Landscape

Skeletal branches
Stark against
Pearlescent sky

We are left with the fundamental elements of existence: light, form, space, and time.

“The camera is not a copying instrument. It’s a transforming instrument.” – Aaron Siskind

Rays splayed
Stark contrast
Inherent contingency

Each glint is a tiny mirror reflecting back not the intrinsic essence of the water, but the dominating light of the sun.

“The beautiful in nature is the trace of the objectively non-identical.” – Theodor Adorno

Pulsating assemblage
Forces textures intensities
Form of agency

The deep green of the leaves, the warm brown of the bark, the fiery orange of the autumn foliage – each color carries its own charge, its own affective potential.

“Things have a life, an activity, of their own.” – Jane Bennett

Varied textures
Dimensions of perception
Lived experience

The intentional act of seeing shapes our aesthetic experience, imbuing the image with meaning and significance.

“The aesthetic experience is not a purely intellectual or spiritual affair, but a bodily and sensory one.” – Mikel Dufrenne

Curve of the land
Solitary trees
Life force

The image, in its entirety, becomes a metaphor for the human condition, a testament to the enduring power of beauty in the face of adversity.

“Art is intuition, and intuition is lyrical expression.” – Benedetto Crocea

Intricate patterns
Carved by
Tides and currents

A fleeting, ever-changing sand landscape is a sacred geometry etched by the invisible hand of nature.

“The world is a dreamlike reflection of the mind.” – Sogyal Rinpoche

Aesthetic experience
Fundamental aspect
Inquiry discovery process

A quiet-contemplative but dynamic-landscape scene is shaped by the forces of nature in a constant interplay of creation and destruction.

“The aesthetic experience is a mode of living, not a mere accessory to life.” – John Dewey

Radiation
Wavelength
Separation

The observable appearance and behavior of water is atypical compared to most encountered substances. In support of Gestalt psychology, the physical and chemical properties of the water compound are extraordinarily complicated, while the molecules of water are simple in structure.

“What I view life like is about energy. Everything is about energy – everything. We physically are little units of electrical energy, and we vibrate and project electromagnetic thought.” – John Trudell

Dramatic sky
Lush greenery
Serene water

The aesthetic experience of the landscape is a complex phenomenon that involves both perception and valuation.

“Beauty is not merely a property of things, but a relation between things and our souls.” – Max Scheler

Crown glass
Flint glass
Achromatic doublet

This early-spring image was captured with a classic single element lens, convex on one side and concave on the other. Invented in 1804 by William Hyde Wollaston as a lens for eyeglasses, he adapted it as a camera obscura lens in 1812. Later the design was used by Niépce and Daguerre in their early photographic cameras.

“I have captured the light and arrested its flight. The sun itself shall draw my pictures.” – Louis Daguerre