Tulip bark poplar: This bark belongs to a tree that is forty feet tall. It casts a shade that prevents a nearby swamp rose from blooming, but it supplies the local bees with an ample supply of nourishment when its tulip poplar blossoms open in the spring. The histogram for this bark image looked like the top of a button mushroom telling me that it would not have classic visual interest—no startling contrast to act as a punctum for the eyes. The bark just grows in it's replicable pattern that is the on-and-on of this photograph.
These overlaid tulip poplar leaves repeat infinitely in the forest canopy of North Georgia. The tulip poplar emerged as the largest hardwood tree in this area with the decimation of the American Chestnut in the early part of the 19th century. All you have to do is look up and often what you see instead of the sky is this covering of leaves that act as lanterns in soft light.
This greyscale pattern is created by the surface reflection off of a retention pond photographed through a rain-streaked window. The black upraised forms look as if they could be animals, but instead they are fronds of aquatic plants commonly known as coon tails—named after their likeness to the tail of a raccoon.
This texture is a close-up of a common building material, translucent carrugated wall panels affixed to a 1940s era outdoor gymnasium. The scratches come from leaves, twigs, and other forest debris. The soil may be bat guano mixed with the dust that accumulates all over the structure. Despite the humble qualities of this inexpensive paneling, we sense something—some light source beyond.
My final photograph this week appears to be pine straw. In fact it is the interior of a birds nest that fell out of one of our trees. As you follow the pine straw and twigs with your eye, you begin to sense pattern and order in this structure—the "on-and-on" that could have been missed if I were trying to photograph a subject instead of the nothingness of a clump of pine straw and twigs.
My photos this week are influenced by "What Photography Is" by James Elkins. The photo caption on page 90 reads, "When the subject vanishes, what is left?" The subjects of all of these photos have left. Instead I offer these images as examples of the "the on-and-on" of the world that is worth noticing.
