Zide Miller 12x12

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W i t n e s s
A life within the landscape
P h o t o g r a p h s b y
M i c h a e l Z i d e

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W i t n e s s
A life within the landscape
P h o t o g r a p h s b y
M i c h a e l Z i d e

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© 2008 Michael Zide
Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge the close bonds of family and friends
that helped support the path that I took .
To my wife, Jana Winthers for her critical eye and unwavering honesty,
and to my Vineyard friends who shared so much of this experience
as we came of age in this unique place.
Special thanks to Linsey Lee, Allen Look, Helen Manning,
Lucy Mitchell, Chris Murphy, Jenny Oliver, Robert Tobey, Allen Whiting
and Rez Williams for sharing their thoughts, and to Lisa Devlin Robinson
for her enthusiasm and steady hand in helping to shape this project.
Thanks to Peter Chilton for his incredible assistance
and keen eye in this project’s design.
The journey is its own reward.
Front Cover: Alabama Hills | California
uietly and persistently it fell. Flake by flake, Los Angeles was transformed
during the night. My first snowfall. A wonderful awakening. January 11, 1949.
Q

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To my partner and wife, Jana.
Thank you for sharing
my journey.
W i t n e s s A life within the landscape
L a n d s c a p e I m a g e s
from Martha’s Vineyard and beyond
1969 – 2008

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Skunk Cabbage | off Middle Road, Chilmark

10 11
Reflection | Vineyard Haven
“What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and wildness
Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds, and the wilderness yet.”
—Gerard Manley Hopkins

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Stream in Summer | Tiasquam River, Chilmark
The dwindled creeks of summer,
Unremarkable except,
Down pasture, through woodlot,
They are so many
And keep such a pure sound
In each roiling thread,
Trickle past the knees of trees,
Dropped leaves, salamanders,
Each one scrubbing and cooling
The pebbles of its bed.
—Mary Oliver, From “Twelve Moons” 1979

14 15
Grasses | Vineyard Haven

18 19
Apple Tree | AmherstStone Wall | Squibnocket, Chilmark

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Beetle Bung Corner | Chilmark

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Death Valley | California

26 27
Shadows and Stone | Blue Mailbox Beach, Chilmark Clay | Blue Mailbox Beach, Chilmark

30 31
Two Rocks | Windy Gates Beach, Chilmark

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Clay Fan | Blue Mailbox Beach, Chilmark Water Receding | Blue Mailbox Beach, Chilmark

36 37
Steam Vents by Moonlight | Wyoming

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Clay and Sand | Blue Mailbox Beach, Chilmark Grasses | Tisbury

42 43
Alabama Hills | California

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Cliffs in Fog | Windy Gates Beach, Chilmark
“Whenever there is a big storm, my first
impulse is to go to the beach and encounter
the chaos first-hand. Scientists call it a
‘velocity zone’ — this place where powerful
storm surge is absorbed by grains of sand,
cobbles and coastal uplands. It is a kind of
wasteland where nothing remains the same
and such archetypical forms as may exist
are constantly changing.”
— Rez Williams, artist

46 47
Eroded Sandstone | California

50 51
April Storm | off Old Country Road, West Tisbury

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Snow on Pond | off Abels Hill, Chilmark

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Alabama Hills | California

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Ice on Bog | Lambert’s Cove, Vineyard Haven Eroded Sandstone | California

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Indian Hill Fire Tower | West Tisbury
“Indian Hill was the center of my universe. The fire tower
was one secret destination and it was thrilling to climb
those steep spindly steps to the top with the wind
whistling by and views all over the island. I imagined
I was a hawk.“
—Lucy Mitchell, artist

60 61
Ice | Indian Hill, West Tisbury
“As a child here I always had the tendency to
focus in on the details of nature, maybe because
I was so small and close to the ground...
spirals, crystalline geometries, colors, sounds and
smells, all still have a profound influence on me.”
—Lucy Mitchell, artist

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Cloud Pattern and Sunflowers | Whiting Farm, West Tisbury

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Rock in Fog | Washington

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Mushroom | Lambert’s Cove, Vineyard Haven

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Fall Stream | Chilmark Ferns | West Tisbury

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Aurora Over Music Street | West Tisbury
“Standing in the west end of the meadow, bathed in
starlight and floating on the aroma of fresh hay, all is
stillness, save for a snuffle from the pooled darkness of
Cadet’s paddock on my left. The dust of the roadway is
warm beneath my bare feet and around my toes.
At the far end of the meadow it’s Leonard’s parlor light
on as always, glowing in the window over the sink of his
darkened kitchen, and across the way Crow Hollow –
dark except for Mother’s reading lamp, clipped to
the headboard of her bed. There is a resonance and
communion with the energies of those who preceded me
in this place that occurs nowhere else on Earth.”
—Allen Look

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Saplings | West Tisbury Apple Tree | Chilmark

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Point Lobos | California

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White Sands | New Mexico

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Ice | West Tisbury Whiting Farm | West Tisbury

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Clay and Rocks | Chilmark

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Blowing Sand | New Mexico

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Lunar Eclipse | Gay Head
“I feel personally that the cliff area, where the
lighthouse is and where my house is, I feel that’s very
sacred territory. It’s sort of hard to explain why. It’s
something I feel within me. That's where I belong. I
knew that we had a special place, a sense of being a
Wampanoag—I carry that with me. “
— Helen Manning from “Vineyard Voices — Words, Faces and
Voices of Island People” by Linsey Lee, published by Martha’s
Vineyard Historical Society, 1998

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Black Clouds | Blue Mailbox Beach, Chilmark
“The young like to wrap themselves in the protective and flattering
disguises of myth. In my early twenties, when I lived on Martha’s
Vineyard – a refugee from the hard streets and cold ambitions of
Boston – I liked to think myself as Antaeus. In Greek Mythology,
Antaeus was the son of the sea-god Neptune and Terra, the Earth,
and he was renowned as the greatest wrestler of all time, invincible,
because when thrown to the ground, his Earth-mother would instantly
heal him and recharge his body with an even greater strength. It was
my conceit, and sensational reality, as I rapturously and compulsively
paced the countless miles of the Vineyard’s wild and settled and
entirely mysterious places – becoming a photographer as I went – that
a great nourishing force and fundamental knowledge was rising up from
the ground though my feet and was feeding me in body and soul.“
— Robert Tobey, photographer

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Ice Under Pier | East Chop, Oak Bluffs

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During the last 20 years Michael Zide has been published in numerous
magazines and books. His landscape photography is exhibited internation-
ally and is in both corporate and museum collections. His photography has
been used in advertising campaigns to represent manufacturers of fine
photographic equipment and printing papers, such as Sinar Bron cameras,
Schneider Lenses, Mitsubishi printing papers, Millers Professional Imaging,
and Graphistudios to name a few.
In 2007 his work was used to represent Museo fine art printing paper
made by the Crane Company who, incidentally, manufacture the paper for
US currency.
Recent achievements include being selected as a member of the Masters
of Moab, a group of distinguished photographers whose images are used
to represent this premium brand of fine art digital printing paper. Black &
White magazine honored his images of Martha’s Vineyard with an Award
of Excellence. A feature article, highlighting Michael’s Vineyard landscapes
appears in the Spring 08’ edition of Silvershotz magazine, an international
journal of fine art photography.
He is a full-time instructor at the Hallmark Institute of Photography,
located in western Massachusetts.
Additional examples of his work can be seen at
www.vineyardlandscapes.com.
Limited editions of his prints are available for purchase.
About the Photographer

w w w . v i n e y a r d l a n d s c a p e s . c o m

Zide Miller 12x12

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