lens-artists

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

lens-artists: to be young again

“And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.

“And he said:

“Your children are not your children. …

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. …

“You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

“For they have their own thoughts.

“You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. …”*

Images posted in response to Tina’s lens-artists challenge: to be young again.

*cited: Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet, pg. 17

lens-artists: music to my eyes

The child claps his hands

playing alone, happily,

under a festive tree ~Issa*

artist: R. B. AH**
artist: A. H-A**

Egidio invites photographers to share photographs that are associated with songs. That is, “what music do you hear in your photos?”

I thought to share this masterpiece of abstract art created by a very quiet and thoughtful artist.

While photographs do not bring to mind music, they often speak to me either through haiku or a haiku accompanies me during a photo walk. There are associations with images and scent as well as music and memory.

Music seems more abstract than other art forms because it represents emotional states, symmetry and repetition, and other intangibles. But just because you can’t see or touch these things, doesn’t make them any less real. In preliterate societies, music was probably one of the best methods for storing and conveying complex stories and information.***

One of the best ways to understand how the over-all space of creative expression reflects its parts is to imagine yourself inside the space of the artwork…select a place within the composition where you would like to locate yourself for a few minutes of contemplation. …imagine…passing through different areas of the artwork…feel…energetic patterns. (152)****

*cited: The Spring of My life

Trans: Sam Hamill

**used with permission by the artist

***The Ethan Hein Blog (www.ethanhein,com)

**** McNiff, Shawn

Trust the Process

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: rock your word

A cairn is a human-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word cairn comes from the Scottish Gaelic: càrn [ˈkʰaːrˠn̪ˠ] (plural càirn [ˈkʰaːrˠɲ]).

Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehistory, they were raised as markers, as memorials and as burial monuments (some of which contained chambers). In the modern era, cairns are often raised as landmarks, especially to mark the summits of mountains. Cairns are also used as trail markers. They vary in size from small stone markers to entire artificial hills, and in complexity from loose conical rock piles to elaborate megalithic structures. Cairns may be painted or otherwise decorated, whether for increased visibility or for religious reasons.

A variant is the inuksuk (plural inuksuit), used by the Inuit and other peoples of the Arctic region of North America.*

*cited: Wikipedia

Video of Erin building a cairn submitted in response to Donna @ WindKisses’ lens-artists challenge: rock your world

lens-artists: people here, there & everywhere

People … communicating through their silence … speaking through through their nonverbal actions

Issa speaking through time through his poetry:

people are people
I am me…
in my cool house ~Issa*

Travels and Trifles’ lens-artists challenge: people here, there, and everywhere

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

lens-artists: circles

There was a time when the words an instructor interrupted my wondering mind, “there is no perfect justice and, then later, no perfect circle.” Again, a world view punctured.

Photo challenges that encourage a photo walk in search of a particular color (red is an easy color as it is often used within advertisement) or a particular composition element in photography are heaps of fun.

Circles, I find, are like the color red…they are everywhere.

street

circled by a hedge
of wild roses…
mountain home ~Issa (www.haikuguy.com)

Thank you Leya for this invitation to open my eyes to the world of circles.

lens-artists: tools of photo composition

John’s lens-artists’ challenge invited me to open up my photographer’s eyes to the compositional elements of shape, form, texture, and light. I thought to expand this challenge to include Ted Forbes’ invitation to “think in pairs” … the page spread. Ted Forbes notes that thinking in pairs is the “building block” of a printed body of work as well as an invitation to image how photographs might speak visually to one another,

So jumping into this challenge…which has indeed been a challenge.

The first pair of images includes the use of light to form horizontal lines. Also my eye sees a triangle form and shape within in both images.

The second pair of images include circular shapes, as well as, a bit of texture and the use of monochrome.

The third pair of images (which is my favorite) includes the use of triangles and texture (sidewalk and jeans).

The fourth pair is composed of still life photographs that includes the use of shapes, texture, light and shadow, and form. The element within both images that brought them together for me is the stems.

Journeys with Johnbo’s lens-artists challenge invites photographers to see the compositions of shape, form, texture, and light

lens-artists: window shopping

Hum … window shopping. It has been a long time. I do miss those days walking about Old Town, watching people stroll about, listening to a shopper play a public piano (Piano About Town art project), governing the impulse to buy, sitting out doors with a cappuccino, and most of all, walking about with camera in hand.

Why not join The World as I see it’s lens-artists challenge: window shopping

lens-artists … sound

Creating sound within the frozen moments of a photograph – introduced by Ted Forbes in his discussions of rhythm and tempo.

Rhythm I – all around us are shapes that are pretty basic and similar to each other. We will see them repeating at regular intervals within nature, design, works of art, architecture, and photography

Rhythm II – the primary characteristic of rhythm is predictability and order.

Tempo – the means by which we display speed, movement, as well as the passing of time all within a frozen moment.

Have you heard the silence within a snow storm?

Sending gratitude to Wind Kisses for this week’s Lens-artists challenge: sound