. And I really like those steel fronds – they even have the tiny barbs that the palmetto fronds have. I’m pretty sure one of those shots will be the art drop. You know, just very minimalist, graphic, structural, bridge details that are interesting to look at and a little bit hard to make sense of visually. We'll see how they come out.”

11.43am
Tom here, awkwardly typing on the laptop in a moving vehicle. We're leaving the state park and the sun is back out, the light is amazing and everything looks better now. Of course it does. Diana just spotted a bald eagle nest in the trees above the road.

12.04pm
Driving back towards the highway and the road is undulating. As we head downhill towards a bend the light hits a corn field below us, framed by the backlit silhouettes of bare trees in the foreground. CWS (Car Window Syndrome).

12.11pm
We're back on I-90 heading east. Home in 22 minutes for lunch and the coffee I didn't have time for this morning.

Art Drop #19

Structural bridge details were definitely not what I was expecting to be drawn to today – I was assuming the creek and the reed beds and winter marshland colors would be my focus – but I’m surprised and really happy with this photograph. I like its arresting shapes, its bold graphic elements, and how those ladders make you question not only their purpose but what you are actually looking at.

Structural Steel, 1924
Schodack Landing, NY, USA
by Tom Bland

Prints of this photograph are only available through December 10, 2024, with no further production of this work for at least a year. To learn more about the paper, sizes, and pricing click the button below to visit the art drop page on our website.

Order a print

Thank you for reading. Until the next time...

Support

If you enjoy what we do here, it would mean a lot if you can support our newsletter in some way. Consider becoming a paid subscriber or perhaps make a one-off tip via Buy Me A Coffee. Better yet, add some art to your space with a print from our permanent collection or an art drop. Even just recommending our newsletter to others, or liking this post, commenting, forwarding it on – it all helps and we appreciate it.

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Real talk, gather in close now…

Just over a month ago we began preparing for a local art fair, thinking it would be a great opportunity to get our new studio humming, print a broad selection of our photographs and of course sell print after print in a clamor of demand and excitement.

As soon as we walked in the door to the art fair, we realized we were in the wrong room.

All the hours of preparation, the stacks of carefully printed and packaged prints, all displayed with the best of intentions only to be met with:

“We have too much art in our house!”

“We just downsized, I have no space on my walls!”

One visitor to our table was very interested in one of my hand bouquets. He was taken by the fact it was made in Tenafly, NJ. He was originally from nearby Teaneck, so there was a connection there and he clearly loved the photograph. But after a great conversation (while he was clutching the print the entire time) he promptly left, without even taking a business card. That was eye-opening.

This was a crowd that either didn’t appreciate our work or came with no intention of buying artwork in the first place. We sold absolutely nothing.

The Upside

Honestly, I’m embarrassed about how naïve we were, thinking that our success selling our artwork online would effortlessly translate to in-person sales. The positives were the special conversations with kind people who stopped by and truly did enjoy our work. We gained some subscribers to this newsletter along with some real world connections and local insight. But for art sales we were most definitely in the wrong room. Given that, the question becomes, how do we get into the right room? Where even is the right room? Who has the key?

In the days and weeks following the fair it dawned on me that perhaps we have the key: this newsletter is the right room and we are already there. I can close my eyes and imagine all of you milling about our studio, flipping through prints and chatting with us about how, where, when and why these particular photographs came into existence and what the art evokes for you in return. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Pop-Up Studio Sale!

So we’d like to unlock the door and invite you in to our pop-up studio sale where we are offering all those prints that didn’t sell in the wrong room for the generous price of whatever-you-want (just please kindly cover shipping at least).

Don’t have space on your walls? It’s gift-giving season so this is a chance to get a gift for someone else.

Thank you for reading. We hope you find something you like in the studio sale! We’ll be back to our regular programming on December 1st with our final art drop of 2024.

P.S. It’s hasn’t been all bad news though – look at this amazing 40 x 60” print of Tom’s Yellow Wall abstract that we recently sold, printed on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm. It barely fits in our studio!

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A Photo-Phenomenon

It took until now for me to make sense of a phenomenon that I have named ‘car window syndrome’ or CWS for short. Whether you are a photographer or not, you might relate to this. Picture the scene:

You are in a car driving through twisting country roads. Maybe you’re the driver, maybe you’re a passenger, but you see countless scenes passing you by that are worthy of a photograph. For photographers this can feel like lost potential and missed opportunities, but seeing photographs from the car is always a challenge – there will definitely be a car behind you when you need to stop abruptly, or maybe there isn’t a suitable place to pull over. At some point though you muster the willpower to get out of the car and make a photograph of one of those scenes.

But something is off. It doesn’t feel right. You get home and import the images. That’s not what you saw from the car. Why doesn’t it look as good as it did in my head when we were driving?

That’s CWS.

When CWS is at play, your brain is processing many elements that you probably don’t consider at the time. The motion blur of whatever is in the foreground: passing trees, guardrails, fences. There is the frame-within-a-frame of the subject through your window or windshield. Maybe there’s a tint on some of your auto glass that is affecting the colors. Even the music you were playing in the car at the time has a role to play. And of course, the fleeting glimpse of the subject you noticed – the light catches it just right as you drive past, and then that moment is gone. All these ingredients disappear when you stop the car and compose your photograph from the verge. I don’t even think a short clip of video would have done it justice. What you saw was for your eyes only, a short scene in the movie that is your life.

It was this season’s fall colors in the Berkshires that fully brought car window syndrome to my attention. So many stunning scenes passed us by as we did the school run, or went out to do errands. The urge to capture them was strong, and most of them were lost. But that’s Ok.

However, below are some of the photographs we did manage to make during our fall driving; some from within the car, some not.

Art Drop #18

There isn’t much time left to order a print of Golden Tree on Golden Hill before this art drop closes at midnight EST on Nov 7th, 2024. This print will then be quarantined for a year and we’ll look at it again with fresh eyes in late 2025. If you missed it, our previous post introduced this photograph.

Order a Print

Thank you for reading. If car window syndrome resonates with you, let me know. Until the next time...

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I find this place to be peaceful, and I’m not the only one. On each visit I pass people out on their morning walk or run who stop and pause periodically to take their phones out of their pockets and capture a photograph. They too have found a place that is special to them and we nod and smile to each other in acknowledgement of this shared fact.

The cows that graze this pasture are sometimes distant, dotting the landscape, and sometimes close by the road. They look on with curiosity at the human covering her face with her camera and the click click click of each press of the shutter. These cows have no understanding of the political dread, tension and fear swirling through this country and how it all hinders the creative output of this photographer. They soon lose interest in me and go back to their forage.

On another morning while I was crouching awkwardly at a low angle capturing some details as photographers will often do, a kestrel flew impossibly close by and I stood up and watched as it made its way across the pasture. That kestrel couldn’t care less about the lurking feelings of grief that have imbued my Octobers for some twelve years (and counting) since my Dad died and for a moment the kestrel took the awareness of my grief on its wing.

To Golden Hill I would come with anxiety, glumness and angst, and from Golden Hill I would leave with less of it. I brought my camera to it again and again because I had a suspicion that I could also come away with something special if the light was right, if the subject was ripe and if my creative eye could see through the murk I was mired in.

Art Drop #18

All the photographs in today’s newsletter were taken in this one specific spot in Lee, Massachusetts but only one was worthy of being our 18th art drop, a photograph I made with stirrings of joy and astonishment that I had happened upon this maple tree right at its peak of gold on Golden Hill.

Golden Tree on Golden Hill
Lee, MA, USA
by Diana Pappas

Prints of this photograph are only available through November 7, 2024, with no further production of this work for at least a year. To learn more about the paper, sizes, and pricing click the button below to visit the art drop page on our website.

Order a Print

Thanks for accompanying me to Golden Hill today. I hope you will leave it with a little less of that which doesn’t serve you. Tomorrow (November 2nd, 2024) Tom and I will be in Great Barrington at BSRCC for their annual Fall Arts & Crafts Fair from 11am-3pm with a table full of prints available. We’re looking forward to introducing our work to our new community!

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If you enjoy what we do here, it would mean a lot if you can support our newsletter in some way. Consider becoming a paid subscriber or perhaps make a one-off tip via Buy Me A Coffee or better yet, add some art to your space with a print from our permanent collection or an art drop. Even just recommending our newsletter to others, or liking this post, commenting, forwarding it on – it all helps and we appreciate it.

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I’ll start with the meadow. In mid-September I took some provisional steps back into video. Despite getting a BA in Media Production and often working with video in the years that followed graduation, it has probably been over a decade since I used anything other than an iPhone to shoot video. But with the meadow looking so spectacular I was compelled to take the camera out to shoot some footage. Come, take a couple of minutes to see and hear the meadow as it was in September (it should be 4K so hopefully it looks good full-screen):

By the way, if you are an art director, photo editor, location scout, photographer, or you know any of those people, we will be making our wild and wonderful meadow here in the Berkshires available as a location for photo and video shoots. I made a first draft of a website for it, which I don’t mind you seeing despite it being a work-in-progress. At some point we will list it on Peerspace. If this interests you, contact us. If you know someone who should see our meadow, feel free to forward this on to them.

Peak Meadow

We have been making photographs of the meadow since we arrived here in the summer, but for whatever reason we hadn’t anticipated it would become such a creative resource. In advance of our move we were thrilled to have this untamed wild space for nature, but we simply didn’t think much about what it could be for us. It is certainly possible that outside of its peak in August, September and October, it won’t speak to us in the same way. Will we see something interesting in it when it is mowed, soggy and sad on a winter’s day? That remains to be seen… For now, here are some as-yet unseen photographs we have made here during the last couple of months.

Art Drop #17

Our latest art drop has now closed. Prints of Diffused Goldenrod were available for seven days, but it now enters hibernation for a year.

The diffusion box that we wrote about in our previous post was fun for all of us. Even our daughter stepped in front of it for an impromptu creative session beside some asters.

What is Essential?

Diana and I both have photographs in the current group exhibition of F-Stop Magazine responding to the theme of “Minimal, imagery made with only what is essential.” On show from us are two more of my examinations of painter’s plastic, made when our house was under construction, and Diana’s Subtle Wave photograph.

Lost and Found

After a where-is-it? situation with our local Post Office we finally have our hands on the Happening Happenstance publication by Ephemere & NOICE that accompanied the group exhibition of the same name in Tokyo back in August. We each had one photograph included, alongside over 100 other artists. Curated by , designed by Federico Zavatta, and edited by , the book is currently sold out although you can register your interest if you’d like a copy. In his introduction Colin describes the book as celebrating “the art of seeing and the joy of discovery… In this collection, you’ll discover vibrant colors, unexpected humor, and candid glimpses of everyday life.” It’s a beautifully designed book and if you appreciate the style of photography championed by NOICE then you won’t be disappointed.

That’s all from us this time. We hope you enjoyed your serving of our ‘Bitsa Soup’ newsletter. We’re witnessing a rapid transformation now of the landscape around us, hurtling towards winter with many potential photographs waiting to be made.

Support

If you enjoy what we do here, it would mean a lot if you can support our newsletter in some way. Consider becoming a paid subscriber or perhaps make a one-off tip via Buy Me A Coffee, or better yet, add some art to your space with a print from our permanent collection or an art drop. Even just recommending our newsletter to others, or liking this post, commenting, forwarding it on – it all helps and we appreciate it. Thank you for supporting our work as independent artists!

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Co-Opting Painter’s Plastic

The construction here is essentially done, but like a gift that keeps on giving it presented some ideas that we are taking forwards. In our post from April titled Under Construction, we included some of my blue minimalist photographs of our windows.

The magical stuff that was covering them is called painter’s plastic and is taped against walls or windows to protect them during painting. It brings a diffused, dreamlike quality to whatever is behind it, and in the right lighting conditions it can be quite beautiful. Inevitably, ever since I saw what it was capable of back in the spring it has been on my mind as a potential creative tool. What would it look like with a figure behind it? Or a beach? Or… some plants in the meadow? You can probably guess where this is going now.

Trial and Error

To achieve what we had in mind some new skills were required and luckily Jake (the master carpenter who worked on our house) was still around working on the punch list. Diana got expert instruction on how to make a sturdy frame using some scrap wood leftover from construction.

She then taped the painter’s plastic to the finished frame and we took it into the meadow for some test shots.

We soon realized that we needed to construct a way of blocking the light from hitting the screen itself. This wasn’t intended to be a celebration of plastic and the sunlight was illuminating it too much for my liking. We enlisted the help of IKEA and commandeered some of our couch packaging that our daughter had used for an art project, since abandoned (supposedly). After cutting a hole in the box, we taped the frame in place and attached a blanket to the top – the idea being I would have Aunty Dil’s blanket draped over me to block the light, like operating a large format camera with a dark cloth. Sure enough, it looked ridiculous.

But it worked, mostly. New challenges arose though. Gnats would get inside the box, drawn to the screen and its lightbox effect. Under the blanket with the early autumn sun beating down, temperatures rose within, along with my frustration levels when the composition I wanted eluded me. Later, as expected, when our daughter saw what we were doing there were cries of Hey that’s my box, what have you done to it? But then I took it inside and it became the setting for a game1 with Magna-Tiles and animals. Crisis averted.

Art Drop #17

For a first attempt at working with painter’s plastic I think we can be happy with what we achieved here. The forms of the goldenrod are preserved along with the softer hues of the meadow this time of year, including the emergence of autumn. I would definitely like to iterate further on this concept of a diffusion box and experiment with not only the opacity of the screen, but scale too. How big can we take this?

Diffused Goldenrod
West Stockbridge, MA, USA
by Tom Bland

Prints of this photograph are only available until October 7, 2024 with no further production of this work for at least a year, at which point it may be added to our permanent collection. To learn more about the paper, sizes, and pricing click the button below to visit the art drop page on our website.

Visit the Art Drop / Order

Thank you for reading. In our next newsletter we’ll share some recent as-yet unseen photographs from the meadow, and talk about some sections we will be adding to this newsletter.

Support

If you enjoy what we do here, it would mean a lot if you can support our newsletter in some way. Consider becoming a paid subscriber or perhaps make a one-off tip via Buy Me A Coffee, or better yet, add some art to your space with a print from our permanent collection or an art drop. Even just recommending our newsletter to others, or liking this post, commenting, forwarding it on – it all helps and we appreciate it. Thank you for supporting our work as independent artists!

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