September 2023. It’s officially autumn. Daylight hours are fewer; daytime temperatures are milder. The humidity is lower. Mornings are cooler. The air conditioner does not run as often or as long. Leaves are beginning to turn.
I went for a walk around the ponds. I was supposed to be working on the weekend photo challenge for my creativity group in Girls with Cameras. The prompt was to decide on a line or a shape AND a color, make the images, and create a collage (which serves as the pattern). Well, let’s just say that the “rebel” in me did not follow directions! I went out with the idea of looking for a color first. Among the first things I saw were the spider lilies in the front yard. I got the tubers or bulbs from Mama when I got married. Mama had bunches of them growing by the screened-in back porch. I planted these in front of the first house we lived in, and there they have remained even though that original mobile home is no longer there. Those spider lilies inspired me to look for things in nature that are red.
As I wound up my walk, I came to the Knockout rose that Mama gave us several years ago for Christmas. This bush would grow as tall as the house if we let it! It’s already much taller than I am! I stopped to make images of some of the blooms–the last roses of summer. One thing that I noticed was the transparency of the petals as the afternoon sun shone through them. Another thing that caught my eye was the imperfection of the blooms. Many of them were already well past their prime and shedding their petals.
When I began learning about the concept of contemplative photography, I also learned about Mitsang contemplative photography, which asks the photographer to look at the world with an “open” mind to see what is authentically present without preconceptions. That led me to the concept of wabi sabi. Now, that is a term that is not easy to define. It is based on the Japanese notion of imperfection. But it’s more than just the idea that things are not perfect; it also carries the idea of impermanence. This idea is embodied in the traditional Japanese tea ceremonies in which tea is often served in vessels that are cracked, distorted, and old.
My images of the roses remind me somewhat of the notion of wabi sabi: the “blown” blooms, the wilted ones, even the ones that have turned brown. There is a beauty in the decline of the roses at the end of the season.
I’m learning a new app while making these collages. One of my former students loved using Canva to make presentations and projects. I have played with it on occasion, but I am not very proficient with it. However, a little bit of research led me to using the ready-made templates for photo collages. As a result, I just upload my photos to the app and move the selected images into the cells of the template. That aspect works much like the app Befunky, which I’ve used for a while.
I have decided to use my retirement to learn new things and to improve “old” things. I’m learning some new ways of thinking about photography through my participation in the Girls With Camera communities; I’m learning how to use Lightroom as an editing tool, and I’m learning new ways of presenting my photographs. Retirement is being good to me.
Telling Stories 