Nature has always had a huge emotional impact on me. Whether it’s delight at a gecko’s scamper, amazement at a garden spider’s intricate web, happiness in a field of gorgeous bluebonnets, awe at a pounding rainstorm, or appreciation of a grand old oak tree, the natural world is always riveting. With photography I tried to capture these things, but somehow the rendered image always lacked “something”. Sort of a “guess you had to be there” thing. More expensive cameras and bigger and better lens didn’t get it there either.

Then, through flickr, I discovered using textures and layers to enhance images. Now there’s the thing! Layers and textures seem to put that emotion back into the photograph. The science of photography can capture an image, then the wielding of textures and layers can create a work of art. The camera captures the image and processing pours the emotion back into it.

Flickr is a great community of talented and friendly folks, and I very much appreciate all the help and encouragement I’ve received here!

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"The animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they moved finished and complete, gifted with extension of the senses that we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren. They are not underlings. They are other nations, caught with us in the net of life and time, fellow witnesses of the splendor and travails of earth."

~Henry Beston, The Outermost House, 1928

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“At the moment our human world is based on the suffering and destruction of millions of non-humans. To perceive this and to do something to change it in personal and public ways is to undergo a change of perception akin to a religious conversion. Nothing can ever be seen in quite the same way again because once you have admitted the terror and pain of other species you will, unless you resist conversion, be always aware of the endless permutations of suffering that support our society." --Arthur Conan Doyle

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Listen,

maybe such devotion, in which one holds nature

in the clasp of attention, isn’t the perfect prayer,

but it must be close, for sorrow, whose name is doubt,

is thus subdued, and not through the weaponry of reason,

but of pure submission. Tell me, what else

could beauty be for? - Terns by Mary Oliver

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