Two Faces WC 589
by Jim Lockhart
I spent some time yesterday sprinkling various types of foliage around my yard with water, and not being satisfied with the results. Then I remembered a shot I had taken while snowshoeing this past February that had intrigued me at the time. Took another look at it; chose about 1/4 for cropping in PSE, manually sharpened, and used the spot healing tool to get rid of a little spot in the snow. Powershot SX30, ISO 80, f/2.7, 1/50, zoom lens at 25mm, handheld. All comments welcome and appreciated and thanks for viewing.
Comments
6 commentsI like lichens, and I'm also likin' the cotrast between the three forms of water; two evident, those being liquid and solid water, and the third invisible but we know it's there.
I love the lack of focus that permeates this image, and especially the two faces; one in the ice and one peering down at the drop of water about to fall. Oddly enough, I've been thinking about the whole concept of focus and sharpness lately.
You know, it's as if we think that things are somehow inherently sharply in focus, but when we start to look into it, it is then we realize that the whole concept of focus and sharpness involves a lens of some sort; ostensibly in a camera, but definitely in our own eyes at a bare minimum; the camera of our eyes and perception and cognition of which the machines we use are but extensions.
What I see in your image is something like the origins of consciousness; that face in the ice looking back at its origins a a drip, and then perhaps realizing that that which is conscious of the drip was indeed once itself the drip in another iteration, another cycle.
Then I find myself asking what is "acceptably sharp focus" and how if we enlarge any image enough we find blurriness ultimately, and how it's all just a matter of degree, not a qualitative distinction.
Water, after all, is the key to life here on planet Earth; in all its three common forms, and before that, where it came from. Within that drop about to fall I see the entire history of life on earth, through the imagined eyes of the snowman.
Great WC post