Thursday, June 01, 2006

Contemplating My Surroundings

I grew up on Southern Vancouver Island and although I moved away from the beautiful Island quite a number of years ago and now live in the equally beautiful Okanagan, I like to visit quite often. One place that I like to photograph and is not far from my parent's home is Witty's Lagoon Park, which includes Tower Point, on just about any day you find Sea Lions basking on the rocks not far from the shore. While contemplating the area on a bright overcast fall day in October of 2005 I was struck by the number of Oak trees bent and twisted into various forms and loved the look of the trees at the edge of the sea, the foliage on the surrounding bushes had started to turn a nice shade of yellow, adding contrast to the scene. On a thoughtful note, one of the things for me as a photographer is to constantly challenge myself to see my subjects and surroundings from a different perspective even places that I have visited on a regular basis, there are pictures hidden where ever I might be photographing its up to me to find them. I made the image with a 4 x 5 view camera ( Tachihara ) , a 120mm lens and the film holders were loaded with Tri-X .

3 comments:

Andy Ilachinski said...

Hi Gary,

Came over for a peek (and, oh, what a peek!) after recieving your kind comment on my "Tao of Photography" Blog. I'll have to focus my thoughts and send an email with some musings (that are sprouting even as I write) later, but I just wanted to quickly say, "Wow!" what magnificent, soulful, tranquil and *spiritual* photos! You are a profoundly gifted artist sir! (And I suspect - though I'm not quite in your league of artistry, and have quite literally only *hours* on weekends to devote to what small measure of "craft" I aspire to - I have found a kindred spirit who sees beauty in all). By any chance, have you ever looked over Christopher Alexander's Opus "The Nature of Order"? (4 volumes). Beyond being a masterpiece of exposition (central theis being that beauty and life pervades all existence), it is the first semi-rigorous (Alexander writes as a renowned architect/artist with a degree in mathematics) analysis of a possible fusion of the "objective" and "subjective" realities. Even a casual glance over your fine art suggests that you may be one of the few who may carry some of these profound ideas into the next geenration. Just a thought.

Magnificent work!

Gary Nylander said...

ilachina,

Thank-you so very much to take the time and express your wonderfully written comments !

Gary Nylander said...

Thanks Mands for your comments, I appreciate your time to check out my work.