What's Your Line?

   One of the things I love to do from time to time is to focus on just one visual element and spend a day, even a week, exploring the many ways I might encounter it in the landscape.

   Line is a good one to start with.  The starkness of a Maine winter seems to favor this particular visual element.  By processing the images in black and white, the simplicity of the composition is greatly enhanced.

  

   Your line exploration can be literal, as in these wire fences and tomato cages or they can be the implied lines etched on the snow by their shadows.

   These explorations are really a way to fine tune your perceptual skills.  By focusing on only one element at a time, it allows your to push yourself to see the many ways it can be interpreted.

   Line can occur in the space between two objects...in the negative space.  Or it can be a dotted line when small objects, like fallen petals or stones, suggest a linear movement.  Line is a fascinating element to explore...from the cracks in the sidewalk to the bare branches of a tree silhouetted against a grey winter sky.  Look for lines in reflections as well as in objects...you will have no shortage of subject matter.

   The very first week I began to work on my photography again after a 25 year hiatus, was back in February of 2005.  One of the first images I made was the photograph on the right. It still remains one of my favorite images after all these years.  It has all the simple calligraphic beauty an photograph of this sort can have for me.

  Why not chose one of the visual elements to explore over the next week?  You can read about all the possibilities in this series I did awhile back.

A Contemplative

 Look at

the Visual Elements