Friday 20 August 2010

i have always wondered whether, when taking a photograph, it is i who absorbs the soul of the landscape or the landscape absorbs mine

Photobucket







Photobucket







Photobucket















Photobucket





.
.

32 comments:

  1. if i am a force of nature, than you, merc, embody the archetypes behind it :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Maybe the feeling is mutual and fluctuates. Like an ongoing love affair. It is a beautiful question to pose and I enjoyed pondering it while gazing upon the dark dynamic tempestuous scenery.

    ReplyDelete
  3. These images are swirling, dazzling, dizzying... even Van Gogh could not have done this better than Roxana... I think I'll just slip in and swim in them for a while, in these whirlpools of raw emotion, these whirlwinds of spinning, flowing, melting, diffusing energy... yes, you have posed exactly the question that should always be posed. And when we look into the light, does the light become a part of us, or do we become a part of the light. Or are we not one already with the landscape and the light ? Is there a boundary between us ? I think not.

    Ah but Roxana, are you writing from a new bird's nest now ? Have you been out flying through the landscape leaving swirling vapor trails behind you, picking up tender, colorful grasses and flower petals to line your nest ?

    Be well, and promise not to cut off any of your ear, though they are hidden by all that long hair, I'm sure they are beautiful just as they are...

    ReplyDelete
  4. I now feel all stirred up inside, so in this case I believe it is I who absorbs the soul of the landscape via your images. The second-to-last one is my favorite. But, am I its favorite?.......hmmm, I wonder.

    ReplyDelete
  5. ah R, what would the landscape be without your soul? not a landscape... but a field to be ploughed, electricity pylons to be kept in good working order, .... or merely a collection of grass blades struggling for water & sun :-)

    you create this landscape: in your mind's eye & in your camera's viewer (and to our great delight!)!

    ReplyDelete
  6. you have a gift for translating the landscape via your soul, in that sense every one of these photographs is a photo of you

    ReplyDelete
  7. merci pour ta jolie note tu es tellement gentille.
    chère Roxana, merci pour un autre chef d'oeuvre. Ton travail est tellement puissant parceque tu attrapes les émotions fortes de la vie et tu les présente à nous étendues à travers nos esprits pour réfléchir.

    Once again Roxana I feel that your magnificent image marries the text beautifully.
    We ARE the soul of the landscape when we consider the forces of nature we feel the tempest within, the exhiliration before the fatality.

    Around this time of year with so many natural disasters occuring it is catharctic to view images such as this.

    I live an entire canadian province away from some devastating forest fires and yet we are advised to stay indoors over the weekend as much as possible as the wind has been a messenger of these wildfires and the smoke that has settled over our urban valley is like a heavy mist......and the heavy mist of our minds.....as is protrayed in your image


    HUGS

    anyway I wish you beautiful magical summer days and like you said we can feel the winds of autumn already but autumn has its own beautiful colours...

    ReplyDelete
  8. And also- we are the soul of the landscape and you have just the right balance in your work to depict this.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Den Herzschlag anzupassen scheint fast zu gewagt, und dennoch unmöglich nicht zu tun - Gedankenverloren gibt man sich hin.

    ReplyDelete
  10. ultima...trebuie sa te golesti de tine insuti si sa lasi loc acelui altceva, strain si totusi atat de familiar, ca sa poti fotografia sa...simti asa...

    ReplyDelete
  11. frumos ai zugravit ultima imagine!nuante, tuse...perfect.

    ReplyDelete
  12. digital van gogh on acid......but no, roxana showing us the deep within

    ReplyDelete
  13. peitschende Gedanken und Zerrissenheit der Gefühle, sagen mir diese Bilder, aber auch ein Aufbrausen der Natur, das Heulen des Windes und schliesslich ein innerlicher Schrei gegen die eigene Traurigkeit...
    Nun, nun, ob das wohl in die Nähe Deiner Gedanken kommt, liebe Roxana?!
    Was auch immer Deine Gefühle in Dir hervorrufen, ich wünsche Dir, liebe Roxana, dass Du die innere Stille wiederfindest!
    Renée

    ReplyDelete
  14. Le ciel noir, la tornade, avant l'entrée au pays d'Oz...
    Bises

    ReplyDelete
  15. The reciprocal mark-making of Nature upon the landscape of the soul can only be sensed, although your photographs go a long way towards interpreting the sensation.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Stickup Artist, i like that, ongoing love affair :-)





    Owen, you make me smile, i don't think anybody ever connected my landscapes with my (presumably) beautiful ears until now :-)
    the nest is still under construction and the bird's energy is almost extinguished but she struggles and struggles... no time for flying above such landscapes, i took these pictures at the beginning of summer, i think, but only finished them now...







    'but am i its favourite?' - so witty, Lydia, thank you :-)






    Ian, a warm thank you full of lavender blooms gathered on all those maps...



    i think so too, swiss!

    ReplyDelete
  17. dear fff,
    how you know to make me proud of my landscapes, which i shouldn't, i should say that it is only nature making herself visible through me (as the romantic poets, faking humility when they in fact claimed a godlike creative power :-)

    perhaps i was thinking of this line somebody posted, when i gave this title:
    “I love trains, and they have always loved me back. What does it mean to be loved by a train?"
    :-)





    Marion, how wonderfully you put it, thank you so much...






    je te remercie de tout coeur, chere Amar, pour ton empathie et ton enthousiasme pour mes images - non seulement tu y vois des choses inattendues mais tu les interpretes toujours d'une facon qui ouvre tant de chemins nouveaux pour moi et mes reveries :-)
    yes, the landscape is always 'us', the subject, and i think this is as much a blessing as it is a curse...
    hugs, a lot of hugs back :-)






    Robert, wenn du wuesstest, wie sehr ich dein Schreiben vermisse - oft erblicke ich seine ganze Tiefe und Schoenheit in deinen Kommentaren, aber trotzdem vermisse ich es...

    ReplyDelete
  18. Simona si I.B., se pare ca cititorii mei romani s-au pus de acord, ultima le spune cel mai mult :-)
    si ce frumos ai exprimat asta, Simona, e esenta fotografiei, nu, aceasta capacitate - eu asa simt si spre asta tind.
    va multumesc mult, mult de tot.





    sutton, how strange that the photographer seems to have the same ability as the poet, to show us the deep within, even if the picture is forever glued to its represented object, from the real world, as Barthes puts it, and thus more limited than poetry in its means...





    Liebste Renée, vielleicht kann man gerade dadurch seine innere Stille wiederfinden, dass man das ungeheuerliche Aubrausen der Natur aus der Ferne betrachtet - und dann fuehlt man sich in der eigenen Welt beschuetzt, trotz der vielen Sorgen und bedrueckenden Gedanken...
    viel Liebe und Freude dir auch, ich umarme dich ...





    K'line, l'entree au pays d'Oz, ca m'a fait sourire et je te le fais cadeau, mon sourire :-)
    bises





    dear Lynne, i think our entire art and culture and way of life bear the marks of the geography surrounding us, thus the landscape we live in is really one of the most important factors making us who we are... a fascinating topic, i have always pondered it.

    ReplyDelete
  19. je pense à une tornade de la vie; des couleurs qui tourne avec une force plus ou moins grande; très riche.

    ReplyDelete
  20. How much power can be in the tenderness of art

    ReplyDelete
  21. my words burn to smoke and dream in this air ... i can only offer those of another (but an other who matters greatly)

    Charles Wright
    All Landscape is Abstract, and Tends to Repeat Itself


    It's late August, and prophets are calling their bears in.

    The sacred is frightening to the astral body,
    As is its absence.
    We have to choose which fear is our consolation.
    Everything comes ex alto,
    We'd like to believe, the origin and the end, or
    Non-origin and the non-end,
    each distant and inaccessible.

    Over the Blue Ridge, the whisperer starts to whisper in tongues.

    Remembered landscapes are left in me
    The way a bee leaves its sting,
    hopelessly, passion-placed,
    Untranslatable language.
    Non-mystical, insoluble in blood, they act as an opposite
    To the absolute, whose words are a solitude, and set to music.

    All forms of landscape are autobiographical.

    ReplyDelete
  22. A truly wonderful series, Roxana. I especially like the image with power lines and the image beneath that one, with what looks like a tree tornado. There's an emanation just above the horizon that I love. Again, such intriguing subtlety.

    Do you know the scientific work of Rupert Sheldrake? His theory of "morphic resonance" is one I think you'd enjoy, as your photographs tend to prove him right. The idea is that all things are surrounded by fields of memory which not only speak to one another but influence and reshape the forms of one another. I see it clearly in your emanations.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Alain, tornade de la vie, c'est tres beau comme metaphore...
    je t'embrasse, comme toujours.
    ps. aujourdh'hui j'ai essaye de recuperer sur ton blog, j'espere que tu as eu mes commentaires meme si j'ai ecrit sur des postes pas si recents...

    ReplyDelete
  24. James, this poem made me understand my landscapes, in a way i would have never thought possible...
    thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  25. thank you for stopping by, Steven, and for your kind words. i am not familiar with this theory but it surely sounds intriguing, i will read about it.
    i have another series centred on power lines that i took at the same time, but i couldn't post everything now so i just concentrated on the tree tornadoes here :-)

    ReplyDelete
  26. These are beyond words. Like being part of a meteor shower, or an ear of corn, or a passing cloud-shadow. Truly lovely, as old as time and yet utterly new.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Roxana

    A (rather long) comment that takes up your question and one of its responses:

    http://decoys.typepad.com/decoys/2010/08/all-forms-of-landscape-are-autobiographical.html

    Hello again by the way!

    D.

    ReplyDelete
  28. When i have a dream, it absorbs me and my soul. When i walk outside, in a farrago of hibiscus and oleander, it absorbs my soul. When i take a photograph, here too, i am absorbed. The circle is never broken. I can not escape what i am. Dearest, can you?

    ReplyDelete
  29. magnifique, magnifique, magnifique !
    je suis comblée, merci belle roxana pour ton talent partagé

    ReplyDelete