~views of a tiger lily~

~a view of a tiger lily, in grayscale~

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One of my very favorite sites to visit when I need to feel energized is David Perry's A Photographers Garden Blog.  It's a beautiful place to visit - creative, quiet, kind - the type of place that we often wish our everyday world was like.  But often it just isn't, and during these times one just needs to move forward, in the best way that one can.  I've had a tough week or so, work stuff, and if I told you about it, unfortunately I'd have to kill ya - so I'll refrain (for your safety and my own).  So tonight I needed to visit such a place.

Over a week ago, David had a post titled Stand in on place and keep looking.  What I especially like about his site is that he encourages his visitors with respect to their own photography, and he shares with us things that he has learned along the way.  (Visitors, such as myself, are often individuals who just like to capture the world around them - amateurs or I suppose?)  In this recent post, David wrote:

In letting ours minds and lives grow ever more busy they have also grown ever more restless, maybe even lazy.  And so we have learned to skim rather than really look.  It seems we are nearly always in a hurry to get somewhere else.  To be where we are not instead of where we are.  To hurry off toward where we think we should be.  Or to where someone else told us we really must visit.

I agree with David - in the sense that there is so much to see right in front of us.  In one leaf, one crack in the sidewalk, in one face.  So often we forget to look, to slow down - I am guilty of this all of the time, although paying attention is something that I try hard to do.  One of my all-time favorite books is Aldous Huxley's Island - and in this book I'm particularly fond of the mynah bird that is flying around, shouting 'Here and now!' and 'Attention!'.  I think that we all need such a bird, following us around during our often tedious day.

So, yesterday I decided to stand in one place (more-or-less, I did moved maybe a foot in every direction) and take photographs of a tiger lily.  This lily was in my Mother's Virginia garden, and last spring I moved a clump into my own garden.  This is the first tiger lily bloom to open for me.  The images were changed to grayscale in photoshop - but the original images weren't cropped.

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Comments

[Pat]

Stunning. I love black and white photos, don't you? And have you ever done any infrared photography?

BTW, I did vote for him and am EXTREMELY disappointed.

[Janet]

I started to skim over what you wrote, until I got to the part about skimming rather than looking (or reading word for word) The photos are wonderful. If you had them in color, we would notice the orange - bright and bold, but in black and white, we notice the structure and those great dots!!

[David E. Perry]

Dear, dear Pam,

Once again I find beautiful little miracles during a visit to your site. I really do love seeing glimpses of the world through your eyes and words. And I love the choices you have made here, visually.

It is hard, sometimes to see past the color, to see what elegant structure lies beneath it. How wonderful to be gifted that seeing by your elimination of color, by your careful framing . . . knowing that the images are uncropped helps me understand how deliberate and unhurried you were as you made them . . . how thoroughly you looked into each corner of the frame to "see" and then choose where the lines would intersect.

And for the bravery and generosity you have granted those of us who enter into this glade and sanctuary of your discoveries, for allowing us the context of knowing that this lily was your mother's . . . the vulnerability of having glimpsed that loss for you and the ways you invite us to witness your attempts to make sense of it . . .

How wonderful to have been allowed yet further glimpses into your world.

Thank you for such generous words . . . for being one who recognizes a brother, a kindred spirit. One firefly to another, blinking on and off across these vast distances. I see you. I see the glow of light that you emanate again and again here, and I know, gratefully, that I too am seen.

Namasté

[Vera]

Beautiful work, Pam.

[Pam]

Hi Pat - thanks! And no, I haven't done any infrared photography - and I'm not sure what you mean exactly (I think of it more from a work/science perspective).

Janet, I love the dots too. I have also thought that tiger lilies and hellebores look best in black and white for that very reason.

David, thank you. It is always such a treat to have you visit here.

Vera, thanks! It was nice seeing you at Dan and Janet's last weekend.