May 13th, 2014

Yesterday morning, I sat by the water and noticed patterns of reflections: thus, yesterday's image.  It may not be a good image, but it shows something of what is there to be seen if we will look.  Then I read a couple of comments by Robert Adams, and they seem to me to reflect something I try to show in my photographic images:


"Even if one believes . . . that the general nature of life is suffering, there are still pleasures to be enjoyed.  Eating at a beautifully set table, for example.  And music.  And working with hand tools . . . Finding the shape in the  wood."  (CN--or reflected patterns in the water.)


Earlier in this blog I wrote about the problem of sentimentality.  Here's what Adams wrote on that question:  "We wonder if we have the right, here in our damaged landscape, to enjoy beautiful exceptions like an old tree  or unpolluted skies.  In order to guard against sentimentality . . . perhaps we should turn away from improbabilities.


What is the  excess, however, that defines sentimentality?  What is too much respect for a juniper or a cottonwood?  What is the worth of evidence that allows hope?"