One of challenges of camera phones is that it’s not always easy to tell what you’ve focused on. I wasn’t really sure what I had until I got it back to my desktop computer and saw it on a large screen. When I took the photograph, I thought it was entirely about pattern and distortion…
Tag Archive: texture
Surface Pattern
I’ve never noticed a tree with this textile-inspiring bark pattern before. Here’s a closer look: A Year Ago: Dr. Seuss Plant I actually laughed when I saw this plant. The big polka dots and the outrageous red backside of these leaves are just ridiculously over-the-top… [read more]
Roughed Up
I have to admit, the going has been pretty tough lately. I’m feeling a little worn down and my optimism is taking a beating. I can only hope that, when all is said and done, I’ll weather as gracefully as this wooden wall. A Year Ago: Buried Fist In the version of T’ai Chi I’m…
Window Treatment
For a person who photographs a wide range of subject matters, and who feels like she’s interested in everything, there are nevertheless visual themes that appear again and again. Bounced light, for example, is a perennial favorite. The fine texture, moiré, and gauzy filtering of light through drapery draws my eye yet again. A Year…
GAR-BRO
What a feast of color and texture: Rust! Dark reflections! Pattern repeats! I love this image. I could eat it with a spoon. YUM. Time to get back to the textile design, for realz. A Year Ago: Showy When you mention peacocks, most people immediately think of the display… [read more]
Half-Shadow
Light and dark and an incredible array of textures: this image demonstrates how pattern can define our perception of a space. Certainly there are some perspectival cues, but this picture depends more upon the juxtaposition of surfaces and the interplay of solidity and translucency for its impact. It’s like a visual venn diagram. (I really…
Brick Coke
I like places that are layered, where the past is still present. I like places that don’t try to cover up the memory of other times, when things were different—sometimes good, sometimes bad, but always a shaper of the way things are now. Let me not sentimentalize too much or be too precious about the…
Texture Riot
I spent a lovely day-and-a-bit with dear friend Barry (and family). Much of the time Barry and I discussed aesthetics, cameras and their uses, and ways to develop one’s own eye. I decided to use only my iPhone’s camera on this trip, so as to concentrate on the challenges of image-making rather than relative superiority…
Winter Tangle
This is what a sunny winter’s day looks like in DC. There’s a very thin veil of color that remains in the landscape even in the depths of winter. This picture was taken from a wooded trail along a shallow creek, not far from my place. I wish that you could see a larger version…
Old-Fashioned Landscape
I wonder what the aesthetic status of an image like this would be if the first photographs had been in color. Or if somehow—like rural portions of the world that have skipped directly from drums to cellphones—the development of photography had been direct-to-digital. No patina of nostalgia would cling to this form of presentation. It…