15 photos
The Reflected Landscape
The tropical landscape is lush, bright and heavy with color and fantastic shapes crowded with untold varieties of life. For those of us who live in such a place and even for visitors, the landscape can become like a constant companion. Indeed, it can become almost intrusive... transforming us, and our worldview in ways both bold and subtle. The cloud forms are never the same; the sea can be rough or tranquil but never exactly in the same state. Can a palm tree have an identical twin? Like the vines of this green island the tendrils of the landscape can wrap themselves around your heart.
So what of the irony, a collection of black and white grayscale images of this most lush complex and colorful place? When the landscape is pared down to its essentials, what is left is reflected light. This light is what gives us the tones of bright and dark that grade from blinding white through the smooth shades of deepening gray to the darkest of blacks. With the landscape rendered in shades of gray we see anew the shapes and patterns of our world. When we see the tones of light and dark and the contrast between them, we have an opportunity to step back and reflect on our home and our place in the world.
Several years ago I would not have attempted this series of images. I did not have a trained eye with which to see the tonalities and certainly would not have been able to capture and represent the details in the shadows and the subtle shades of gray that you see in many of these photographs. My hope is that you will feel present in these images, as I was when the photographs were made and that you will see the landscape as I do.
The photographs in this collection were made over the past three years in and around Rincon, Puerto Rico. In fact, the images of Anasco Bay were made within steps of my home by the sea. The images, except the two infra red panoramas, were hand printed and all of the photographs were optimized for print. The images were chosen because they seemed to me to reflect iconic scenes from this coastal municipality. The elemental nature of the sky and the sea are especially potent for me in the views of Anasco Bay. The vegetation, with its exotic forms is especially abundant here even commonplace. We see our extravagant flowers and towering trees literally when we step out of doors. The structures, the pilings, the lighthouse and the abandoned yola speak to me of the works of man... and their fate.
The tropical landscape is lush, bright and heavy with color and fantastic shapes crowded with untold varieties of life. For those of us who live in such a place and even for visitors, the landscape can become like a constant companion. Indeed, it can become almost intrusive... transforming us, and our worldview in ways both bold and subtle. The cloud forms are never the same; the sea can be rough or tranquil but never exactly in the same state. Can a palm tree have an identical twin? Like the vines of this green island the tendrils of the landscape can wrap themselves around your heart.
So what of the irony, a collection of black and white grayscale images of this most lush complex and colorful place? When the landscape is pared down to its essentials, what is left is reflected light. This light is what gives us the tones of bright and dark that grade from blinding white through the smooth shades of deepening gray to the darkest of blacks. With the landscape rendered in shades of gray we see anew the shapes and patterns of our world. When we see the tones of light and dark and the contrast between them, we have an opportunity to step back and reflect on our home and our place in the world.
Several years ago I would not have attempted this series of images. I did not have a trained eye with which to see the tonalities and certainly would not have been able to capture and represent the details in the shadows and the subtle shades of gray that you see in many of these photographs. My hope is that you will feel present in these images, as I was when the photographs were made and that you will see the landscape as I do.
The photographs in this collection were made over the past three years in and around Rincon, Puerto Rico. In fact, the images of Anasco Bay were made within steps of my home by the sea. The images, except the two infra red panoramas, were hand printed and all of the photographs were optimized for print. The images were chosen because they seemed to me to reflect iconic scenes from this coastal municipality. The elemental nature of the sky and the sea are especially potent for me in the views of Anasco Bay. The vegetation, with its exotic forms is especially abundant here even commonplace. We see our extravagant flowers and towering trees literally when we step out of doors. The structures, the pilings, the lighthouse and the abandoned yola speak to me of the works of man... and their fate.
