Heroes Not Zombies

I’ve mentioned several times how much, in the years gone by, that I enjoyed looking out from my flat in Cambusbarron towards Ben Ledi. Here’s another one of many photos I have from that time.

What grabbed me about this view?

The beauty.

That’s the short answer. I find it utterly beautiful. The pale blue sky, the grey and pink clouds (“Caravan” reference in there for those of you who know 😉 . The shape of the mountain with its snowy peak, the surprisingly warm shades of the uncovered hillside. The low lying mist in the mid ground with just a row of trees appearing through it, and the familiar farm in the foreground.

But there’s more.

Yes, there are the birds flying past, which bring some life to the scene. But I mean the shape of the mist. Look at it! You’d expect mist just to fade out as it rose, but this mist, for some reason, has fashioned itself into a peak, that looks for all the world like an echo of Ben Ledi itself.

So what engages me about this image is every single element, plus how the whole adds up to a lot more than the sum of the parts.

I adore discovering these symmetries and they challenge my day to day perception that water changes quickly and that mountains never change. The most dynamic part of the scene is the birds in flight, creatures whose unceasing change (movement) keeps them flying through the invisible air. But the next most dynamic part is the water in three of its forms – mist, snow and clouds. Every one of those forms is changing moment by moment, but that’s not nearly so easy to spot as the movement of the birds. Then there is the mountain. The mountain which changes moment by moment in appearance as the Sun changes his angle and casts shadows from the ever-changing clouds. But the mountain changes too. In its substance, shape and form. Maybe it takes millennia to be able to spot that, but doesn’t everything have its own innate pace?

So, here’s the core paradox of this image – stillness and movement.

At first glance, this is an incredibly peaceful, quiet, static scene. But it doesn’t take much to see there is nothing static about it.

I love that.