Essay
When photographs are printed and hung on a wall, they often have a frame and a matte. Sometimes though, photographers, like other visual artists, choose to display their pictures without a frame – so-called “frameless” mounting. The picture here is an example of that. This example does have a solid side, but sometimes frameless mounts…
This is a picture of a dandelion, taken along a small lake at a local state park. I’m not sure why it caught my eye. After all, it’s just a weed, something that is generally not thought about much except as a problem, or perhaps occasionally for making tea. For whatever reason, I took this…
We all have biases that affect how we see the world. As a photographer, one of the things I strive to learn is to see beauty in the world even when it’s not obvious. For example, my bias may be to see the obviously ugly, natural appearance of something, but I will choose to seek…
One of the things that fall is known for is the colorful displays that many trees put on; this is an example of a maple leaf beginning to turn. One of the things that strikes me about this picture is the way the color change is starting at the edge and moving its way towards…
It often seems as if science has explained the basics of how the world works, and the remaining mysteries are interesting details that aren’t directly related to daily life. Questions about the very beginning of the universe or what’s going on in black holes may be interesting and fundamental to an ultimate theory of everything,…
For a recent 360 photography project, I took a VR photograph inside of an old, water-powered mill that has been turned into a state park: Thompson’s Mills in Shedd, Oregon. The purpose was to make a picture for the Worldwide Panorama Project quarterly theme of “Museums”. The picture here is a “little planet” view of…
In the previous essay, I discussed the possibility that the brain is necessary to consciousness, but that it is not sufficient. In other words, there seems to be something needed beyond just material structures. We explored these ideas by considering the metaphor of a stained glass window, illustrating the possibility that we need to continue…
This picture of a stained glass window is from a spherical picture taken in the sanctuary of a church. This particular church is filled with similar windows, and they are seen as one of the defining characteristics of the building. Stained glass windows are also interesting topics/objects with which to explore the implications of necessity…
This is a simple picture of a gear with the most distant portion blurred. When I posted it on Instagram, I described it as “Emerging from the mists of time.” The idea was that this obviously old mechanism was present as a display, somehow representing its use many years ago. The description was meant to…
This picture is titled “Bashful and Bold”. To me, it evokes two people standing next to each other. The one on the left looks like it is shyly hiding its face behind the shoulder of the other, while the one on the right looks like it is facing the viewer with arms outstretched, blasting forward….