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"Metaphors are our way of losing ourselves in semblances or treading water in a sea of seeming."
-Roberto Bolaño
Magik Troll's March Challenge ~ Macro/close-up photography ~
Created for Sliders Sunday
best in the lightbox ;-)
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Arched Tower by artist Walid Siti at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAWNY)
The work references both the ziggurats of ancient Mesopotamia and the early Islamic minaret in the city of Samara. The artist left Iraq in 1984 as a political refugee and now lives and works in London. His works serve as metaphors for the human struggle to reach the top.
The village snowpack was topped off the other night with a few inches of fluffy, powdery snow. The morning sun revealed a winter wonderland heightened by a diamond dust effect on every sunlit surface. The landscape was absolutely dazzling in every respect, and I wasted no time in getting outdoors with my camera. The light was not to be missed, and I wanted to capture the delicacy of the cotton ball snow perched on the branches before the wind had a chance to eradicate it. In moments such as this, my impatience with winter takes a back seat as childlike wonder returns. I absolutely love shooting in these narrow weather/lighting conditions. It's an adrenaline kick to capture scenes that will simply no longer exist in the next minutes or hours. This tends to be very spontaneous with no master plan. I simply head out and allow the universe to guide me. I found myself here in the center of the old cemetery. It was an arduous trek through knee deep snow to get here. The only access was on foot, and the only one foolhardy enough to attempt it was me. No other tracks, not even animals. I love the exclusivity of such moments. No one else seeing or experiencing what I am. The sun of early February is much stronger than the feeble version that hung lover over the graves back in November and December. It's much brighter now, and I can begin to feel its heat on my skin, even as my hands grow numb from the cold. It's that odd dichotomy that will play out ever more violently in the sky as winter recedes.
I have talked so much about this issue here. I don´t know how many posts I have written about it or how many photos where I had captured this metaphor someway are published
I should get tired of it, but I am not. In fact, I am fascinated by this idea. Not because it´s new or unique, but because it´s so illuminating. From this perspective, my life´s aim changes completely and that´s why I find it so appealing
I love to think of me as a person who is exploring rather than suffering
learning things instead of bearing them (...)
read more on my blog: myhealingmoments.blogspot.com.es/2012/12/day-36520.html
{in the picture} nº 42 (I celebrate my path)
The approach of a thunderstorm reminds me in a way of the ball drop sequence that plays out on New Year's eve. There's such anticipation for the ball to drop and the clock to strike midnight. However when the moment is realized, the energy largely dissipates into thin air. There's no excitement for 12:01 am. It was all about reaching that point, the stoke of midnight. From a visual perspective, the intensity of the storm peaks in the seconds before it actually hits. I've witnessed this time and again, and the energy and pure adrenaline never seem to leave me. The purest form of storm atmosphere occurs in places like this...outdoors and out in the open. Better to witness the cloud structure from places with a wide vantage point. I arrived here last evening just ahead of a storm with which I had been driving on a parallel course. Pure luck put me here in the minutes before driving rain. I parked the car and ran out to the edge of this meadow. Menacing clouds rolled in from the west, quickly eclipsing the clear sky off to the east. Always an amazing sight to witness this squeeze play. Outflow winds raced out ahead of the rain, creating an eerie chilling effect on a day that had reached well into the 90s. I could feel alternate gusts of cold and warm wind, depending on the wind direction. The same winds created a frenzy of motion before me as the tall grasses and trees swayed. The clouds were spitting with lightning bolts and crackling with thunder. In the distance I began to hear the approaching rain. It arises as a soft hissing sound that gets louder as it draws near. All at once the rain arrives, and the proverbial New Year's eve ball has dropped. The brooding clouds morph into featureless gray cotton. The clarity of vision is occluded by raindrops. The storm will rage on for another twenty minutes. But photographically the show is over. I make my way back to my car. Soaking wet but still filled with the adrenaline of being here.
My mind has been all over the place with images which have appeared to me in this very old tree trunk which I photographed in a nearby park. From torah finials to Vishnu avatars . . . the symbolism and metaphors have grabbed me deeply, especially during this horrendous, unsettling political time . . .
From LOTUS SCULPTURE I quote:
"Vishnu is one of the principal Hindu deities, worshiped as the protector and preserver of the world and restorer of dharma (moral order). He is known chiefly through his avatars (incarnations), particularly Rama, Krishna and Buddha.
In theory, Vishnu manifests a portion of himself anytime he is needed to fight evil, and his appearances are innumerable;
but in practice, ten incarnations are most commonly recognized."
Metaphor.
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As I was capturing these photos, I was thinking about the many decisions we make in Second Life. Each of these photos is intended as a metaphor for some aspect of Second Life, and is particularly focused on some aspect of relationships.
Can you identify the hidden messages?
Captured at Wonderland, Realm of Wonder
maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Realm%20of%20Wonder/138/65/44
This photo is © Richard Cawood
www.RichardCawood.com & www.2ndLightPhotography.com
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Keeping to a theme of distorted or dissolving architectures that provide a metaphor for the dissolution of rational constructs that no longer serve. My previous image cited the Major Arcana Tarot Card, The Tower, as a psychological metaphor for the coming down of a mental or psychic construct that is deemed as nothing but a hindrance in current circumstances. Here I reference that again but add to that the growing critique of the notion of modern, capitalist, exploitative progress at the expense of all else. The notion of limitless growth and limitless profit is patently ridiculous. Such growth, as I think we'll see in our lifetimes, will simply have to stop. It cannot be sustained. And again, this is not so much about radical changes to the outward world we know, but a radicalization of the thinking that creates it.
Collection of Gary Taylor, Toronto.
Part of the "Hypothetical Awards" Group's "Annual Urban Art" Challenge, HUGE thanks to Mel Cabeen for the invitation to it.
View Large on Black.