Saguaro Wanderings: Seeing 2010 (#26)

For your consideration, two selections . . .

The locale of the first is a site which I first photographed on a foggy morning many years ago (+25 is plausible), a statue of Father Serra.

That first effort was done on black-and-white film, and the best image on the roll was one where I laid on my back at the statue's base. The result was a perspective of a figure looming overhead against a flat, dark gray sky, arm and index figure thrust across the frame conveying an angry threat or reproach. From an emotional context it remains one of the most powerful photographs I've taken . . . it's working title is Father Knows Best. Yet, to date I've never published that original B&W effort.

The image offered here is one of several taken one a morning of rather different atmosphere, from a much delayed and long overdue return to the setting of the aforementioned negative. The mood in this scene is rather more optimistic.

The second entry below is a close up of the convergence of a tree with a staircase guard rail. Nature's power of perseverance and implacable progress towards growth never ceases to amaze me; here, as the tree grew up against the metal, it simply enveloped what it couldn't move.

My motive in creating this particular composition is to provide a more subtle nod towards the genesis and evolution of life; I'll leave the discernment of this to the viewer.

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