Metaphor and Analogy - **In Title or Description**
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signalling a new direction
For some time now I've struggled to keep up with flickr...
I try to think of ways to be generous and reciprocal
and also meet my own needs to be more playful...
to have more time and energy for making images
and also for making lucid comments ;-)
For now I'm going to try being more flexible...
embrace a little more imperfection :-)
I'll still respond to comments
(this connection brings me happiness )
and I'll enjoy visiting those who leave them :-)
But I'll be more free about timing...
and not respond to every fave.
Tho I'll try to recognise loyal and wordless fave givers
I am, after all, often one myself.
Not an easy change to make.
But something has to give.
So here's to generosity and freedom.
Meet you
at the intersection ;-)
Forth Road Bridge 13 Dec 2015
The FRB is shrouded in all kinds of things - fog, political smokescreens, uncertainty, to name but a few.
Hopefully the bridge really will open again on 04 January 2016. I feel most sorry for the cancer patients having to travel miles extra for daily treatment in Edinburgh.
Please see my other photos of Edinburgh & the Lothians at www.jamespdeans.co.uk/p399603778
No one remembered to put in their original teeth
at the plant nursing home
so they can’t tell the nurses and aides
to turn off Fox news
and they wither like they’ve been
left for an eternity to suffer
for all their long lost sins.
**All poems and photos are copyrighted**
~ The sky is often used as a metaphor
And I suppose that's because it's so big and expansive
When a long strand of cloud sits just above the horizon
Leaving a strip of clear blue beneath it
It becomes the panorama
It'll turn your head three hundred and sixty degrees,
And the same line follows you round if the land is sufficiently flat
Really, nothing can be compared to it
I am not an acrobat…
I cannot perform these tricks for you
Losing all my balance…
Falling from a wire meant for you ~
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© Copyright by Floriana Thor 2013-2015
We can express our feelings regarding the world around us either by poetic or by descriptive means. I prefer to express myself metaphorically. Let me stress: metaphorically, not symbolically. A symbol contains within itself a definite meaning, certain intellectual formula, while metaphor is an image. An image possessing the same distinguishing features as the world it represents. An image — as opposed to a symbol — is indefinite in meaning. One cannot speak of the infinite world by applying tools that are definite and finite. We can analyse the formula that constitutes a symbol, while metaphor is a being-within-itself, it's a monomial. It falls apart at any attempt of touching it.
― Andrei Tarkovsky
Are you really bad at Scrabble?
Wally can help you!
He doesn’t mind if you
can’t afford to buy a vowel.
His poetry will make you swoon and howl!
He’s got you covered in sentences and
hidden meaning.
Similes like silly songs
swinging in soft soliloquies
Slurp sip sooopy sulch
Wally knows the words
that haven’t even been invented yet.
He’s great at paragraph parties
when it’s 3am and everything has
stopped making sense.
His words galore will not bore!
The punctuation punch has made us filled with reveries
Hey Wally, what about the gang of constant consonants?
Wally doesn’t respond to threats!
Not the eraser or the delete key.
Wally stands up to any bully
with a nominal fee
You have to write it down.
That’s right. He’s anonymous but renown
No regrets!
Even if you’re a sentence with Tourette’s.
Hey Wally, will you be my date tonight?
My paragraphs are misconstrued.
My spacing isn’t right.
You’re a rhyming onomatopoeic maniac
An alliteration allstar
and I relish
making metaphorical monsters mine.
**All poems and photos are coyrighted**
Unless there is the iPhone icon, all photos were taken with a Nikon or more recently, with a Sony Mirrorless. I ioften import the images to a 12.9 inch iPad for editing.
I don’t normally repost images, or cropped versions of already posted images. But learning about photography, like learning about most things, is hardly linear. The best part of learning is often finding out that something you had thought you learned and knew, that you had under your belt, maybe wasn’t as secure as it seemed. There was a notorious Danish philosopher who suggested that the best way to teach someone was to say something under your breath as you walked by them - so that they had to think about it and mull it over, rather than lecturing in a classroom.
Though the idea of saying something under your breath is a kind of metaphor or parable, someone did that with respect to the image I posted yesterday, and sure enough I learned something I thought I knew was instead something I thought, and maybe misunderstood. Thanks for taking the time to make the suggestion Chantal (and, in another context, James) - it is really appreciated.
A metaphor for my life when Covid hit (the road at bottom center) and where I am now (the same road at upper left): twists and turns indeed.
At a time of a historic pandemic and racial discord/violence, major league baseball seems to reflect the times. Even as the virus may be waning, the different sides (the teams and the players) cannot agree yet on what's fair compensation for a shortened season. As a baseball fan who loves the idea of the USA...and it's the first country started as an idea if you think about it....I hope the sides can come together. Maybe the stitching's just gotten too loose and we can tighten them up a bit?
Said goodbye to neighbor and sometimes model Carol last week. She transitioned as friends sometimes do from a physical presence in my life to a tiny number alongside the text icon on my phone. We vowed to keep in touch, but it's never quite the same once neighbors are no longer defined as such. Her new home is just a few hours away, but might as well be across the country. I'm grateful that the universe brought us together for the relative short time we shared. And for the many scenes we were able to capture together. Our final session (neither of us knew it at the time) was last autumn in a parched soybean field under a magnificent sky. At times the low sun virtually electrified the withered crop field, seemingly bringing the plants back to life in a sea of light and texture. And there stood Carol, rendered in absolute shadowy blackness. It was as if someone had taken an X-Acto knife and simply cut her out of the photo. Prophetic indeed. Upon departing I told her we could return here any time for another session as it was literally within walking distance of our homes. But I had an uneasy sense that we never would.
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∎ Created with Midjourney, further edited with Topaz Photo AI
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{...] Buried by their building lay the hideous bodies; it is said that Mother Earth, soaked in the blood of her children, became wet.
She then filled the still warm blood with life and transformed it into the shape of humans so that the memory of her descendants would not be completely lost.
But that brood also despised the heavenly ones, thirsted for brutal murder and was violent; after all, it was born of blood. [...]
Source: ovid-metamorphosen-giganten
∎ Ovid | 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18
A clump of wild timothy sways languidly along a rural road in the moments before an ominous thunderstorm storm strikes. I’m always in search of borders and boundaries when out with the camera. I love photographing them, and even more standing astride them. This is one of my many odd behavioral traits that defy rational explanation. As a result, attempts to discuss them often sound irrational (if not downright ridiculous). With that risk in mind, I’ll just say I think at some level, boundary lines represent unseen (yet highly palpable) energy fields. That includes boundaries both real and liminal. It relates to creating photos based upon a reaction to how scenes or situations make me feel.
Back in the moment on the old farm road, I’m already pretty charged up about the storm. It’s what brought me to this spot in the first place. And for my money, it’s one of the best visual and emotional boundaries imaginable, standing right along the leading edge of an intense storm. And on the edge of an expansive farm field which creates a visual effect of multiple boundaries within a single frame. In this case newly mown hay casting a wonderfully warm color contrast against the cool, dark sky. And as I walk along, I stumble upon the timothy grass. The stalks look delicate and tranquil as they gently sway in response to the breeze. Their presence made even more prominent by the raging storm looming in the background. It’s one of those scenes that exists only in this moment, and I could think of no better way to illustrate the fury of the storm than to focus on the calm in its path.
“I'm tired, boss. Tired of bein' on the road, lonely as a sparrow in the rain. Tired of not ever having me a buddy to be with, or tell me where we's coming from or going to, or why. Mostly I'm tired of people being ugly to each other. I'm tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world every day. There's too much of it. It's like pieces of glass in my head all the time. Can you understand?”
John Coffey, “The Green Mile” by Stephen King
Even as an adult, I'm still enchanted by the 'winter wonderland' effect of new fallen snow. There's just something about seeing the landscape transformed into shades of brilliant white with layers of snow concealing virtually every defect. One of the downsides of that transformation is the inevitable slog back to spring and summer. It's always a bumpy ridge, and the process is anything but linear. Warm and cold days are interspersed as the temperature vacillates. Rain mixes with snow, sleet and ice. The pristine wonderland is transformed into multiple shades of grime. Where the snow melts away, sickly hues of yellow grass are revealed along with rotting leaves leftover from autumn. On this particular day a thick fog developed amid a light but steady rain. I walked through scenes utterly devoid of both color and cheer. Still I was mesmerized by the fog. I love its immersive quality and the way it alters my view of the landscape. Even sound is altered...muted in the same way as color and visual definition. If one specific weather condition equates to human sadness, this would be it.
La cour du Printemps du Jardin de Chine du Jardin botanique de Montréal, 4101, rue Sherbrooke Est, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
Le Pyracantha est communément appelé « buisson ardent », en anglais, Chinese Firethorn. Le mot Pyracantha vient du grec ancien pyr, le feu et acanthos, l'épine. Le nom de Buisson ardent est une allusion à l'épisode biblique rapporté dans l'Exode 3,2. Le Pyracantha est originaire du sud de l'Europe et de l'Asie. Il peut atteindre 6 m de haut. C'est un proche parent du Cotonéaster, mais les Pyracanthas ont des feuilles dentelées coriaces de 2 à 4 cm de long et de grosses épines alors que le Cotoneaster n'en a pas. Certaines variétés sont utilisées en bonsaï.
On accède à la Cour du printemps en passant une porte à quatre lobes évoquant la fleur de l'abricotier. Cet espace est le domaine privilégié des penjings, ces arbres miniatures que les Japonais appellent, quant à eux, bonsaïs. L'art du penjing, mot qui signifie littéralement « pot et paysage », s'est surtout développé à l'époque de la dynastie Tang (618-907) bien que des documents attestent son existence dès le 2e siècle. Ces arbres, dont la croissance a été contrôlée pour atteindre des hauteurs variant de 10 à 150 cm, peuvent présenter un tronc droit, sinueux, ou protubérant, et des branches en plateau ou en cascade.
Lieu de contraste et d'harmonie, le Jardin de Chine créé en 1990 illustre les principes séculaires de l'art chinois de l'aménagement paysager. L’harmonie du Jardin de Chine repose sur quatre éléments principaux: les plantes, l’eau, les pierres et l’architecture. Il se présente comme une peinture tridimensionnelle, une reproduction à la fois fidèle et transposée de la nature. L'organisation spatiale des lieux, l'architecture des pavillons et les sélections végétales, aquatiques et minérales traduisent bien les principes du yin et du yang qui dominent l'aménagement. Ses différents éléments renferment une grande valeur métaphorique, les formes et les masses y étant agencées de façon à produire des contrastes et à susciter des émotions.
Le Jardin de Chine est l’aboutissement des rapports étroits établis entre le Service des parcs de la ville de Shanghai et le Jardin botanique de Montréal. Pour sa part, le Jardin du Lac de rêve est l’œuvre de Le Weizhong, un architecte et architecte paysagiste réputé qui, au moment de la construction du Jardin, était directeur de l’Institut de design et d’architecture de paysage de Shanghai. Les milliers de pièces nécessaires à sa construction ont été expédiées de Shanghai à Montréal dans quelque 120 conteneurs. En 1990, cinquante artisans chinois les ont assemblées pour créer ce magnifique jardin.
Fleuron montréalais, reconnu comme l’un des plus importants au monde, le Jardin botanique de Montréal offre en toute saison une programmation haute en couleurs: événements, expositions, animations, etc. Il a été fondé le 9 juin 1931 par le frère Marie-Victorin et conçu par l'architecte paysagiste Henry Teuscher avec la collaboration de l'architecte paysagiste Frederick Gage Todd. Il s'étend sur 75 ha dans l'arrondissement Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie, au nord de la rue Sherbrooke et du Parc olympique.
Le jardin se compose de dix serres d'exposition ainsi que de nombreux jardins thématiques. On peut notamment y visiter le Jardin de Chine, le jardin japonais, le Jardin des Premières-Nations, la Roseraie, le Jardin du sous-bois, l'arboretum et plusieurs autres jardins à thèmes. Par ailleurs, l'Insectarium et la Maison de l'arbre sont situés sur le terrain du jardin botanique. En 2009, le Jardin botanique de Montréal se joint à l'Espace pour la vie, le plus important complexe muséal en sciences naturelles du Canada.
I'm very fortunate to live in a rural area with easy access to woodlands, meadows, streams, ridge lines, valleys, and crop fields. I derive a great deal of energy and mental stimulation by entering into these spaces. I used to think it was the result of the oxygen released by plants. But it's much more than that. The visuals are quite often stunning, and motivate my creative mind. However I feel the same energy even if I take no photos at all. For me it's all about being immersed into scenes such as this, both literally and emotionally.
Walking through this meadow filled with dead and withered leaves filled me with a sense of life and vitality. Don't ask me to explain the dichotomy. It just is. There's simply as much (or even more) energy here now as there was months ago when this was all lush and green.
I'm still struggling to comprehend what they were thinking when this doll was conceived. Often the dolls I come across at yard sales are clearly the worse for wear but you can still sense some of their original beauty or visual appeal. Here I sense only a look of shock bordering on fear. The feeling is compounded by the hand gesture with the arms thrown up in surprise or even surrender. It truly feels as if the doll has fallen victim to armed robbery, or even worse. The wings and dress are suggestive of a fairy princess which is about as far away as you can get from violent crime. The dichotomy is rich. After sizing up the doll, I realized there was only one way to pose it: point blank!
In her day-to-day, ahead seems gray, but with her reflexive gaze, creativity comes to life.
I'm just trying my hand at some fine arts photography. Mosquitoes bit me 27 times while taking this picture. She was bit 12 times before we realized that we were being eaten alive. So much anti-itch spray!
These two halves / taken together / are at greater distance / from one another / than if left apart.
Assemblage, wood, metal, paper, paint, size (WxHxD) 50x48x11 cm (based upon objets trouvés) (2015)
Poor Eunice died in hope. A noble way to be remembered, even if not fully accurate. Guess it depends on what you were hoping for at the time you passed. The cynical side of me wonders if her hope was not to die. Eunice's legacy boils down to the few words carved into the old gravestone. They endure today only through great luck that the stone has not been toppled or shattered. I feel weirdly connected to Eunice at some level. We lived in the same village, although over a century apart. Perhaps she walked her in her day as I do in mine.
Eunice's grave is part of the rich mosaic of this cemetery. I see her name on nearly every visit here. This stone is a constant, but my reaction varies. Sometimes I notice it more than others. Depends on my mindset, the time of day, or the time of year. Sometimes even the direction I am walking or my angle of view influences my thought process. On this foggy morning I was struck by the starkness of the stone amid a damp and misty landscape. The residual leaves of October slowly decomposing in the gaining light of February. Another year passed, and Eunice's dying hope fades ever so slightly.