Susan Ann Walenza

I came to photography from painting.  Sensuality of palette and form often finds its way into my work - whether in photos of plums and shallots in my garden or those of a night scene in Orvieto.  I like to experiment, using the camera as paintbrush, creating abstract or impressionist photos.

I was moved to create this collection of photos of Clear Lake after hearing an interview with researchers from Oregon Glaciers Institute at a requiem for Clark Glacier.

At Clear Lake, headwaters of the McKenzie River, snowmelt filters through underground rock for up to two decades before emerging into a spring at the edge of a cerulean pool where there is an old carved wooden sign on a tree, naming the spring “The Source”.  

I wonder how this beautiful clear cold lake will change as our glaciers continue to disappear.  Clear Lake's shoreline- lava fields, conifer forest, vine maple and aspen- are reflected in these photos.  I have never seen so many hues of green as here, mirrored in reflection of bark, branch and leaf.

How is it that the camera captures an image where borders dissolve along with the image into component parts previously unimagined?  Perhaps the separations between things that we see as distinct may be simply a figment of learning, words, concepts, culture.   Or maybe what we see is the facade, the mask, the persona of the thing we image, but the camera sees underneath the surface.   Or too, there just may be magical worlds under the surface that I have not yet contemplated.