monochrome

lens artists challenge: elements

…the four–earth, water, fire, and wind–are without characteristic, without entity, without self, without … principle.

D S Lopez, Jr, The Heart Sutra Explained
Nikon D750 f/7.1 1/800s 70mm 125 ISO

“The fire element is heat, warmth, and also the motivation that dives us; it also is our metabolism. …

“The earth element is all things that are solid, all the things we can touch…

“The water element is all the fluids in our body…

“The air element is the space in our body, also the air that enters and leaves our body, our breath…the movement the our body makes.”

Brother Phap Hai, nothing to it ten ways to be at home with yourself

Hop on over to Amy’s to join this week’s lens-artists challenge: elements

lens-artist photo challenge: nature

spring breeze–
the pine on the ridge
whispers it ~Issa (www.haikuguy.com)

Horsetooth Reservoir … f/5.6 1/2000s 300mm 2200 ISO

“[Frank Meadow] Sutclifffe rarely left Whitby, where his portrait studio kept him busy, and said that we was ‘tethered for the greater part of each year by a chain, at the most only a mile or two long.’ To most modern photographers this would seem a crippling restriction, but Shutcliffe gradually realized that is was an asset to him as a photographer since it forced him to concentrate on the transitory effects that would transform familiar scenes.” (cited: Frank Meadow Sutcliffe, the Aperture History of Photography Series: Aperture 1979

While I dreamed of traveling during those long-hours filled with work and family responsibilities, I find that Frank Shutcliffe’s creative work serves to move me toward greater acceptance of being “tethered” during this retirement period with the challenge to open myself to the “transitory effects” of nature that transforms the landscape close to home.

Image, haiku, and excerpt from Aperture submitted in response to Patti’s (P. A. Moed) lens-artists photo challenge: nature.