In search of landscapes . . .

Chris and I will be painting studio walls all day today, and perhaps installing an overhead light fixture. Baseboards will come a little later, but maybe, just maybe, we can put some furniture in place tomorrow and I can take some photographs.

In the meantime, however, I offer you these three images. At one time I thought a good lesson in seeing would be to find "landscapes" anywhere, in tree bark, rocks, rusty metal, etc. (And aren't you glad you weren't a part of that!)

I think it's a good lesson, though, and if I were still doing my online classes, I would definitely put it in the mix. Here's what I mean. This first photo is a close-up of a weaving, a very large weaving, but I immediately saw a landscape, a land formation, in just a part of it. I asked the gallery for permission to take a close-up shot and this is what I made. It could be a headland of sorts, with the ocean a small element at the base.

And this shot could conceivably have been taken from the deck of a ship as it passed a cold and snowy coastline. In actuality, it's a close-up of the side of a fishing boat that was being sanded and repaired.

And finally, doesn't this bit of cement look a lot like Diamond Head on Oahu? Cracks in cement had been filled in and then had turned a darker color as a result, so the formation stood out.

For me, one who rarely sees the big picture, but who can easily find something small and abstract, this is a fun exercise. How about you? If you're a big-picture sort, your challenge is to find something small and make something of it. Like these three (yes, weird) "landscapes."

 ©Carol Leigh
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