25 March 2019
Lens:
Taken in Camera+ and edited in Snapseed and Pixlr.
Tree Series, Photomontage; Sally W. Donatello 2019 All Rights Reserved
Click onto image to enlarge. Let me know your response to this photomontage. Prints are available upon request.
Pens:
On one level nature is simplistic. The morning light blazes through our mind, and I awaken ready to search for incremental signs of spring. Slowly I stack each one to endear the arrival of the uplift. This week as I meandered on a grassy area where a tiny white flower became a beacon of discovery. It’s delicacy was only one spectacular characteristic. It amazed, and triggered a fresh breath of inner calm.
This diminutive floral surprise was simple and yet stunning: four snow-white petals and a golden center. It stood strong among a sea of still dormant grass. I was so taken with its presence that all I could do was meditate on the moment. Then I quietly moved and pondered how it landed, and made that place its home; how this lone and unfamiliar wildflower appeared with such pluck on the day before Spring’s official start.
As the rain poured with loud energy, the wildflower stayed in my thoughts for the next few days. In but a few years that one flower could become a meadow of white serenity, bringing waves of purity just when hearts need soothing from winter’s grey notes.
Nature can appear as a simple entity or a complex field afresh with triumphant fuel for the wildlife and human visual consumption. But that the wildflower’s inner story is complexity personified: the stuff of botanical descriptions with the inner continuum of heredity and DNA.
And as Mother nature’s wand keeps appearing in the breeze of daily spring rain and winds, change brings more surprises, which can be reminders of year’s past, jewels yet to astonish, whether simple or complex. Each reveals a sunburst of gifts that can settle into the heartstrings and overwhelm the senses.
In the Lens section is a photomontage of two trees converted to a black-and-white image, expressing the raw layers of nature’s coexistence and interdependence. This composite story is my salute to how nature and human nature can and must be in syncopation with each other, dancing to the dark of night and light of day: the complexity in the forefront and simplicity in the background or vice versus.
Lens and Pens by Sally 
I love the layers and textures of your artwork. Your ability to interpret and see the layers of a simple scene such as a wildflower in a plain of grass is endearing.
You brought a huge smile across my day. Thanks.
Lovely image Sally. It enfolds and protects, and is a powerful reminder of how much we need the natural world for every element of our survival.
Su, thank you for your thoughtful comment.
The process is beautifully done, Sally! Thank you for explaining how you convert the photos. 🙂
Amy, my pleasure, thanks for your response.
Loved your closing thought on this one Sally. But where is the photo montage of the little white flower ?😊
Tina, I was waiting for someone to ask. I was so in the here and now that I simply savored the discovery. The rains came. Maybe it will self-seed. Thanks.
Beautiful. The background trees towering over all beneath is perfect.
Angeline, lovely to hear from you. Thanks so much.