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Circular Books

Welcome! Circular Books is now called Yewell Street Press and is an indie publisher of quality, nich Satisfaction guaranteed.

Yewell Street Press is an indie publisher. We publish two authors at present, Pete Hendley and Amy Lance. For more information go to www.petehendley.com.

04/14/2023

THE WHALES GOT INTO THE LAKE AGAIN

Scientists finally came from the nearby university, but they only stayed for a few minutes. They walked up to the water’s edge and then back to me. They were angry. “It is impossible! It is a small and shallow freshwater lake with no access to the ocean!”

“Yes, I know it is impossible,” I said. “That’s why I called you.”

Nevertheless, every two or maybe three years they appear. They only stay a few hours. It is never predictable. But if you go to the lake often and wait patiently, eventually, they will arrive.

Pete Hendley

www.petehendley.com
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03/15/2023

Careful What You Fish For

The moonlight and first hint of dawn caught the surface of the lake just right for me to see below its surface. I was shocked. Then alarmed. I thought of yelling out to the fisherman to warn him. But what would I say? I just stood there and couldn’t think of anything that he would believe. Then I calmed down and realized that, actually, he was better off as he was.

Pete Hendley
www.petehendley.com

02/15/2023

I drove by a field the other day out here in Iowa, and I saw a strange sight. A mirror stood in the field, leaned up against a fence. A herd of cows mingled nearby. As I watched, a cow walked up to the mirror and then stepped right through it and disappeared. A few minutes later another followed. One by one, they each went through the mirror. By evening, the cows had all left. I then went up to the mirror myself and tried to walk through but I couldn’t. It was just a mirror, reflecting the field and sky and me.

I have to admit I was disappointed. I didn’t know where it led, but I wanted to go there. When I returned the next day, the mirror too was gone.

Things are never what they seem.

Pete Hendley

www.petehendley.com
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07/19/2022

Blog #10
More on Alfred Steiglitz's Publication Camera Work
July 19, 2022

I wrote about Alfred Steiglitz’s self-publication Camera Work (1903 - 1917) in my last blog (May 2022 - https://nonagon-tangerine-csmg.squarespace.com/config/pages). I wanted to let everyone know that there is a group called the Modernist Journals Project (https://modjourn.org/) that has made digital copies of the original issues available on their website for FREE. They are brilliantly done scans of all the Camera Work issues. You can read them online or download them. This is an amazing resource. The photographs in these issues are just stunning. Take a look! (https://modjourn.org/journal/camera-work/)

They also have a lot of other publications from their beginnings, such as National Geographic, and The Atlantic, and some lesser known but fascinating fiction and poetry and essay magazines like The Strand Magazine (London 1910), Windsor Magazine (London 1911), and Egoist (1914 - 1919) to name only a few.

I highly recommend this site.

Pete Hendley

www.petehendley.com

05/10/2022

It is hard to imagine that in the early 1900s debate raged over whether photography was an art or just a mechanical, objective way of recording reality. Alfred Stieglitz led the movement for photography as art by starting a gallery named 291 in New York and by self-publishing his own work and that of his friends and acquaintances in the subscription quarterly magazine Camera Work. The focus was primarily Pictorialism, which involved special lenses and developing processes that lent a dreamy slightly unfocused look to the photos, in stark contrast to today’s interest in sharp digital images. (There is a place for both). It ran from 1903 to 1917 and was hand produced by Steiglitz on heavy fine art paper. Some of the many great artists of the time were featured: Steichen, Clarence White, Paul Strand, Rodin, Matisse, and Picasso among many others. In his gallery 291 he also showed paintings on canvas such as those by his wife Georgia O’Keefe.

There is a nice publication by the publisher Taschen that reproduces Camera Work. It is much smaller than the original magazine but very nice. It includes the articles and images from the originals. I highly recommend it.

Pete Hendley

www.petehendley.com

If you know of anyone who would like to receive this blog, please have them go to www.petehendley.com and sign up!.

I hope everyone is well out there!

'Keefe

04/14/2022

Blog Episode #8
April 14, 2022

Carl Bernstein's New Book: Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom
In Carl Bernstein's new book Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom, he mentions my father Coit Hendley a number of times. They were friends and colleagues and "newspapermen" back in the day together working on the Washington Star in Washington D.C. It is a great book, very evocative of those days when opinion was confined to the Editorial Pages, and journalists prided themselves on reporting the most factually accurate story they could. Of course they weren't perfect, but no one threw around accusations of fake news in those days of the 1950s to the 1980s, through the civil rights movement, Kennedy assassination, the moon landing, Watergate. Quite an era. It is full of details about how a newspaper gets the job done, using phone booths, carbon paper, and your feet to track down leads. Bernstein's love of his job comes across wonderfully. It is amazing to see my father and his world portrayed. I sent Bernstein a complimentary copy of my book about my father's World War II experience at D-Day, LCI-85: The Military Career of Lt(jg) Coit Hendley During the Invasions of North Africa, Italy, and Omaha Beach on D-Day: His Papers and Photos, and I never heard back, which is fine. Well, I guess he got it. He also mentioned me and my book. I even made it into the index, next to my father. Quite exciting!

My thanks go out to Peter Alexander who alerted me to my presence in this book before I’d had a chance to read it!

Buy your copy now!

If you know of anyone who would like to receive this blog, please have them go to www.petehendley.com and sign up!.

I hope everyone is well out there!

03/09/2022

I am happy to report that my book The World is Beautiful: Two Years on the Road (Photos) is a 2021 semi-finalist for the North Street Book Prize! It is nice to be recognized and hopefully it will help more readers find the book. (Available on Amazon).

"Honoring the best self-published books of poetry, children's picture books, art books, graphic novel & memoir, genre fiction, literary fiction, and creative nonfiction & memoir." My book was entered in the Art Book category. "...We admired The World is Beautiful...and your final rank in our 2021 contest is Semi-Finalist." - Adam Cohen, President.

If you know of anyone who would like to receive these blogs through email, please have them go to www.petehendley.com and sign up!

I hope everyone is well out there!

www.petehendley.com

02/02/2022

Film vs Digital?
Blog episode #6

It was a huge debate when digital cameras first came out - does one switch to digital or keep using film? As time went by it became easier and then a necessity to go digital. If you do still use film, you have to scan the negative into the computer to make it digital, so you can then post it online, sell prints online, use editing software like Affinity Photo (which I prefer to Adobe) Lately, a lot of people have returned to using film, though rarely ever exclusively. I shoot both, depending on the situation. Film has a unique feel to it which creates a “grainy” look, depending on the type of film you use and the conditions. With digital, photographers are usually looking for a much cleaner, slicker look, though software editing does offer a way to try to imitate the film look, with varying degrees of success. If I am in a situation where I need to shoot a lot of frames, like tracking an eagle across the sky or attending a sporting event, I will use digital. It doesn’t cost anything to shoot a lot of images. If I can be more selective, I will usually use film. I also like the developing process, which has gotten easier than in days of old. The Manhattan photo here is an example of digital and the Lone Boat on the Beach in Goa is a film shot from my book The World is Beautiful: Two Years on the Road (Photos). They both have their purposes.
You can view these more closely on
www.petehendley.com

01/05/2022

Is It Ever Okay For a Photo to be Blurry?
January 05, 2022
Today, the tack-sharp image is the expected. It is more possible than ever with autofocus and digital cameras. But is it ever warranted to have any blur in a photo? In the image below, titled “The Amish and Me”, I was in the car with a camera in my hand (a manual focus 35mm Pentax Me Super), when the horse and buggy sped by. I quickly snapped a shot. The young girl’s expression makes it worth it, in my opinion. In the second photo on the right, titled “Sometimes It’s a Lot”, I think the blur creates a feeling of unsettledness (taken with an autofocus 35mm Canon 1V). It is from my book 55 Photos: Baltimore 2021. It helps to see it in context. We were helping Lydia move to Baltimore, find an apartment, start a new job, settle in, and it was sometimes “just a lot” to deal with.

Of course, in the end, it’s up to personal taste.

Both of these photos can be found in the People section on www.petehendley.com.

Pete Hendley

Fine art prints now available on www.petehendley.com

12/14/2021

Take a closer look at the book "55 Photos: Baltimore 2021" by Pete Hendley. On Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0996499385
for more information: www.petehendley.com

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Iowa City, IA
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