Plague Journal, Effulgence
That word describes the response of the germ of life to the sun’s warmth. We see it all around this time of year. I noticed it yesterday. My camera helps me to be more careful as I take note of how fortunate it is to be alive to see all of this happening. The camera lens sees different than does the eye. The eye is an extension of the brain, a receptor of data in the form of light, which is processed rapid-fire, stitched into a manifold of meaning, which is never static. The mind is always moving because that is what survival of the organism demands. Be still for too long, be situationally unaware, and you risk being eaten. That is what our ancestors on the savanna knew to be fact.
The camera lens, by contrast, captures light in a static mode, freezes time and discloses beauty which we’d otherwise surely miss. The camera is an extension of the eye, makes possible something that the eye is temperamentally unsuited to do. Unsuited, that is, unless one has the practice of a Zen master.
These photos were taken in the last 24 hours. The grouping of the Japanese garden are of the Fabyan Japanese Tea Garden here in Batavia.