color photograph

lens artists: last chance

This week’s lens-artists invitation is to share images created in 2024 that either did not meet the criteria for a theme or were created after a specific theme was published.

I can’t recall if there has been a challenge offered this year to photograph using “illumination from behind.”

I enjoy photographing into October’s early morning sun as it seems to give life to the texture and colors of autumn leaves. These two images taken on October 27th were the last two created for the year with a Sony RX 100 3. While both images have a soft blur that initially was a bit of a disappointment, I do enjoy the bokeh and intense yellows and greens,

Within this image I enjoy the soft highlights along the edges of the leaves in the upper right corner.

Within this image, I like how the sun has given a golden glow to the leaves on the stem that moves from the middle of the image to the lower right.

May this year transition to a new year with a global movement towards compassion for all life.

lens-artist: silence

Through Brazilian Eyes has invited lens-artists to illustrate silence through images…

Living in the country, waking to snow left during the night, feeling the silence – the stilled silence, and then gasping and sharing with delight the sight of footprints left by silent night visitors. Memories.

I once read that the silence after a snowstorm isn’t just our imagination — all those tiny flakes actually trap the sounds of your surroundings. 

“Chris Bianchi, a meteorologist at Weather Nation, described the phenomenon as a sort of citywide cup of tea: After a big storm, we can take a few minutes to relax and take in the quiet.

snow
isolation

“The science behind that quiet comes down to how sound waves travel (or, more accurately, don’t travel) through snowflakes.

“‘Snowflakes, when they’re spaced further apart, there’s little gaps, obviously invisible to the naked human eye,’ Bianchi said. ‘But there are these little gaps within the snow and those are very efficient at absorbing sound.’ 

“The sound waves from cars, buildings and people get trapped in those small places between the snowflakes. 

“Not just any snow can trap noise. It has to be the freshly fallen, light and fluffy. Wet and heavy snow doesn’t leave those spaces for sound to be trapped. 

“One study found a couple of inches of snow can absorb as much as 60 percent of sound. Snow can act as a commercial sound-absorbing foam when it’s in that fluffy, freshly fallen state. 

“As the snow starts to melt, those little sound-catching spaces start to go away too.

“(When snow melts) it compacts, and that compaction reduces the amount of little crevices and nooks and crannies that sound is able to be trapped in,” Bianchi said.

“So, for at least a few hours or even a day after a snowstorm, we can get some reprieve from all that noise around us.

“‘It’s calming, it’s relaxing, it’s tranquil,’ Bianchi said. ‘Life is kind of forced in a sense to slow down.’”

cited: CPR News, Claire Cleveland and Andrea Dukakis, “Yes, it really is quieter when it snows. Here’s the science behind the calm after the storm. February 4, 2020.

And then, the crunching sounds of footsteps ending silence.

li qingzhao

The lotus has wilted, only a faint perfume remains;

On the bamboo mat there’s a touch of autumn chill.

Softly I take off my silk dress

And step on board my orchid skiff alone.

Who is sending me the letter of brocade

From beyond the clouds?

When the wild geese return**

The moon will be flooding the West Chamber.

Flowers fall and drift away,

Water glides on,

After their nature.

Our yearning is the sort

Both sides far apart endure–

A melancholy feeling there there’s no resisting.

As soon as it leaves the eyebrows

It surges up in the breast*.

*cited: Ci-pomes of Li Qingzhao: A New English Translation, Sino-platonic Papers. No 13, October, 1989

**Wild geese were thought to be bearers of letters, especially love messages, because of their regular migrations from north to south and vice versa.

seven squares: dawn

About a year ago, I moved into 55+ apartment … second floor with east facing windows. East facing windows offer moments of awe as the sky transitions from night to dawn.

Most days I feel tied to this apartment since Jeff passed. This sense of being tethered brings to mind the work of Frank Meadow Sutcliffe.  With a brief review of his life and a collection of his work within Aperture I read: 

Choose one subject, anything will do — your own house, or the house opposite, or the next house — and in place of a tripod, drive a stake into the ground, nail a board on top of this, and make a screw hole in the board for the screw of your camera . . . Photograph your subject at every hour of the day, on fine days, and at intervals on dull days, photograph it after it has been rained on for weeks, and after it has been sun-dried for months. (cited: Frank Meadow Sutcliffe, the Aperture History of Photography Series: Aperture 1979).

While I dreamt of photo trips during those long-hours filled with work and family responsibilities, I find Frank Sutcliffe’s creative work serves to move me toward greater acceptance of being “tethered” during this time of transition with the challenge to open myself to the “transitory effects” of nature that transforms the landscape close to home.

For the second seven squares, there was a personal invitation to explore landscape minimalism with 7 different Fujifilm film simulations offered through the FujiXWeekly app. The first is image was created with the Retro Gold recipe.

Retro Gold

Chrome 11
Super HG Astia
Acros
Moody Monochrome
BW Superia
Night

I appreciate The Life of B’s seven squares challenges as they invite me to stretch this emotional tether and open an awareness to the beauty around me. Thank you