Saguaro Wanderings: Seeing 2010 (#80)

For your consideration: a pair of black-and-white submissions, studies in form, texture and perhaps a bit of incongruity.

The image of the chair is the last I took during my retreat last weekend. On either side of the chapel's exterior are two courtyards. In my experience guests of the retreat center infrequently visit these serene, enclosed spaces. This chair seemed to buttress this observation; quite weathered, it appeared to have been propped against the church as an afterthought . . . The pose struck me as one of exhaustion, as if even the chair itself was worn out from waiting for someone to use it. Taken just after high noon, the sun being essentially directly overhead nicely accentuated the wall's texture; the shadow cast becomes a silhouette ironically mimicking the chair in its upright posture.

The second photograph was taken yesterday at a wedding. Moments before several toddlers were gleefully running amok beneath and betwixt these floating ovoids; a wonderfully playful shot was there but alas I wasn't quick enough to snap it. Still, common, otherwise unremarkable balloons can be surprisingly photogenic. There was an ethereal feel to this congregation of delicate stark white forms straining for freedom from their tethers against the background of a stand of redwood trees bearing sharp needles.

I deliberately exposed for the balloons' highlights so as to let the background foliage go dark in deep shadow areas, accentuating the simplicity of the foreground subjects against the complex structure of the trees. The blackness in the left portion of the frame adds to the sense of the balloon's attempted march across the scene towards the lightness beyond and above, while the central bare trunks parallel the ribbons and reinforce the tension of an attempted escape from earthly bondage.

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