Autume is the converse of spring’s exuberance colors reaching for the sun. It is the warmer color contrasted with the colder air displaying summers stores of energy removed to the earth’s roots. Carotenoids (orange/yellow) colors emerge, and anthocyanins (red/purple) develop in contrast to dark green firs and brown to black earth. For a photographer both seasons are full of opportunities to capture context, contrasts, transitions, supportive diversity, evocation and pauses, flow and stillness, life and decay. What is not captured are the sounds and smells that enliven the scenes.
The journey begins now in the middle of September 2023.
All of us possess scenes that feel, read and interpret the world outside our skin. They bring the outside into our being to know deeply without words what is. The descriptive effort of words attempts to name and expression with symbols the essence of what is. What is known-experienced cannot be conveyed by the symbols the fullness of experience: the journey to, the scene surveyed, the placement of the camera, the multiple dimensions of what is in the moment that is scene, heard, touch, smelled surround by brisk cold.
Even the film or camera sensor that captures the moment is also reductionistic to what is, as words are in the conveyance of fullness.
The images in this session represent a project I began to photograph walking 6 hours through the Seattle Arboretum during different seasons of the year. I have chosen to walk the trails on overcast days with side lighting that accentuates those subtleties of the scenes. I have also chosen to locate scenes that imply drama and hopefully an emotional pull to be curious about what is beyond if you were there. Maybe, to be drawn to want to touch the texture that is represented. Or, maybe to hear the breeze and unseen birds. Or, to feel the sun on your face on the other side of the dark cool canopy.