Sally D’s Mobile Photography Challenge: Macro (and Refractions in the Time of Uncertainty)

14 December 2015

Lens:

I. Post Processed in Snapped and Distressed FX

1. Afternoon Refraction, ; Copyright © 2015 Sally W. Donatello All Rights Reserved

II. Post Processed in Snapseed and FX Photo Studio

2. Afternoon Refraction; Copyright © 2015 Sally W. Donatello All Rights Reserved

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

Pens:

“There’s a quiet assurance that the world is a wonderful place,” he concluded. “I tell people very often, if you look at a tree and you’re not joyous, it’s not the world’s fault. It’s your fault.” Louis Sterner (b. 1922, American photographer)

Even while Mother Nature continues to be the high roller, humans are placing filters over nature’s triumphant presence. And so I must absorb the results of the finale of the climate talks and react slowly, hoping that the quest for the greater good will  be realized.

Various layers of these human-induced filters explain the way we are affecting the planet: building barriers and introducing forces that are detrimental. These veils of the unwanted pollute us emotionally and physically.

In the Lens section are two images that inspired this post. These refractions are part of an ongoing fascination that I have trying to make sense of  the ephemeral vs. the visual effect they produce.

I gaze upon them and second upon second passes, and they become another illusion, elevating a new shape, easing forward and yet moving toward nothingness. As they float across the wall, they remind me that nature becomes a promise—a promise that tomorrow some other miracle of light will perform for me. But that promise will only occur with the sun’s presence. Regardless, the magic is palpable, and keeps pumping me with a reality within the illusion.

We create ideas and language to represent human construct. And still the refraction exists as a symbol of nature’s way with us. While they represent these symbols, refractions remain nature’s reinvention each and every day. The abstraction of a single one acts as a metaphor for human invention that has infiltrated the heart of nature.

When I spy them, their entertainment is only part of their allure. They are prevalent now, because the lower angle of the sun allows them to enter my physical space. Even in their slight resemblance to yesterday’s, they were unique on that day, cunning in their own display.

While they are posted in the order of their appearance, the two images donned my wall within seconds of each other. As I pondered the comparison of these natural wonders to the fractured world of our planet, I began to play with various filters–a representation of the real world within the source of light–a necessary key to our existence–that is on a constant move to be some place.

The final images are playful, images of hope that provoke feelings of floating and lightness. Those sensations are human emotions that can elicit other responses, just as refractions do for me. Still, the images also can be left for the viewer to interpret a completely different variation of the weightiness of being.

In these uncertain times a moment that is stilled by a wonder of nature can give pause for what is most important. But it also focuses attention on the constancy of nature to elevate the moment, and thus my life.

Tip of the Week:

“Still photographs often differ from life more by their silence than by the immobility of their subjects. Landscape pictures tend to converge with life, however, on summer nights, when the sounds outside, after we call in children and close garage doors, are small – the whir of moths, the snap of a stick.”
Robert Adams

Many photographers are particularly attuned to the magic hours of a light-filled day. These golden hours are synchronized by the sunrise and sunset. Recently, I came across a book, Twilight: Photography in the Magic Hour (2006), that you might want to read. Based on an exhibition by the same name, Martin Barnes and Kate Best, curators for the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, show the works of eight photographers whose photographs reveal the possibilities about this time that marches toward the inevitable dark of night. Part of the curators’ goal was to emphasize how photography had become more of an art for storytelling than for the archive of the documentary. From the exhibition and book here is an example by Robert Adams (b. 1937, American photographer):

“Summer Night,” Longmont, Colorado, ca, 1979, Robert Adams

Click here to read a review from The Guardian about the 2006 exhibition.

View other entries for this week’s challenge:

https://chasinglifeandfindingdreams.wordpress.com/2015/12/14/wildflower-surprises/

https://sustainabilitea.wordpress.com/2015/12/14/sally-ds-mobile-photography-challenge-macro-magical-milkweed/

http://luciledegodoy.com/2015/12/14/sally-ds-mobile-photography-challenge-macro-5/

https://decocraftsdigicrafts.wordpress.com/2015/12/15/sally-ds-mobile-photography-challenge-frothy-impressions/

https://carolisle.wordpress.com/2015/12/14/getting-close-to-christmas-flowers/

https://angelinem.wordpress.com/2015/12/14/sally-ds-mobile-photography-challenge-25-cents-to-a-dollar/

https://blackbodyblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/15/red-pierrot/

https://shareandconnect.wordpress.com/2015/12/15/its-almost-christmas/

https://zimmerbitch.wordpress.com/2015/12/17/trying-to-focus-my-imagination/

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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