Monday, June 9, 2014

My Good Crop from Ireland and Scotland...



   Trying to narrow down all the images I received while on my pilgrimage to the sacred sites of Ireland and Scotland to just twelve…my “good crop” as Ansel Adams called his twelve favorite images from a year’s work…was daunting.  Yet, it allowed me to really plumb the depths of this journey and what I want to remember as the essence of the experience.  

   I chose each for very different reasons.  Some were sublime moments of sheer rapture as in my walk through the bluebells, on my 65th birthday, on the isle of Inchmahome in Scotland.  Others were an attempt, as poor as it might have been, to reveal the mystical atmosphere I discovered in the thin places I visited...the atmosphere of luminous light, like I found on Iona.  Then there was the wonderful delight of seeing the seal pups, watched over by a solitary cormorant, on my way to Staffa.  Each image in the twelve is intensely personal...each an icon of the experience.

   I offer them to you to look at and enjoy as you wish and perhaps as an encouragement to take your own journey this summer, up close or far away, and then choose your own “good crop” of images from the experience.  I believe it will be a worthwhile enterprise.



4 comments:

kimmanleyort said...

Wonderful images, Brenda, that took me right back there. i look forward to reading more about your pilgrimage,

Patricia Turner said...

Oops! Brenda? Were you perhaps thinking of another blog? Anyway, if it me, thank you!

Carolyn said...

Patricia, a good crop indeed. These are such personal images, and therefore, powerful.

Patricia, do you use a tripod? I am looking for a way to slow down when photographing, and I'm wondering if a tripod would encourage me to stop and see rather than my current "spot and shoot".

I like Ansel Adams idea of what constitutes a good crop -- perhaps I just need to reflect more on on which images are my good crop, instead of hauling around a tripod.

Welcome home, Patricia.

Patricia Turner said...

Thank you Carolyn! It is so good to be home. No, I don't use a tripod but I do practice visual listening. You can see the posts pertaining to this in the right sidebar, the last entry in the subject section. These simple techniques will help you slow down and enter into a dialogue with the landscape. It does take time, something lots of people don't take.