monochrome madness: mirror

Who speaks the sound of an echo?

Who paints the image in a mirror?

Where are the spectacles in a dream?

Nowhere at all — that’s the nature of mind!

                                                             ~Tree-Leaf Woman

The morning’s sun light created a reflection of a room while the actual image within the photograph is transformed into a ghosty presence.

Margaret’s (From Pyrenees to Pennines) Monochrome Madness: Mirror

lens-artists: my go-to-places

Dawns’ light

Sutcliffe rarely left Whitby [a port and resort community on the Yorkshire coast], where his portrait studio kept him busy, and said that he was ‘tethered for the greater part of each year by a chain, at most only a mile or two long.’  To most modern photographers this would seem a crippling restriction, but Sutcliffe gradually realized that it was an asset to him as a photographer since it forced him to concentrate on the transitory effects that could transform familiar scenes. …photographers should always aim for something more than ‘mere postcard records of facts.’ ‘By waiting and watching for accidental effects of fog, sunshine or cloud,’ he advised, ‘it is generally possible to get an original rendering of any place.  If we only get what any one can get at any time, our labour is wasted; a mere record of facts should never satisfy us.’

cited: Frank Meadow Sutcliffe, The History of Photography Series, p 8

Horsetooth Reservoir

Journeys with John invites lens-artists to “share where you go or what you do to help lift those spirits when this old world starts getting you down”.

lens-artists: abandoned

all are lonely

yet are you much more than any

you who still wait?

Houses, aged and fragile, once stood strong within their newness and sang of home, dreams, hopes, joys. tears, family.

Houses that story homes of past years now silent.

Absent are the sounds of togetherness, of spoken differences, of celebrations, of loss.

Houses, abandoned, speak to our soul, our imagination. They tell of impermanence.

Yet, they seem to be waiting…waiting as they fade.

images and thoughts submitted in response to slow shutter speed’s challenge: abandoned

lens-artists: seen on my last outing

Leya (To See a World in a Grain of Sand) invites lens-artists to share what they saw during their outings and what they brought.

As I turned into an alley on my way to the library with hopes there would be a hard copy of Umberto Eco’s, The Name of the Rose, I found wall paintings of joy-filled companionship. Images speaking of metaphors, puns, riddles, memories?

“The question, …, was whether metaphors and puns and riddles, which also seem conceived by poets for sheer pleasure, do not lead us to speculate on things in a new and surprising way ..” (cited: Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose)

lens-artists: it’s a wild life!

“And he sailed off through night and day. And in and out of weeks. And almost over a year to where the wild things are.”*

“Max said ‘BE STILL!‘ and tamed them with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all and made him king of all wild things.”*

“And now,” cried Max, “let the wild rumpus start!”*

“And Max, the king of all wild things, was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.”*

Submitted in response to Egídio’s lens-artists challenge, “I would love to see your wild side.”

*Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are

lens-artists: five favs

As I spent part of the afternoon revisiting photo files in response to Tina’s invitation to share five favorite photographs, I began to ponder, “What are the variables within photographs that come together to create a place within the heart of the eyes?”

Photographs tell of silent, vague, faded memories. Photographs are of visual moments that have grasped one’s attention. Photographs share times of exploration, of travel, of life. Photographs are representations of impermanence, light and shadow, fantasy, composition, challenges, points of view, …

Even  in Kyoto—
hearing the cuckoo’s cry—
I long for Kyoto. ~Buson

an image created in 2013 that awakens memories of 1960s
an unforgettable smile
a telling of impermanence
a pear
a time of light and shadow

Thank you Tina for this quiet Sunday of reflection.