All around the valley the farmers have been making hay even when the sun hasn't been shining. The hill between my place and the southern Ruahine Range has an intriguing pattern, but this evening at dusk it was the bead tree that drew my eye. I've photographed this many times before but can't resist its allure. This time I decided to give the photograph a different kind of feel — something to reflect how I was feeling. Something, I hope, to make you pause.
All content © 2015 Pete McGregor
Pause I certainly did, Pete. The quality of the light and how the tree comes out of the background is beautifully captured. It might have been a totally flat and uninteresting composition if the whole had been bathed in bright sunlight against a blue sky.
ReplyDeleteEverything looks so still: the animals, the grass in the paddocks, the clouds - but the branches on the tree are not just moving, they look as if some internal energy is sending them whipping and whirling against the quiet air. I'm curious about what you could hear as you took this image: normally, when you look at an image, you can guess, but this image is so full of contradiction that I can't.
ReplyDeleteThanks Avus. With this treatment the tree does seem more prominent, and that was important to me. You're right, too, about how this would have been, well, lifeless, I suppose, on a blue-sky day.
ReplyDeleteLisa, you got it right — the wind was blustering wildly. That's pretty much all I could hear — oh, and the lambs complaining that they hadn't been fed, and the brainless spaniel barking. Thanks for pointing out the contradiction, too. I know what you mean; I can see it now, but had missed it until you pointed it out.
Movement in stillness, greyness in color, everything and nothing all together and alone.
ReplyDeleteZhoen, a friend once told me of the term 'tensile polarity', and maybe that fits this photograph.
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