Visual Reflections: Nature Photography in the Age of Uncertainty: No. 38 (Hellebores Collage)

02 April 2018

Lens:

Hellebores Collage; All Rights Reserved 2018 Sally W. Donatello

Click onto image to enlarge. Let me know your response to this photomontage. Prints are available upon request.

Pens:

“There is a crack in everything that’s how the light gets in.” Leonard Cohen (1934-2016)

Is it possible that in order to see how light infiltrates, influences and inspires, we must see the dark and its role in the light? And light after the dark offers expansive solace in the world’s darkening days and nights. That ray or rays give energy and substance to our lives. Do we need to see the dark to see the radiance in ourselves?

The Lens section shows images that speak to my sense of light moving slowly, glacially releasing gestures of what it touches. They voice my emotions in those moments of seeing, where my relationship with light and dark surpasses the science of their energy.

Light and dark define my ability to circle nature and move inside her heart. And that translates through the waves of surface effects and its dance through space and time. Then my mind’s lens circulates as witness to other aspects of light and dark. Contrast and shadows emerge to seduce in direct and subtle ways.

Hellebores are one of spring’s first floral arrivals. Their visual presence forms groupings that pierce through seesaw temps during sunny, rainy and snowy days. As with snowdrops their heads hang downward as if to hide and shelter from the temperamental days and nights. That design keeps the sun’s light from their faces, hiding their inner beauty.

In the collage the bud and flower have their own character, which is seasoned with lights gentle presence. Because these flowers emerge in the woodlands near my pond, they are sprinkled with light that is seemingly silent as the sun is on its move. But it’s their bowing heads that keep them in the shadows. So I’ve shown what is missed of these stunning early bloomers.

Light is probably the singular element that is necessary for us to appreciate what we see, how we see, why we see it or do not. The stretch of a sunbeam can hold us so tightly. We learn to appreciate its expansive touch, and savior how it allows us to notice the seen or hidden through heartfelt awareness.

The luxury of seeing inside our own frame of reference helps to explain what is before us. It’s our biology plus psychological plus aesthetic appeal plus emotional sensibility.

Light urges self-expression, the desire to create: using its luminosity, its range of influences from morning to twilight, diffused to focused, shade to dark, filtered to medium-level, artificial to natural, moonlight to black of night, shadows to golden glow and so it goes.

The smallest of light source can be the key and the harbinger of the unnoticed. It shores the spirit with grace and promise. It pierces the senses with an alarm that adds to treasured memories.

Note:

I’ll going on vacation and will post next on 16 April 2018. Meanwhile here is a favorite Ansel Adams’ quote to ponder. His profound insights speak directly to me.

“You don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.” Ansel Adams (1902-1984)