Essay
Much of our world today is governed by structured thinking and reasoning. Perhaps not day-to-day life for individuals, but business, government, science, and technology are all operated through well-defined rules and processes. This is a reductionist approach to understanding and affecting the world. The reductionist approach works for things that are well understood, but I’m…
Some things in life are necessary, but not sufficient. For example, we need food to live, but we also need water, air, exercise, and so on. Food alone is not enough, it is not sufficient. While this seems obvious for some things like food, it’s harder to remember in other places such as when exploring…
A single dried leaf lays on the ground, backlit by the afternoon sun. Glowing, reminding us of life that it used to hold, now fading like the sunlight itself. A little moment of beauty that’s easy to miss in the daily rush. A careless step and this bright little wonder would be ground underfoot. It…
In photography, it is often thought that we need better scenes in order to take better pictures. For example, National Geographic photographer Jim Richardson said “If you want to be a better photographer, stand in front of more interesting stuff.” This seems to reflect a common perspective. The implication is that there are places which…
This is a picture of a plant that, at first glance, seemed to be dead. Maybe it really was, I’m not sure. However, a closer look revealed these little tufted ends, probably some sort of flower, so I took this picture. I think it’s interesting, like a little unexpected bit of elegance. It’s also interesting…
This is an example of limited depth of field. Only a narrow band is clear, and things become fuzzy when we move away from it. The further we get from the band of focus, the less we can see what’s going on. In this simple case, it’s pretty easy to see that there’s not much…
Previously I have written about how spherical photography can be a metaphor for looking around, and how it illustrates the value of doing so. There is no comparable way to change the view in standard photography, of course. However, we can still choose what part of a photograph to focus on. Generally, however, our eyes…
This picture of weeds looks very different depending on how we see it. Looking closely at the plants, they seem spikey, forbidding, like they will break if touched. But looking at the overall arrangement, it evokes the graceful lines of ballet dancers — easy to imagine flowing movement. This is an example of how observing…
Photographers, and artists in general, often use the idea of an “artistic vision” to describe the kind of work that they do. I find that idea to be helpful, that it can provide focus when working on my own art and craft. Of course, it’s always great to work on things just for fun, and…
This scene caught my eye because of the way many strands of web all converged on the single leaf. This was taken on a foggy morning, and the strands stood out because they were covered in drops of water. I think the thing that seemed surprising was the sheer number of individual strands. Looking at…