Time for a challenge. Whenever we get too comfortable in life we are no longer growing – and I feel the need to push my photography skills forward. The guidelines of this self imposed journey are: one photo a week; no explanations or stories needed; black and white; shot only with my Nikon D800 and 28mm lens.
“Don’t forget that the land is always out there, making its way, doing everything it can so you can breathe fresh air; so you can eat fresh food; so you can move and see and feel and think, and it’s on your side. The world is out there doing what it’s been doing way before you came here, it’s firm and strong and it takes a lot to bring it down.
So from time to time, just go outside and look at this spectacle. This pure painting right in front of your eyes. No one created it. No one owns it. It doesn’t want anything. It doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone. It simply is.
So maybe, try a little tenderness. Just give it a chance to do what it can do. Just let it help you
breathe
and eat
and move
and see
and maybe just try to live your life in a way that doesn’t kill this force of nature
that is just trying to give you a world worth living in. A clean world. A fresh world.
Paths, forests, oceans, animals, oxygen, water. That’s all it takes.
Just try a little tenderness towards this world we’ve been lucky enough to build our homes on.
If you take care of it, it will take care of you.”
[Charlotte Eriksson]
So, I pulled into a restaurant parking lot earlier today. The clouds were so beautiful – and by that I mean, moody and interesting – and I needed to photograph them. As an artist I notice that I find beauty in the messy as much as in the perfect blue sky.
After taking a few photographs I popped inside to pick up some lunch. As I waited to pick up my food an older gentlemen having a coffee with a few friends at a table close by yelled , gruffly, to me – “Hey….you out there taking photos of us!!??”
Huh? Without my glasses on I wasn’t 100% sure if he was looking in my direction.
“I saw you out there, with your camera pointed in our direction …. were you taking pictures of us?”
Lol … um, no.
“Well then what the heck were you doing…?!!”
Taking pictures of the clouds. They are interesting.
His whole head slumped down to the table. This was not a practical answer. He was in no mood for my artistic foolishness…lol. He thought I was crazy and a little dark cloud of disapproval and confusion began to form around his table.
I tried to explain about the depth and texture and how in digital photography I could make it into something … but he was all done with me. Shaking his head and rolling his eyes with his friends.
Back at the car I have no idea how he saw me taking the photos. I was practically around the building from the window he sat in…
This image is ode to him …. both of us worlds away from each other in our perspective of the world … but connected in our humanity. I love that he had a conversation with me – even if he did think I was silly
Tania Palermo [Studio on Main] 