lens-artists

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.

lens-artists: looking back

through the lenses of a Ricoh Caplio GX100 and Sony NEX-5N to the year 2013

violets on the gate–
even at night
sweet nostalgia ~Issa*

Sony NEX-5N: f/10 1/100s 27mm
Ricoh Caplio GX100: f/2.5 1/10s 5.1mm
Ricoh Caplio GX100: f/2.5 1/8s 5.1mm

I recently gained access to all the images posted to WordPress beginning in 2011 so this is an exciting way to begin looking back.

Thank you Sofia for this lens-artists invitation: looking back.

*cited: http://www.haikuguy.com

lens-artist: setting a mood

Looking backward … I cannot see the ancients days. Looking forward … I cannot see ages yet to come. Only heaven and earth have remained, and will remain forever … I am alone, I grieve, I drop tears into the dust. ~Chen Tzu-ang*

Images that speak of solitary … alone … by one’s self evoke feelings of contemplative sadness.

winterwalk

Leya has extended a lens-artists challenge: setting a mood

*cited: Translator: Anonymous. The Project Gutenberg Ebook of the Jade Flute, by Various

lens-artists: walking the neighborhood

This week’s Lens-Artists, walking the neighborhood, challenge is offered by Travels and Trifles.

During the heat of the summer, walks occurred during the early morning with its cool(er) temperatures. This time of day parking lots are mostly empty, one may greet people who rise early to walk their dogs or to begin their day in quiet contemplation. Well … there are people who are multi-tasking on these morning photo walks as they open their eyes to see life through a camera lens and begin the challenge of 10,000 steps walking to the groceries to buy Skyr and raspberries … hum. Skyr, blackberries and nuts … hum, hum. Blue berries, anyone?

As my great-granddaughter is known to have said, “It sounds like a parfait!” I read that parfait is the French word for “perfect.” Creamy vanilla skyr is the best! Hum, hum, hum!

Thank you Tina for this challenge. It was fun.

lens-artists: common object

Ritva Sillanmäki invites an exploration of “Taking the mundane and shining a different light on it. Highlighting an object or scene that we normally pass by without notice, and making it something special. This process allows us to appreciate the beauty and significance of everyday things that often go overlooked. By giving attention to these ordinary elements, we can find inspiration and joy in the simple moments of life”.

I once read that a photograph of a peanut taken at a distance is just an image of a peanut. A photograph of a peanut that fills the image space is art.

lens artists: sense of scale

Sofia has invited photographers to explore the use of scale with images. She writes that scale is “… something that attracts our eyes more often than we think and intuitively we look for ways to convey the size of what we’re seeing.”

While the sun appears small within the wide expansion of the sky, the sun’s dawn invites an awareness of the expansive nature of the morning’s horizon.

Thank you Sofia for this invitation to explore sense of scale.

lens artists: perfect pairs

This week Albatz Travel Adventures (Elizabatz) invites photographers to offer examples of diptych, two images placed in proximity to one another, forming a pair. She notes: “to make a successful pairing there should be several things in common, and something very different, contrasting”.

I wish to thank Elizabeth for introducing me to the word diptych. Earlier this week, I also became acquainted with the word, polyglots, “individuals who can speak several languages – usually having a grasp of at least somewhere between 3-5 languages.

lens-artists: habitat

This week’s lens-artists challenge is offer by Tina who invites us to share images/stories of habitats.

The Oxford Languages defines habitat as 1) the natural home or environment of an animal, plant, or other organism or 2) a person’s usual or preferred surroundings.

I understand the Earth to be the natural home for all the amazing diversity of life; from the Posidonia australis (the largest living organism on Earth: it is spread across 180 whopping square kilometres) to bacteria which are the smallest living organisms on earth (an average of 2 micrometres long and 0.5 micrometres thick).

But then again, the Guinness World Records recognizes the Nanoarchaeum equitans as the smallest living organism. Their habitat is a hydrothermal vent off the coast of Iceland on the Kolbeinsey Ridge by Karl Stetter.

For today, I will share these four examples of my usual or preferred surroundings, (sub-habitats of the earth?)

Thank you Tina.

lens-artists: two rectangles

This week’s lens-artists challenge is sponsored by Egidio (Through Brazilian Eyes) who writes, “By two rectangles, I mean you have two dominant rectangular areas in your image. For many people, this is one of those compositional tools we use without thinking about it. These rectangles give balance, harmony, and unity to a composition.”

Egidio shared a compositional tool used by Renaissance artists, “Renaissance artists used the technique called the Rabatment (also known as rebatement and rabattement) of the rectangle. One can think of Rabatment as putting a square inside a rectangle. Your composition is more potent when your subject falls on that line inside the square. The Rabatment concept helps guide the photographer’s eye to position elements harmoniously and organized within the rectangular frame. It’s not a rigid rule or grid but a tool to achieve a pleasing composition.”

lens-artists: behind

This color street image was created by using the reflection of a retail window. The buildings create the background while the foreground is created by both the man holding a phone and the tables/chairs. The three figures offers us a mid-ground. It is my thinking that the composition of this image is an example of using layers within a photograph.

The first image demonstrates the use of light and shadow to create a background. Where as in the second the foreground defines the background.

I hope you enjoyed these variations of layering in photography.

This week’s lens-artists challenge is hosted by Ritva

lens-artists: delicate

Today life feels exceptionally delicate.

Relationships are delicate

The wings of the butterfly are delicate. Their wings are made up of thousands of scales that can fall off if touched. Without these scales to protect their wings, the underlying tissue can tear, preventing them from flying. The scales are unable to regrow once damaged.

street

Migrating is delicate. Each fall, millions of monarch butterflies migrate from Canada to Mexico. The monarch migration is a brilliant demonstration of nature’s ingenuity, but the delicate creatures face many perils, and the number of migrating monarchs is declining sharply.

Peace is delicate.

Submitted for this week’s lens-artists challenge: delicate