672 - Opus 40
Today we explored a six-acre wide sculpture in New York.
Better known as Opus 40, the piece is a massive labyrinth made entirely out of rock pieces. Harvey Fite, the sculptor, bought an abandoned quarry in 1938, and spent the next 37 years meticulously building stairs, ramps, and passages around a 9 ton chunk of granite.
And I thought I was disciplined.
Here’s some pics of it so you can get some context:
The crazy thing is that it was built entirely by him as a solo project, and he never stopped building it until he died from building it. The day he took a fall and never got up, his wife decided to turn the place into a non-profit in order to preserve it.
That’s what it still is to this day, and the only reason I was allowed to run around like a madman snapping pics. Here’s a couple more:
I will admit that shooting this place was a challenge. We went in the middle of the day, fully expecting it to be overcast due to the weather predictions. But we were left with brutal mid-day lighting as the clouds never showed.
This meant I was shooting down for most of the shots, to avoid overexposing the blazing sky. As you can see in this next pic, I was also dealing with a massive dynamic range in many scenes:
It’s hard to balance an image like that out without making it look flat. Because whenever you decrease the contrast to make it more even lighted, you also lose detail and depth… But I think it came out pretty solid given the circumstances. I liked the composition too much to leave it out.
Still, I can’t help but wonder what this place would have looked like if it was golden hour instead.
One other tidbit I found interesting about this place was why it was named Opus 40. Apparently it was because after an enormous amount of public pressure to name the place, he stated “Classical composers don’t have to name things; they can just number them, Opus One, Opus Two, and so on,” so he named it “Opus 40” because he presumed it would take 40 years to finish building it.
It’s inspiring, to say the least. Taking on a project of that scope feels like a massive undertaking. But adding just a bit day in and day out is the only way forward.
Intricate Explorer feels like that sometimes. I’m 8 years deep into this project, and sometimes it’s hard to contextualize what’s coming and what’s been done. I realize I’m only a small percentage through what he’s felt, but I feel like I can relate in some abstract way.
It’s not easy. But onwards we go. 💪
