Sally D’s Mobile Photography Challenge: Nature (Refraction Series, 2015)

02 November 2015

Lens:

1. Refractions at Midday; Copyright © 2015 Sally W. Donatello All Rights Reserved

2. Refractions at Midday; Copyright © 2015 Sally W. Donatello All Rights Reserved

Let me know which you prefer and why. Click onto the image to enlarge.

Pens:

Abstractions are prevalent in nature, and often we miss their presence. Usually we are focused on the known, and slide over the non-objective character of a sliver of bark beautifully textured, a droplet of snow melting in the sun, a clump of seeds billowing in the wind. One of my favorites is a refraction that appears daily on my wall, and only at this time of year as the sun’s angle lowers. The pleasure of its company cannot be overestimated. While it lasts, every day is a reinvention of light’s rays.

The details of its intimate appearance reminds me of the convergence of nature and human nature. That refraction lands because the wall receives it. The monochromatic contrast, shapes and tones are more evident, because the surface is painted a white with a tinge of grey. Its complexity and simplicity moved back and forth, changing its performance and keeping me glued to its movements. At each gaze it coalesced and then began to dissipate. Although I cannot see the light as it moves through the window, that wave finds solace in front of me and I’m captive.

The symmetry varied from second to second. It danced and gyrated, rarely standing still. It took three minutes for the refraction in the Lens section to continuously alter its form and then disappear. That refraction was sculpted with a gentle delicacy, and its imagery reminded me only of itself: an abstraction of light’s bounty.

Nature continues to be my muse, and this day-to-day act of autumn’s light is an example of her grip upon me. We tend to give nature definition and meaning, but sometimes her gifts are entirely different: abstractions that evoke and provoke other worlds of her aesthetics.

Tip of the Week:

“[we] come from nature.…There is an importance to [having] a certain reverence for what nature is because we are connected to it… If we destroy nature, we destroy ourselves.” ~~ Edward Burtynsky

In 1981 photographer Edward Burtynsky began to photograph a part of nature that clearly was a collaboration (not necessarily a good one) between human nature and Mother nature: open-pit mines. The mammoth size of Chino mine in Silver City, New Mexico, struck him so deeply that he started wandering the globe in search of similar landscapes. After decades of recording these sights, he says, “In the beginning … We would look up at a thundercloud or mountain, or across a heavy sea, and be awe-struck or powerless. But fast forward to the Industrial Revolution, and 150 years after that, and now we are the awesome and fearsome force that’s reshaping the planet … We work in a world of atoms and molecules … I’m talking to you on a phone. There’s copper in this phone. It’s in our appliances and cars, inside the walls of our homes. If you feel revulsion to this landscape,’’ he said, ‘‘you should have a revulsion to your whole life.’” (from an article in The New York Times, Sunday magazine, 22 October 2015) Burtynsky has spent his career documenting the way in which humanity has changed the planet’s landscape–a landscape that can be interpreted from several viewpoints: those who oppose what “WE” have done that also has affected the environment, or those who look away, or those who see our intervention as a necessary evil, or those that profit from this invasion, or those that see humanity’s survival through its use. To see more of his work, click here.

Chino Mine, Silver City, N.M., Edward Burtynsky:Howard Greenberg Gallery

View other entries for this week’s challenge:

http://nadinetomlinson.com/2015/11/02/how-to-be-like-water/

https://sustainabilitea.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/sally-ds-mobile-photography-challenge-nature-a-trio-of-mornings/

https://shareandconnect.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/monday-walk-cascade-caverns/

https://streetsofsfphotos.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/lovey-dovey-in-san-francisco/comment-page-1/

https://angelinem.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/sally-ds-mobile-photography-challenge-nature-calls/

https://piecesofstarlight.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/tricks-of-nature-for-sally-ds-mobile-phone-photo-challenge/

https://patchworkponderings.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/sally-ds-mobile-photography-challenge-fall-clouds/

https://decocraftsdigicrafts.wordpress.com/2015/11/03/sally-ds-mobile-photography-challenge-a-colourful-spring/comment-page-1/

http://luciledegodoy.com/2015/11/02/sally-ds-mobile-photography-challenge-nature-5/

https://forestwoodfolkart.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/sally-ds-mobile-photography-challenge-nature-2/

http://debs-world.com/2015/11/03/sally-ds-mobile-photography-challenge-nature-green-paddocks-and-pink-silage/

http://ohmsweetohm.me/2015/11/03/sally-ds-mobile-photography-challenge-nature-2/

https://chasinglifeandfindingdreams.wordpress.com/2015/11/03/nature-of-love/

https://zimmerbitch.wordpress.com/2015/11/04/if-i-fell-in-love-with-you-where-would-it-end/

https://lumar1298.wordpress.com/2015/11/06/sally-ds-mobile-photography-challenge-nature/

https://inthezone2001.wordpress.com/2015/11/08/thoughts-on-change/

Note:

As always I welcome comments about this post or any part of my blog. My photographs for the mobile photography challenge are taken with an iPhone 6.

If you’d like to join this Mobile Photography Challenge, please click here for details and history of the challenge. If you have any questions, please contact me. Below is a reminder of the monthly schedule with themes for upcoming challenges:

1st Monday: Nature.

2nd Monday: Macro.

3rd Monday: Black and White.

4th Monday Challenger’s Choice (Pick One: Abstraction, Animals, Architecture, Food Photography, Night Photography, Objects, Panorama, Portraiture, Still Life, Street Photography, and Travel).

5th Monday: Editing and Processing with Various Apps Using Themes from the Fourth Week.

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