clouds

the storm was in my heart

Very terrible was the sound of rain…

Of what was I thinking

All the long night through

Listening to the rain against the window?

I was sheltered, but the storm was in my heart.

~The Diary of Izumi Shikibu (Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan)

lens-artist: ephemeral

She with a cup of coffee, embraced within her chilled palms, both blanketed by the first light’s silence … her eyes looking, not seeing the eastern horizon’s slow transition from darkness to light. Suddenly, the sky’s canvas painted by the dance of the sun’s rays and clouds broke through her internal musings, “Wait, wait, please don’t move,” she pleaded as she began a search for her camera and trying so desperately, once again, to win her battle with … the moment by moment changes within life, the ephemeral nature of all that is…

across a concealed blue sky

aimless shifting stories...

gathering and dispersing – obscure particles

painting stories … anew,

moment by moment

Thank you Tina for the week’s lens-artist challenge: Ephemeral

saturday morning with pascal mercier

“”We live here and now, everything before and in other places is past, mostly forgotten and accessible as a small remnant disordered slivers of memory that light up in rhapsodic contingency and die out again.

Fujifilm X-T4: f/9 1/10 s 80 mm 400 ISO

“This is how we are used to thinking about ourselves. And this is the natural way of thinking, when it is others we look at: they really do stand before us here and now, no other place and no other time, and how should their relationship to the past be thought of if not in the form of internal episodes of memory, whose exclusive reality is in the present of their happing?” Pascal Mercier, Night Train to Lisbon, pp, 241-242

lens-artists: abstract

Ritva Sillanmaki invites lens-artists photographers to “see beyond the surface” and “focus on the shapes, colors, textures, and patterns of the subject, rather than its literal representation.”

Some of the images below were created through the use of double exposure, shutter speed, focus, light and shadow, and gift of nature’s beauty.

double exposure
light and shadow
long exposure
nature’s gift of reeds
shutter speed
blur focus
nature’s gift of clouds

lens artists photo challenge: surprise

Each night as I watch the sunset, I am surprised to see the the western sky’s limitless wardrobe of clouds.

I have found that taking the time to sit on the veranda to watch the sunset and photograph the impermanence of clouds offers me moments of peace during this time of uncertainty. Thank you Leya for this week’s photo challenge: surprise.

billowing clouds

stillness–
in the depths of the lake
billowing clouds ~Issa (cited: haikuguy.com)

Nikon D750 f/8 1/500s 170mm 400 ISO edited: Capture One

In response to this haiku, David (haikuguy.com) writes:

” Even though Issa is known for his comic haiku that have surprising, spiritual resonance; he is just as capable of revealing the sublime. French translator Jean Cholley translates the first word, shizukasa, as “sérénité” (“serenity”); En village de miséreux: Choix de poèmes de Kobayashi Issa (Paris: Gallimard, 1996) 33. Indeed, shizukasa denotes tranquility, quiet, calm. Of English possibilities, I’ve decided to use “stillness”–but the reader should be aware that Issa establishes a sense of deep peace before showing billowing mountains of clouds reflected “in the depths of the lake.” The haiku serves as a substitute for experience–or, perhaps, a clear window into experience–allowing the reader, in contemplation, to see that same lake, those same clouds, and to feel the serenity and stillness of the moment.”