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Archive for the ‘photography’ Category

Bursting with potential

Posted in from the dark room, life, personal growth, photography on June 16, 2013| Leave a Comment »

pine

 

This tree is just bursting with potential. Every little seed could grow to become a whole tree. Could you tell what the tree will look like, just by looking at one of these seeds? Only if you have seen one of these seeds before and you recognise it, or if you see it in the context of the parent tree (as you can see in this photo). But even then, you can’t predict which seed will become a full tree, and which won’t. Nor can you tell EXACTLY what the particular grown tree will look like.

But what we do know, is that here is potential and possibility.

Life is like that. YOU are like that.

Bursting full of potential.

What are you becoming…..?

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unfurling, becoming

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, photography, science on June 12, 2013| 2 Comments »

fern

 

What a beautiful shape! Here is one stem of a fern unfurling, unfolding, becoming. If I came back next week and photographed this exact fern, it would look very different. If I could take a photo every few minutes and view it as stop motion video it wouldn’t look so still. We would see it was constantly moving, restless, stretching, curling and uncurling, spreading its leaves in the sun.

This single fern is a wonderful example of how, if we want to really know an individual, we have to follow them through their unfolding. Single moments, isolated snapshots of existence only hint at the complexity, the movement, the development which is at the heart of all Life.

Becoming, not being…….

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Just one feather

Posted in creativity, from the dark room, from the living room, personal growth, photography on June 11, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Feather

 

A little white feather, caught in grass which has pushed up through the Tarmac.

i’m sure you’ve seen LOTS like this before, but, wait a minute. Don’t rush. Take a look at it. It’s  beautiful. It’s delicate. It’s strong. And it’s complex. What an amazing structure.

The way my mind works I look at this and I think about becoming……..how does a bird make this structure? How can one cell, fertilised by one other cell, double and double in numbers, then differentiate so that some cells become eyes, some become brain cells, some become legs and some produce feathers. And all in just the right places. I was entranced by my embryology lessons at university and this incredible process still fills me with wonder and awe.

And I think about how the first feathers appeared on the Earth. Were there many stages of almost-feather which eventually become feathers? Did they appear suddenly? One day there were no feathers on Earth, then the next day, there they were?

And then I come back to this particular feather. Where is the bird which grew this feather? Is it a swan? A seagull? Does it live around here?

And. Then I remember that Paulo Coelho, the author, says he starts to write a new book only after he finds a white feather, and I wonder which bird, therefore, created The Alchemist!?

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The almost road

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, photography on June 10, 2013| 1 Comment »

the road

 

A few years ago they started to develop Leith harbour. They built blocks of flats, terraces of houses, laid roads……then, CRASH, it all stopped. I can understand how these projects hit the buffers, but this little false start of a road with its pointless, well-painted junction leaves me wondering.

Why would you tarmac the roads before laying the foundations for the buildings? But, really, why would you PAINT THE WHITE LINES on a road which, after three paces, ends in shrub and grass? Complete with the double dashed “give way” rule? Give way when you’re coming from where?

What do you think of this road less travelled? This road to nowhere? This abandoned little bit of hope and planning?

What do you think of bothering to mark the rules of the road so long before anyone can ever be subject to those rules?

I’m not sure what I think about all this, but I do know this image is disturbing to me. It keeps popping back into my head and asking me questions. It’s an image without answers.

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Glow

Posted in from the dark room, photography on May 30, 2013| Leave a Comment »

BlushSunlit

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Come, visit Montaigne’s tower

Posted in from the dark room, personal growth, philosophy, photography on May 29, 2013| 2 Comments »

The tower was the only part of Montaigne’s chateau to survive fire. On the ground floor is a beautiful and simple little chapel, with a blue ceiling studded with stars. Upstairs is his library where he wrote his essays, a lovely, simple room which was furnished with a large curved bookcase (sadly, long since gone)

I loved this visit. What an amazing thing that one man could sit here almost 500 years ago and try to get to know himself through writing, and still we read him and can be astonished at how relevant his thoughts are to us now.

I bought a little book in a bookshop in Agen, “Un été avec Montaigne”, which captured some of his key thoughts as “take time to live (preceding the “slow movement” by centuries), follow nature, enjoy the present moment, and don’t rush into anything”

Come and visit his place now….

Montaigne's tower

Chapel

Library

Window

Mantelpiece

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Sometimes a single flower just stops me in my tracks

Posted in from the dark room, photography on May 27, 2013| 4 Comments »

Nigella

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How many frogs can you see?

Posted in from the dark room, photography on May 26, 2013| 5 Comments »

Frogs

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Sun up, sun down, another unique day

Posted in from the dark room, photography on May 18, 2013| 2 Comments »

morning evening

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The wounded rock

Posted in from the consulting room, from the dark room, health, perception, photography on May 16, 2013| 3 Comments »

 

 

water carving

 

I took this photo a few weeks back and the image keeps popping back into my head.

It’s amazing for a number of reasons. First of all it looks as if the rock has been virtually split in two by a single blow. But not in the more usual way. If a rock is split in two the cut is usually narrow, as if done by a knife, but look how wide this cut is! It’s almost as if its been done by some giant axe. Secondly, I’m pretty sure this wound in the rock has been inflicted by water, and isn’t that in itself, incredible?

That water has the power to cleave a rock.

Well, we know it does. But look again. Where is the water? It is rushing, powerfully, past, right NEXT TO the rock!

So, what happened here? Did the water split this rock apart then veer aside to thunder down to the side of it? And how long did this take to happen? A moment? A year? An aeon?

Before I go, one more thing keeps me coming back to this image. It’s a kind of symmetry. There’s an echo, a shadow, a fractal, or something here. The flowing water and the wounded rock……

Life’s like this. In so many ways.

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