More About Local Wonder
An earlier post presented the idea of “Local Wonder” as a starting point for a sort of vision for my photography. In that case, the focus was on looking closely at things to see their wonderful aspects. In addition to giving a focus for some photography, the hope is that it could also teach me to be more aware in general.
There is another aspect to being more aware that, ironically, didn’t occur to me at first, but was the first focus for my 360 photography – that it is also important to look around.
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Neskowin Ghost Forest
This is the Neskowin Ghost Forest, a grove of trees that was buried in sand around 2000 years ago.
Although many reports claim that these trees were buried in an earthquake, the best consensus is that they were buried by gradual dune encroachment. This often happens on coastlines.
This buried forest was uncovered in 1997-8 during a winter of El Niño storms and have been exposed ever since.
Read more Avery Park
This is the rose garden in a local park at mid-morning as the sun is just starting to illuminate it.
Taken at the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere, new growth is just starting. This picture was taken as my initial entry in the World Wide Panorama (WWP) “Wrinkle” project, in which 360 panoramas will be taken all over the world during the 24-our period surrounding each solstice and equinox.
I hope to take all of the Wrinkle pictures here, although perhaps in slightly different spots, to show the change of seasons in the garden.
The Wrinkle project is to take multiple pictures at the same time but at different locations. With luck, my entries will also be the compliment of that — taking multiple pictures at the same location but at different times.
New Version of UPCA Church Interior
This is an updated version of a previous post of the interior of United Presbyterian Church in Albany, Oregon.
Read moreMore About Waterfall Experiences
This is a picture from a recently posted 360 photo of Majestic Falls. The original picture was for one of my World Wide Panorama projects, and talked about the waterfall in general. I used a different picture of this same waterfall to discuss the idea of qualia; that one was just a normal photograph.
The normal photograph and discussion illustrated ideas of conscious experience and helped me think about the different aspects of experiences that are just based on perceptions, versus those that also involve internal context and related thoughts.
Read more Majestic Falls Again
This is Majestic Falls, the main waterfall at McDowell Creek Falls county park.
Read more Frameless Pictures
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 don’t even have that – they may be mounted flat on the wall, or have a small hidden mount behind the picture so that it appears to be floating in front of the wall. In any case, the point is that there is nothing in the same plane as the picture itself.
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VR Photography and Museums
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 that panorama.
This seemed like an interesting choice because it illustrated two different expressions of the museum concept in one photograph. The first expression is the familiar one of a building full of artifacts and stories. This is what most people probably think of when they hear the word museum.
Read more Clear as Glass (part 2)
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 looking beyond strictly material solutions.
However, history shows that science has often been challenged with such paradigm shifts. Thus, it may be helpful to use non-science tools to explore these ideas while science is still far from conclusive answers. For example, sometimes metaphors can help us see beyond biases and preconceptions. As an example, in this essay we’ll consider the stained glass picture some more, and develop a picture that may illustrate why consciousness is so unique and why it’s too early to start closing off options for explaining it.
Imagine standing inside a church that is full of stained glass windows. These windows have a strikingly beautiful appearance, largely due to their glowing nature. If we were naive about their construction, we might wonder how they came to have such a striking appearance. Where does the extra light come from?
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