Alaskan cotton grass

~ In the Yukon some months ago, I found myself drawn to the whispy, fragile, white-tufted heads of Alaskan cotton grass glowing in what light broke through an ominous sky.

Their fragility so in contrast to the harsh environment there. But at the same time so much a part of it.

There is a ceremony among the Navajo called Beautyway. "In the Navajo view, the elements of one's interior life - ones psychological makeup and moral bearing - are subject to a persistent principle of disarray. Beautyway is, in part, a spiritual invocation of the order of the external universe, that irreducible, holy complexity that manifests itself as all things changing through time. The purpose of this invocation is to recreate in the individual who is the subject of the Beautyway ceremony that same order, to make the individual again a reflection of the myriad enduring relationships of the landscape." ~ Barry Lopez, Crossing Open Ground.

 

Alaskan Cotton Grass on the shores of Divide Lake, Tombstone Territorial Park, Yukon Territory, Canada.

8 RAW files focus stacked and hand blended.

Using apertures f/11, f/8, f/7.1

Shutter speeds 0.6s, 1/5s, 1/8s, 1/15s, 1/20s.

ISO from 64, 100, 200 400

Done