The Beauty of Ordinary
It is rewarding to be challenged by a mentor, to spark an interest or explore ideas you wouldn't have otherwise considered. A mentor of mine challenged me to take inspiration from Brian Kosoff's work and craft similar photographs of my own.
While chasing the landscape, finding that perfect confluence of light, shadow and minimalism in an expansive canvas is exquisitely rewarding, there is a great artistic tradition in finding beauty in the mundane, in the whisper of a cobweb, the texture of a torn leaf, in wine glasses, cutlery and crockery. When you first look at them, it is easy, especially in the bustle of our Instagram and social media dopamine hits, to just swipe past the mundane and not dwell on the details.
Crafting works like these though, can change you. Spending the time, carefully arranging and playing with shadow, light, texture, slowly seeps into your perception of the world and you're able to linger, to pause, to stay a while and enjoy the extraordinary beauty of the most ordinary things. Stay a while with me, I invite you to look at these but don't rush past, stay here, linger, let your eye wander, unpick tiny details.
My recreation of one of Kosoff's work. I like how the light angles and shifts on the circle, smooth but ridged, undulating in concentric circles. I can feel that texture under my finger as I run it along the rim.
More of the same glasses, but the light takes on fascinating shapes here, more undulation, more shapeless, forming little pools. The tiny imperfections in the glass catch my eye too, air bubbles, stretched and warped in places.
A glass of water, caught in sunlight, minute droplets of water clinging onto the glass at the top, and in the right, a tiny air bubble, suspended, waiting. I like the play of light and shadow here, vertical lines of light and dark.
Satin smooth, light and delicate, soft gentle shadows in muted greys. There is a gentle luminosity to how the light catches the rim that fascinates me, a soft glow that breathes, ever so softly.
I love how the dark concentrates the light, focusses it along the rim into bright, stark lines. I like how the light, just those lines of light, form an abstract, shapeless pattern; if I squint, it blurs into something familiar, but I can't quite place what it is. There is something luxurious about the rest of the photograph being so richly dark.
Even the humble egg is a thing of beauty when you spend time with it, the delicate shell, the satin smooth eggshell texture, the mottled colours, that perfect oblong shape. There is the tiniest wisp of a feather too, hinting at another life.
The tangle of metal, entwined, uneven and slightly worn. I like how the light warps around these little dents, shaped by them, formed by them, how the light forms sharp ridges along the edge, triangles of vivid white.
Its a great creative exercise, a wonderful way to play, but I found it to have deeper and more meaning to me than just that. It re-ignited an ability to find beauty in simple things, no, that's not quite right - a way to see the beauty of simple, ordinary things, see how they're not ordinary at all. It's a type of meditation, seeing and enjoying the play of light, shadow and texture of a thing, absorbing it, being with it. Mindfulness, with photography.
Its changed my landscape photography too.
The fine texture of sand, clothed around a rock. The play of light and shadow on the soft, lined texture of the sand.
The gentle, luminous glow of light on pillars, how the light wraps and flows around them, casting shadows on the rough textured plaster.
The play of shadows, the shapes they form, how the soft and harsh shadows blend into each other, strips of lighter and darker darkness.
My favourite of the prints I've shared today. While sitting at the edge of a lake, the reflection of light in the water caught my eye, the light dancing across the surface. These leaves, their reflection caught in the ripples, disappearing, forming, breaking apart and coming together, formless and ephemeral. I watched the water gently tease those reflected leaves for quite a while. The people with me didn't understand why I wanted to linger and watch them play some more, and I didn't have the words to explain myself properly. But perhaps this photograph captures a tiny essence of what I felt that day, it certainly brings that moment back for me.
“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.” - Arundhati Roy
