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an object of perception

brendakofford_dandelionproject10417web

The spring sunlight, flowers blooming, and green trees create a landscape that looks like embroidery. This is an object of perception and it’s a beautiful thing to focus on. …if we don’t consider the role of our mind, and just focus on what we see as the independent reality around us, there will be contradictions.

The Vietnamese poet Nguyen Du said, ‘When a person is sad, the scenery is never happy.’ How we are feeling determines how we see the world. Why are some people able to experience happiness when they look at the moon and see its beauty, while others see the same moon as sad or depressing? This question can’t be answered unless both the subject [person] and object [moon] are taken into account.

~Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen Battles

 

autumn’s twilight

Going through the gate

I also am a wander

this twilight in autumn

~Buson (Y Sawa & E Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson)
sunburtstIt began that first Halloween in Des Moines, Iowa, when I found myself wondering if the ghost, goblins, and witches that appeared at my door were also messaging the onset of seasonal changes.  It was that year as my daughter’s Halloween costume was atop layers of clothing and hidden by a winter coat, I first noticed–and then again during later years in Wyoming and Colorado–that Halloween is often accompanied by a significant drop in temperature that generally lasted well into spring.

Today, the November 1, 2017 edition of Aljazeera reported that while Halloween is not recognized outside the western world “the date is climatologically significant in that it ends the three-month climatological autumn. Figures will now be confirmed and compared, by climatological statisticians, with autumn seasons from previous years.”

Additionally, at the end of October:

The Indian monsoon withdraws to the tip of India and Sri Lanka and the second cyclone season begins in the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. The Australian cyclone season officially begins.

Both Australia and South Africa have seen particularly stormy spring seasons and are settling now into summer.

China has entered its winter season with the northeast monsoon now prevalent. In the United States, the last few days of October brought some proper snow to the northern states.

Northern Europe has been battered by a windstorm followed by a big drop in temperature. The system responsible is still covering Belarus in snow. Western Europe, and in particular Iberia, is yet to realise the change of season.

Sometimes one’s private musings do have a bit of merit.

Inconspicuously

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Lumix GX85  f/7.1   1/320 s   32 mm   ISO 200

A valuable resource for those who have an interest in expanding their understanding of street photography can be found at the  Streets of Nuremberg.  His intention is to to give back to those who have given him so much by offering  a “one stop resource pool” where photographers can find free tips, tutorials, inspirations and everything else.

The above image was created (with a bit of awkward anxiety) using Streets of Nuremberg’s Photography Quick Tip 1 for photographing inconspicuously; that is,

Line up in the general direction of your subject, raise the camera and shoot something behind or above him/her. Absolutely avoid eye contact, best look through the viewfinder of your camera. Bring the camera down, pretending to check the image you just took on the LCD back screen of your camera, your finger still on the shutter, still avoiding any eye contact with your subject. Instead of checking the image you just have taken above or behind your subject, compose your shot with your subject through the LCD back screen of our camera and shoot the “real” picture.  Do not (!) check the photograph you’ve just taken, instead raise the camera again and “redo” the first shot behind or above the subject. Repeat as needed. And  don’t blush 😉