Beauty in Photography (2)

A pointed challenge went out to poets from William Carlos Williams in 1927: "No ideas but in things." 

My camera the instrument deals exclusively with 'things'. But in photography the act, I play with abstractions between the eye and the sensual mind. Peculiarities of truth get attention and perhaps further bending. I look around for delight. 

Here are some examples from this week.

Cat Brier

In the past few days I have walked past countless leaves released from the greenness of their summer responsibilities into transitional shapes and colors on their way to decomposition into humus.

Staghorn Sumac and desiccated Bittersweet berries

Why do I halt only occasionally to take a picture? There might be an intrinsic story in this pattern of berries that almost but not quite survived the drought before shriveling to an inky constellation. Substance is there, 'things', along with abstractions of time and struggle. Ideas of gesture, proportion and composition add to the physical properties of the things.

Red Oak leaf on a pond

Surely circumstances, contrasts and ironies can contribute to beauty in photography.

Bittersweet berries and Cat Brier berries

Prettiness can create drawing power, as can composition, but by themselves they may not justify a second glance.

Winterberries

Familiarity touched with mystery helps open the mind to beauty in a way that neither would attain alone.

European Barberry

Elaborate shadows and the delicate thing contrast just enough with fine granite and the slashing black line.

Ruby or Cherry-faced Meadowhawk

An experience of beauty in a photograph may have more to do with affection for its subject than any artistic merit in the picture per se.

Yellow-rumped Warbler in Tupelo tree

Nevertheless, the principles of composition that invigorate painterly design will likewise multiply interest in a photograph.

Birch bark

Even when the subject elements are beautiful the photograph as a thing of its own rests on decisions of inspiration and craftsmanship.

Flower scape of a waterside sedge

Design originates in living forces. The idea of death amplifies life, and vice versa.

The same subject from another angle

A discovery can be rediscovered. The dark and the light can change places.

Pokeberry coming to fruit

Adapting Robert Adams' insight from last week about landscape pictures, we can attest to beauty in these photographs emanating from "three verities‒[nature], autobiography, and metaphor."