Colors of the Mind

                                 Buddha says "consciousness is colored by the states that visit it."  

 
When I am with a subject its my intention to connect  on some level.  To do so requires a certain investment, of time, patience, curiosity, and suspension of judgment.

In my experience beauty and stillness tends to create states of gratitude and joy.  Which got me to wondering what if the colors we see reveal (and hide) the feeling tone and the mental-states of our experience?  If so, what can we learn to see about ourselves through our subjects?  I've been photographing flowers for a long time and over time the colors I am drawn too have changed.  The flowers I am drawn too, have not changed,  But the  compositions and the color juxtapositions  of fore and background has changed not inconsiderably over the years.

The color combinations of purples and greens has a soothing, tranquil feeling tone about it for me.  When I work with those feeling-tones I often notice my mind grows still, the focus of my concentration narrows yet paradoxically I sense a widening of spaciousness, i become energized, my curiosity and inquiry fully engaged.  The photographic experience often becomes either a series of moments or a single eventful moment gifting me with a certified "Hallmark Movie Moment."  I am trying to show  the mood of my mind, and the rootedness of my opening to life.  Am I being grateful or greedy, wise or wise-assed?  In short, as Minor White once asked of his work: "does it feed the soul and if so, how?"

I wonder how and if this image feeds and nurtures others, if at all?  As for how it nurishes me, I am still exploring.  The original image of this image was taken at the Denver Botanical Gardens, hand held with a Tamron 90mm macro lens.  It selected me in that its coloration combinations acts as a magnet of the eye so of course, I keep coming back.  But this particular image holds a secret.

One day  I was out photographing and it was one of those occasions on which "nothing" seemed to rouse my eyes or my curiosity.  It so happened that I had some work prints with me and one was this morning glory.    It occured to me that I had brought my own "subject" with me.  I laid the print down under  a tree and watched how the light flickered and danced across the print, how the light re-illuminated various parts of the image and it occured to me.  Why not?

I like the idea and will continue to re-photograph photographs in which the subject truely is purely the light.  Light Dancing.

As for the colors, see colors of tranquility.

doc rob