Comments on: michael kircher – potomac gorge https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2011/04/michael-kircher-potomac-gorge/ burn is an online feature for emerging photographers worldwide. burn is curated by magnum photographer david alan harvey. Wed, 07 Sep 2016 08:31:04 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.4 By: The Potomac Gorge | Elizabeth's Wildflower Blog https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2011/04/michael-kircher-potomac-gorge/#comment-629587 Sun, 30 Nov 2014 12:24:06 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=8715#comment-629587 […] Potomac Gorge –Michael Kircher, Burn Magazine […]

]]>
By: Potomac Gorge by Michael Kircher | The 37th Frame - Celebrating the Best of Photojournalism https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2011/04/michael-kircher-potomac-gorge/#comment-295493 Sun, 09 Mar 2014 18:47:52 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=8715#comment-295493 […] View the full essay on Burn Magazine […]

]]>
By: david bowen https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2011/04/michael-kircher-potomac-gorge/#comment-89189 Wed, 20 Apr 2011 19:16:49 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=8715#comment-89189 number 2 is just astonishing..
much respect michael..
i enjoyed the impressionistic much more than the literal..

:o)

]]>
By: Pete Marovich https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2011/04/michael-kircher-potomac-gorge/#comment-89145 Tue, 19 Apr 2011 04:08:26 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=8715#comment-89145 Bob Black not intellectualize…. yeah right LOL

]]>
By: michael kircher https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2011/04/michael-kircher-potomac-gorge/#comment-89127 Mon, 18 Apr 2011 00:08:45 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=8715#comment-89127 Pete… thanks! Now get back to work!

Patricia… so good to see you in here. Really appreciate your comment!

Gordon… I was long ago told to shoot what I was passionate about. To give a damn, otherwise just wasting time. (something like that.) This is far from finished.

Thanks for looking and for your comment.

Cheers.

]]>
By: Gordon Lafleur https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2011/04/michael-kircher-potomac-gorge/#comment-89125 Sun, 17 Apr 2011 23:56:36 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=8715#comment-89125 Michael

Late jumping in here, but just wanted to congratulate you on your project and on being published here.

I DO like landscape. I just don’t like the over the top over-saturated, over sharpened, super sweetened stuff. This is not at all like that.

You’ve chosen to celebrate and revere your subject. You’ve chosen to idealize it, (I mean that in the best possible sense) to focus on the moments, the points of view, and the details that show it at it’s most beautiful, and it’s most mystical.
I love your approach. It feels quiet, soft, un-hurried, respectful, worshipful even.

I hope you continue with this project for a long time.

Cheers

]]>
By: Patricia Lay-Dorsey https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2011/04/michael-kircher-potomac-gorge/#comment-89122 Sun, 17 Apr 2011 21:23:54 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=8715#comment-89122 MICHAEL

Glad I checked in today…Your essay is breathtaking! You have transcended the Nature genre and soared into Art, an art imbued with an Asian sensibility with hints of Abstract Expressionism. BRAVO!!!

]]>
By: Pete Marovich https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2011/04/michael-kircher-potomac-gorge/#comment-89120 Sun, 17 Apr 2011 20:25:08 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=8715#comment-89120 Michael

Your holding out on me. Many of these I have not seen. Of course you know how I feel about #2 after seeing the print in your home.

Very Nice.

Now back to the bathroom renovation… we will talk more later.

]]>
By: bob black https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2011/04/michael-kircher-potomac-gorge/#comment-89113 Sun, 17 Apr 2011 14:28:06 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=8715#comment-89113 herve ;)))

i ain’t intellectualizing….i like a river that runs fast and stumbles rushed over rocks….and i like herons and i like broken, black trees….and i like chinese paintings and if one reminds me of the other, it is just the makeup of my body and the makeup of who i am…offering visual referencing isn’t about intellectualizing but about complimenting…and i associate, it’s the way i see things…call it having grappled with ways to ladder up from the well of blindness as a kid….

but a tree is a tree is a tree and thank god for that :))

cheers
b

]]>
By: bob black https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2011/04/michael-kircher-potomac-gorge/#comment-89112 Sun, 17 Apr 2011 14:23:05 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=8715#comment-89112 Sidney ;)))…

well, yes, true, it does look like a turkey vulture (though no way for me to guess whether that was a mature or immature one)….i accept blame on my ignorance of fauna thriving along the Potomac, for the following reasons: 1) i hadn’t scrutinized the bird pic, as i had some of the others, (just as i didn’t the white-tail deer or snapping turtle, as they weren’t the pics i was drawn to) and 2) though i do know something about n.american fauna, it is true that while i own a bunch of books on chinese scroll and i own a rather overly-thick book of Audubon’s paintings (and have seen many of the originals in the New York Historical Society as well as some of the copper plates in the Natural History museum, and have even been to the house in Key West), I do not have a copy of Birds of America….

but i like being assigned homework as much as assigning…..

cheers
bob

p.s. I do know about Herons however :))))

]]>
By: michael kircher https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2011/04/michael-kircher-potomac-gorge/#comment-89111 Sun, 17 Apr 2011 13:49:24 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=8715#comment-89111 Michael Webster and Herve…

Many thanks for the kind words.

All… (for those who may be wondering)
The creatures represented are, in order of appearance:

-great blue herons
-American toad
-great blue heron
-double crested cormorant
-yet another GBH! (geez!!)
-juvenile snapping turtle
-white-tail deer
-broad-headed skink
-immature turkey vulture

]]>
By: Herve https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2011/04/michael-kircher-potomac-gorge/#comment-89109 Sun, 17 Apr 2011 06:59:15 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=8715#comment-89109 Not easy to bring out in a personal way, such subject, but you did, and there is definitely much poetry unearthed, and moreover, with total simplicity (the best poetry!), both of stance and looking/seeing. I like this essay, I need no references, artistic, photographic or literary, to enjoy it. And it seems wrong-headed, or rather idiosyncratic for me, to take it as pretext for intellectualizing. Sure, not every image scores as high as others, in relevance to your vision (and mine, I suppose), definitely #8, #16 and 19 are my winning “podium” .

]]>
By: Sidney Atkins https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2011/04/michael-kircher-potomac-gorge/#comment-89108 Sun, 17 Apr 2011 05:08:11 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=8715#comment-89108 Michael Kircher wrote:
“But to be honest, I believe my biggest influences in photography are non-nature/wildlife photogs… Abell, Allard and our illustrious host.”

Well Michael, I guess you could do a lot worse in your choice of mentors.

Bob Black wrote:
“now, go buy yourself a book of chinese paintings/scrolls as you continue to work on this project…
you can thank me later ;))))))”

Well Bob, may I suggest (humbly, of course) that now you go buy yourself a book of Birds of America as you continue to wax so eloquently on this project… since what you referred to as a ‘hawk’ is clearly a turkey vulture (Cathartes aura), a common bird of the eastern US… you can thank me later ;(((((

Cheers,

]]>
By: michael kircher https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2011/04/michael-kircher-potomac-gorge/#comment-89107 Sun, 17 Apr 2011 02:42:07 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=8715#comment-89107 Akaky…

Thanks very much.

Nature is one of the few phenomena in this world that looks better on television than it does in real life. Haha… There is much truth in that!

]]>
By: michael kircher https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2011/04/michael-kircher-potomac-gorge/#comment-89106 Sun, 17 Apr 2011 02:39:07 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=8715#comment-89106 Jer,

There were very similar storms here today! Rough weather all across the continent, actually. And yes, not too smart that day were we?! haha.

Thanks so much for your comments. And for your inspiration.

BTW… you picked the exact same five images that another close friend picked! Cool, eh?!

]]>
By: Jeremy Wade Shockley https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2011/04/michael-kircher-potomac-gorge/#comment-89105 Sun, 17 Apr 2011 02:22:21 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=8715#comment-89105 Michael,

So great to see your work in its full glory here on Burn, the product of your dedication and personal vision! I particularly love the new work, or that which I have not seen before! 3,6,16,19,& 21 especially. Sixteen is a page stopper.

Always a pleasure to come home to Burn and read through so many insightful comments.

I have been with you numerous times on the Potomac (never deterred by inclement weather…it is quite possible that we may have dodged a lightening bolt, or two, on that first day), I have seen first hand the beauty you have captured here so honestly.

It has been great to watch your work progress as you have dedicated yourself over the years to this personal project, and now I am seeing your voice come through as a journalist, an artist, and an activist.

In the footsteps of Thoreau indeed. Well done Mike!

Your friend, Jeremy

]]>
By: mw https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2011/04/michael-kircher-potomac-gorge/#comment-89103 Sat, 16 Apr 2011 16:35:18 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=8715#comment-89103 Number one is an excellent establishing shot. That’s the big attraction, the thing we all see when we drive out there for an afternoon, though probably not in such wonderful light. What follows is what you, the photographer, see; the things most people who drive out there and stand on the rocks for a few minutes don’t see and probably never will– unless they look at photographs.

I agree with the consensus on number two. That’s just a fantastic shot. If those ancient Chinese saw it, they’d probably throw away their brushes and take up photography.

I also liked numbers 13, 14, and 16 quite a lot. Number six, the one of the frog, is an excellent Nat Geo type shot, but doesn’t do anything for me. Neither do any of the ones pointing at the sky or the tighter, patterned shots. And I’m surprised David let you keep both 5 and 21, two similar trail shots, one of which is not in the same class as the other.

Speaking of number 21. for me that one demonstrates the highest level of expertise. So many scenes in nature — the more accessible ones, not the El Capitans or Grand Canyons — are incredible when you’re there but come out mundane at best in the photograph. I think you’ve aced it with number 21. That’s what it’s like to be there. You can feel it.

]]>
By: bob black https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2011/04/michael-kircher-potomac-gorge/#comment-89102 Sat, 16 Apr 2011 15:55:46 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=8715#comment-89102 here is a beginning about chinese scroll paintings

http://www.google.ca/images?q=chinese%20scroll%20paintings&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1567&bih=833

]]>
By: bob black https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2011/04/michael-kircher-potomac-gorge/#comment-89101 Sat, 16 Apr 2011 15:50:27 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=8715#comment-89101 michael :))

yea, if #2 has the beauty of a chinese painting with the drama of japanese/greek mythology, 16 is quintessential Asian poem….glad the Mrs. loves 16 too…and u should know that i looked at the essay 4 times this morning (without wine, of course) before writing….proud of you….

now, go buy yourself a book of chinese paintings/scrolls as you continue to work on this project…

you can thank me later ;))))))

hugs
b

]]>
By: michael kircher https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2011/04/michael-kircher-potomac-gorge/#comment-89100 Sat, 16 Apr 2011 15:34:40 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=8715#comment-89100 Thanks Marcin.

]]>