Here are twelve more captures from last Sunday's visit to Taughannock creek (up from the great fall).
While processing these images, I thought again that it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to discriminate what is worth photographing, out in Nature. If closely examined from different angles and distances, just about everything reveals some form of beauty and, more importantly, a mysterious connection to everything else in time and space.
I am sure this is the reason why I have never been too inclined to go after what I call "trophy images". It feels right for me to stay close to the quotidian —what anyone can see if paying enough attention to what is right in front of her eyes and under her nose.
It also feels right to approach everything free of the type of established knowledge that would predetermine selection or point of view. I only aim to pay close attention to what is there, although I am still swayed by some sort of an aesthetic sense and the inclination to capture what seems more mysterious. In general, my eyes are those of the common wo/man, I am certainly not looking with the specialized vision of the botanist, zoologist, geologist, or physicist.
There is something extraordinary in the fact that raw perception can only happen in real time, which means that there is no place in it for the memories and desires that are the stuff of thought with its attendant, and limiting likes and dislikes.
I've been making photographs of life around me for close to half a century, and I can now see the time coming when there will be no further point to continue walking around with a camera as an extension of my being.
Pure perception —innocence— issues no judgement and makes no choice.
I hope to explore this fascinating theme in a more formal essay that I will post here.
