Hunting through a viewfinder at 3:1 macro ratio, meaning everything is magnified three times life size, with a depth of field liken to the proverbial razors edge makes me feel as if I’m flying over the surface of an unknown environment. Blurred shapes, shades and shadows scroll past my view, tones of earthiness in the vegetation interpreted as summers days. There was no sunshine here this morning but this shot where I looked to focus on the very cusp of a blade of grass, and given it’s slightly overexposed result leads me back to my childhood. If I close my eyes with this image retained in my mind I hear us kids playing in the meadows that bordered my childhood home, I feel the warmth penetrating the long grasses, the sun casting a yellow glow inside my eyelids. I hear the bugs thirsting for the beads of sweat that rest on my brow.
For photography is like that. It allows the mind to interpret the shadows and light in a way, at times, unique to the viewer. It is my escape, if for just a few fleeting moments in the day, to explore the recognized world around me, and turn it into a riot of impressionist enjoyment.
nature in a day 