Designs In Nature: Photography and Synchronicity (or, How I Became a Blogger)

Followers of this blog know that, at least once a year, I escape to the tranquil outer banks of North Carolina to write and to watch the waves roll in...and they also know that I'm a late-comer to the world of computer technology. It was, in fact, a discovery that I made on those Carolina outer banks that led me to buy my first computer just two years ago. Since I inadvertently let June pass without any mention of my two year blog anniversary, I thought I'd take the time now to recount the event that ultimately led me to blog in the first place.

Along the waterway that separates the narrow, sandy island from the mainland of North Carolina, there are groupings of trees whose branches have been ravaged, bent, twisted, and gnarled by the forces of hurricane winds and other elements of the coastal climate. Stripped of their leaves and exposed to the glaring sun, the bark has turned a dry and powdery driftwood grey, which renders them as sculptures against the blue sky. While my husband and I were driving down the island's main road I saw, at the end of a short side-street, a group of trees - the shapes of which attracted me more than others (especially a felled tree entwined with leafy vines) and we doubled back to find them.

I got out of the car and started shooting with my film camera - a Nikon 6006. (I didn't own a digital camera then.) I'm not a pro, but I've taken lots of photographs in my day and I've sometimes experienced that feeling where you just know...where you just feel it before you see the results and this was one of those times.

I had the film developed and duplicate 4x6 prints made and, of themselves, they weren't much to look at, but there was something there that kept haunting me. One night I was lying in bed and holding the pictures up to the light and I realized that if I flipped the duplicate around and synchronized the two pictures it would create a pattern. Basic art school stuff, I'm sure, but this is where it gets interesting.

What I needed to do was to turn that into a photograph. But, how? I was working on a very primitive level, as you can see. I began by taking the negatives to my camera store and asking them if they could "put the film in backwards and print them in reverse". They looked at me like I was crazy (I am), but they did it without asking questions. (I'm surprised now that no one ever suggested using a computer...which I didn't have, anyway.) When I finally had the reverse images to match with the originals, I took those to be photocopied in multiples so that I could play around with them and create different patterns. The guys at the copy center were equally perplexed by my methods.

As the patterns began to take shape, something far more interesting emerged. Here in the patterns of the tree branches that grew on an island known to have been frequented by the notorious pirate, Blackbeard, and where legend has it he buried treasure - I discovered nearly twenty patterns including sea creatures, monkeys, the initial B - for Blackbeard, and most incredibly - a Jolly Roger - the pirate flag with insignia of skull and crossbones, only this one was formed entirely of tree branches. At its base, green leaves took the shape of a heart with crossed bones behind it. When I researched the Jolly Roger that Blackbeard flew I couldn't believe it: it was of a skeleton piercing a heart with an arrow. I also discovered the outline of a wolf's head - a fitting symbol to turn up in the land where Blackbeard once roamed - the wolf is 'referenced in the bible as a symbol of greed and destruction' (wiki) - two of Blackbeard's despicable traits.

I knew that these photographs needed to exist and I knew that I would need a computer to create them. The adage, 'It chose me, I didn't choose it', seems to apply here. I felt as if a duty had been handed me to make them exist. I've returned to that spot many times since I took the initial photos and, due to constant change in the natural world, those patterns will never exist in nature again. They're like snowflakes that can never be duplicated.

I bought a computer and, on my own, with no one to ask for help and with an overwhelming computer anxiety, I spent hours and weeks trying to teach myself how to work it and how to work with photos. (I paid a price - a nagging pain across my shoulders from repetitive movement which can keep me from blogging for days.) It was totally trial and error. I was thrilled when my friend gave me Photoshop 6.0 to help me along. I've finished all of the images in low resolution first as a learning experience, but I've yet to do the high resolution because there are still things I need to learn. The images are so large that I need to make sure I won't crash my computer when I put them together. See - still more to learn, lots of questions that need answers.

Eventually, when I do the high resolution images, I'm going to do a Blurb book so that I have a nice record of them. I don't particularly want to post them on my blog and was thinking about Flickr or some alternative where they could be viewed. I'd love to hear from any photographers who might have a suggestion for an alternative to Flickr.

If anyone made it this far - there's your answer - that's how I ended up with a computer... and a blog.

Photo C. Andrako All Rights Reserved 2010

Source: http://athousandclappinghands.blogspot.com/2010/08/designs-in-nature-photography-and.html