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
Today, I like the word Wintering (the act of staying at a place throughout the winter) as it has an underlying message of being at…rest, peace. A seasonal nap time.
Nikon D750 f/7.1 1/500 50
February has within it whispers of spring, It also–like November–is a time of heavy snow storms and cabin fever.
“his traveling hat.” The hat in question is a kasa: umbrella-hat. I picture Issa watching travelers departing in the early morning–perhaps from an inn. As their bodies blend in with the spring mist, all he can see now are the outlines of their umbrella-hats growing smaller and smaller. In this early haiku he shows that he has already mastered the art of using simple observation to suggest depths of meaning and feeling. Like Issa, we shall miss those who go before us, fading into nothing.
I was a child, Nostalgia seemed a small stamp: I was here… My mother was there.
When I grew up Nostalgia became a ticket: I was here… My bride was there.
Years later, Nostalgia was a little tomb: I was outside… My mother was inside.
And now, My nostalgia is a shallow strait: I am at here… The mainland is there.
~ Yu Guang Zhong
Orchid… Sony RX100-3 f/2.8 1/640 25.7 800 ISO
“The Chinese expression for “nostalgia” is xiangchou, literally “village sadness.” …xiangchou describes the grief that accompanies the traveler who cannot find a way back to the home village…[it] is not a geographical predicament but a spiritual state of being. First he finds himself outside the mother as a tiny emblem of apartness, then he is the man who contemplates her tomb. The shallow waters of the Taiwan straits are, similarly, not only a spatial divide between the island and the mainland but a reminder of the longing for, and the impossibility of going back to, ancestral roots.” *
images submitted in response to slow shutter speed’s lens-artists challenge: weather. Weather is a specific event—like a rainstorm or hot day—that happens over a few hours, days or weeks. Climate is the average weather conditions in a place over 30 years or more.
“… Roads take you somewhere you have not yet been or they bring you back to where you were. Some roads lead to the future, some to the past. Then he thought, That is not right. All roads do both. …” Susan Fromberg Schaefer, The Snow Fox . Pg. 182
a meditative journey 
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