Cool Tessellations

Here's a cool self portrait taken at the Jepson Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia thanks to Daniel Shiffman. 

That's a mosaic of my reflection with my handy dandy little red Kodak camera. A mathematical algorithm drives the mathematics behind this Voronoi diagram. The diagram moves continually as you do move beneath the screen. The longer you stand still the more of your reflected image comes into focus.

Another flower shot

Yes, it's another flower shot and what makes such photos so repellant to some photographers is that flowers are too easy; the natural beauty of the subject can overwhelm the senses and misguide judgment. Yet the mesmerizing thing about a still photograph is that you can return to it again and again to study it in greater detail.

After viewing this noisy red bromeliad for awhile I began to see the mandala. The flower took on other qualities: long green leaves became protective arms and the red flower burst forth like a child of the greenery. A closer look reminds us that natural beauty is never perfect. Nor does it have to be.

I can only strive to accept the imperfections of all flowerings, the dried leaves blowing in from elsewhere, the drops of water not yet consumed, and the tips of earlier flowerings already turning to green. 

Landscape textures from Edvard Grieg Estate, Norway

While walking through the Edvard Grieg Estate outside of Bergen, Norway this past September, the sensual subtleties of rock and grass and ferns and lichens made me think of countless urban walls in need of some greenery. 

It's easy to see how these visual textures soothed the composer's mind and, in so doing, contributed to the creation of Norwegian music. The love of nature is something that seems to attend each and every Norwegian soul. 

So, I captured a few close views of the environment along the paths where the sea meets the rocky shore. These views now grace the man-made walls of my home, reminding me with every glance that nature lies on the other side of my door.

Dusk over the Gulf of Mexico

Florida sunsets can be spectacular; they can also fizzle out over a cloudless Gulf of Mexico. Spectators arrive at the Siesta Key Beach every night for the sun downing. They stand or stroll the beach as the several species of birds cruise the strand line in search of their last snack of the day. As soon as the yellow orb dips below the horizon, most spectators rush for the parking lot and the familiarity of their automobiles.

I love twilight, dusk, the point in time and in your soul where you feel the buzzing of the primitive homing instinct. Dust and particulate matter turn the sky orange. The clouds illuminate the land, casting soft shadows in the dwindling light, as a curtain of darkness rises up from the horizon. The birds settle down for the night. 

It's an easy moment to remember you are a child of this earth. 

Walls of Savannah

Walls make me think of Plato's cave. 

The lucky souls who traveled outside of Plato's cave were attracted by Light. Those who left the cave and experienced the world of light came back to tell stories about the outside world. 

They were the first photographers; they chased after Light like hounds. Now, we are all hounds for light; we tell our stories on electronic walls as JPGs. 

 So, I chose Walls as an on-going theme for a photographic study because walls are plentiful and varied. Of course, some are more interesting than others. But I have been surprised by looking closely before and I'm sure it will happen again. 

Walls have the power to divide, protect, support, limit and restrain us. Any and all of those forces are available to walls. So how does one approach a wall?

I'm interested in what a Wall tell me about myself? I come to grok walls, not to bury them. Like a great number of other photographic themes, Walls can become useful measures for mapping interior space. 

What is your motive for grabbing views of the physical world?

Popi and the New Digital Camera

Popi is our five year old Bengal pussy cat. She's noisy and beautiful and demanding and she has a cat door. She's spayed and is primarily an outdoor, nocturnally active cat. She maintains the population of fruit rats and mice in the neighborhood. We are attuned to each other's state of being.

We bought a new digital camera, our first DSLR. Film is now the repository of our past lives. This is the electronic age, the age of electronic eyes and ears.

Look on this electronic stage for more portraits of Popi in the future.

In Site of inSight.

Trained as a Geographer, I have long been interested in mapping the spatial relationship of things. That interest has fueled much of my photographic work. That's why I made self portraits while the doctor was cutting on my ear last week.

This morning I was sitting in the doctor's examination room by myself, waiting for a follow-up exam, reading Frederick Forsyth's The Afghan. I was lost in the Qissa Khawani Bazaar with Colonel Razak when the Doctor's assistant, a pretty young lady enters the room.

"I want to see your site," she says.

Youth excites me; I get confused. I'm not sure if she's asking about a geographical SITE, such as the Qissa Khawani Bazaar, or the SIGHT of her smooth bronze skin and laughing brown eyes, or the latent SIGHT held inside the camera in the small pouch on my belt.

I ask her which site/sight she's interested in. She points to my ear; the medical SITE of a recent basal cell surgery. OK, that was easy. Now I know where I am.

But I am also here flirting with overlapping concepts in the theme of my blog. I am considering the possibilities of  "Ears that see and eyes that hear".  And I am wondering if the site/sight confusion this morning wasn't a tiny spark of cosmic light that allowed me to step inside this metaphor.