Sally D’s Mobile Photography Challenge: Challenger’s Choice (Travel from Coast to Coast)

22 August 2016

Lens:

Taken in Camera+ and edited in Snapseed and Pixlr

Dreamscape Photomontage; Copyright © 2016 Sally W. Donatello All Rights Reserved

Pens:

I close my eyes and its tomorrow. Where is that moment that I was just experiencing? Where is yesterday’s dream today? It’s partly there and here, which makes for a truly esoteric and ethereal thinking point. Part of this philosophical small rant leads me to contemplate a mystical image that has been floating in my thoughts for years.

Most of my adult years I’ve longed to view the earth from above and through cloud covering, where I could fawn over colors and designs of the (variegated) terrain and waters below. There have been times that a vantage point gave me a prominent place to recreate the visual state in my mind. Still, that vision has not been realized in its fullest.

To cite a few threads of my experiences, I’ve been on mountain tops, peered from airplane windows, been entranced by views from atop skyscrapers, floated in a hot air balloon, basked in the wake of flight in a small two-seater plane, zip lined through giant redwoods… I am not an adventurer of the daredevil sort. Simple grasping opportunities that sometimes test my mind’s definition of “I can do” or grasping the experience.

Most of our lives are lived in the shroud of search—search for place and self. Who we are, where we are, what we do, what we want to do, how to do it, who to share our lives. That search never dissipates, or at least if it does the passion often reduces or subsides.

I believe my passion for nature in high and low places is much about my own journey for self-discovery, self-direction, self-exploration, and self-management. I’ve always believed that if we love and nurture ourselves, then we can extend that ourselves to others.

The dream of camera in hand and edging my way on cloud formations has not materialized. And so I imagine that this attention to photomontage is part of my search for life’s meaning, meaning for me that emanates from the connection between nature and human nature.

I believe that experience is one of the best lessons of life. Maybe those past vantage points were preparation for my current attention to photomontage. Still part of me was stunned when I created a close replica of one of my dream-like visions of the real and surreal world seen below from on high.

Photography is noticing. Photomontage takes multiple ways of seeing and joins them as one.

In the Lens section is that composite image that reaches to the place of my dreams. One photograph was taken on the East Coast and the other on the West Coast of the United States. Together they are more complete.

Awakening drifts of thought.                                                                                                     Climbing toward beneficent clouds of glorious unfolding.                                                          Ledges to rest, to sit and contemplate the horizon below.                                                          Filled with instructions to live life, maybe even the good life.                                                     Human invention escapes patterns to create celestial platforms.                                              Allowing the mind to peek through eons of time and space. ~~ Sally W. Donatello

Tip of the Week:

Photographer Tom Ryabol is known for his rooftopping in urban areas, camera in hand and shooting the world from city buildings. In my dreams I want to be him. A few words from Ryabol to explain his view as a voyeur of urban places through his lens:

“For me, photography will always be closely tied to travelling. I like to travel, see the world, where I hope to learn something, grow, and maybe leave something behind. Naturally, somewhere along the line, I wanted to capture some of these moments. The camera allowed me to capture beautiful places, interesting people, and sometimes even myself. Over time, taking pictures has become closely associated to that blissful place in my mind reserved for traveling. So now, when I’m not traveling, the camera has become my tool for escape, to places I’ve been, and places I want to go.”

Click above onto rooftopping to see some of his prints and here to see a time-lapse video about the city of Toronto called “City Rising (2012).” Hope that you were inspired by his work.

P.S.:*************************** Today I am adding photomontage as a category for Challenger’s Choice. To read more about this photographic technique, please return to my last four posts, beginning 18 July through 15 August. If you have any question, please contact me.

Rooftopping, 2012, Tom Ryabol

View other entries for this week’s challenge:

https://sustainabilitea.wordpress.com/2016/08/22/sally-ds-mobile-photography-challenge-challengers-choice-casual-intensity/

https://piecesofstarlight.wordpress.com/2016/08/22/sally-ds-mobile-challenge-photographers-pick/

https://ohmsweetohm.me/2016/08/22/

https://decocraftsdigicrafts.wordpress.com/2016/08/23/sally-ds-mobile-photography-challenge/

https://angelinem.wordpress.com/2016/08/22/sally-ds-mobile-photography-challenge-morning-shadows/

https://traveller2006.wordpress.com/2016/08/23/sally-ds-mobile-photography-challenge-challengees-choice/

https://chasinglifeandfindingdreams.wordpress.com/2016/08/25/food-food-glorious-food/

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 would like to buy a print of any of my photographs or have any questions, please view the Contact Information found on the masthead. Thank you.

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, Photomontage, Still Life, Street Photography, and Travel).

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