What the Butterfly Reveals About Humanity’s Painful Transformation My contemplations tend to focus on the present. They’re usually prompted by one of my photographs, the social climate, or patterns in current events—what people are talking about online or in person. For these I generally write with a “closeup” or “normal” lens. This topic requires something […]
Our world is as big as the candle we carry Since my introduction to photography in high school I’ve been in love with Light. Long before I understood aperture, exposure or composition, I sensed that certain qualities of light carried emotional and even spiritual force. The qualities of light—its softness, direction, contrast, intensity and mystery—could […]
The feeling we get when touched by something vast Clinical psychologist Neil Farber defines awe as “an overwhelming feeling associated with vastness, reverence, wonder and at times a touch of fear; a sense of transcending day-to-day human experience in the presence of something extraordinary. Awe is inspired by objects or events that are considered to […]
Evidence of cosmic order All evolution is a dance of wholes that separate themselves into parts and parts that join into mutually consistent new wholes. We can see it as a repeating, sequentially spiraling pattern: unity to individuation to competition to conflict to negotiation to resolution to cooperation to new levels of unity and so […]
Everything alive has a unique purpose Bristle Grass (Setaria species) I used to walk or drive by thousands of these and similar weeds every week. I barely noticed them, much less knew their names—until I singled this one out to photograph. A review of my catalog revealed that I had long been pointing a camera […]
Science, Ecology, Art; Spiritual Insight I’ve always appreciated clouds. Often, they evoke an out loud “Wow!” If Linda’s nearby I can’t help commenting on them. In the early years of elementary school, the nuns always seated me in the back of the room, probably because I was paying more attention to what was going on […]
What had to happen for these leaves to be photographed? Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the […]
Chapter 14: Pattern (The final in this series) Through repetition, patterns create visual harmony, rhythm and order, all of which can contribute to meaning and create a sense of stability and symmetry which is pleasing to the eye. Patterns are apparent in the energy fields within atoms, the immensity of the cosmos and the way […]
Chapter 13: Line Harrold, South Dakota Lines serve to define length, distance and shape, indicating boundaries and separate forms, textures and colors that move the eye and create the illusion of depth—like railroad tracks to the horizon. Physically, they can be many or few, take many shapes, have thickness and depth, length and texture with […]
Chapter 10: Gradation Aesthetically speaking, “gradation” refers to a gradual or graded change of tone over a surface. Artists refer to it as a grading of “values.” In color photography, gradation can be a transition from one hue to another or to a different level of saturation or brightness. In black and white, it’s the […]
Contemplative Photography 