Considering Flow
...and the power of The Edit
It’s Leaf Peeper season in Vermont - - For a reason.
Year after year, the forests blossom, just before they sleep.
And year after year, they intoxicate - - a decade ago, on October 16, 2015, in Sharon, Vermont…
…and this past week at Seyon Lodge State Park, in Groton, Vermont and at the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historic Park, also in Vermont.
Reflections shape shift in water then; Leaves in motion and layered now.
I had intended to write about the editing process, and share how I practice letting go by focusing on what resonates most.1
But while I’d love to insights into these various choices,2 I’m actually much more interested in how these images communicate with what I’m creating now,
how the combined energies of water, light and air, create unexpected geometries, veiled and in motion, mystical and weird, in conversation across time, and in this time, on a walk, in the woods, in mid October.
A composting, as it were, of elements - - mixed, mingled and re-imagined.
An intended discourse on the process of editing a particular body of work from a particular day flowed into an assemblage of diptychs across time.
Perhaps, these pairings reveal nothing more than my ongoing love for color, pattern and beauty. But there’s more…there always is with me.
It seems that it is impossible to let go of what no longer serves, whether objects, places or ways of being, without accepting that because those things were once part of our lives, whether for a minute or a lifetime, we are fundamentally different for having been in relationship with them.
This is particularly true with these photographs. I never would have gone searching for shape shifting leaves in 2015 if I hadn’t already explored those dynamics back in 2011 (It Glows, above and Painted Water, below - next to the compost photograph). Same place; Same time of year, a few years apart.
And double exposures might not have captivated my attention if these earlier impressions hadn’t entered my visual lexicon more than a decade before.
Isn’t that just the coolest?
It turns out that letting go is really just another phrase for paying attention to what we love most.
As always, thank you for sharing your time and this space with Lily and me.3
With gratitude for you being you,
Lyn
Isn’t it glorious how a day can start one way, with rain and mist and subtler hues, and evolve into something else entirely? I had not idea that that rainy morning in 2015 would evolve into such a tapestry of color, then and now.4
Who knew?
After reviewing the basic editing/rating I had done years before, I made some additional edits and ended up with 25 images (of which you see 24). Once loaded into their own folder, duplicate types of image presented themselves. How to choose? First I organized by color and form; Next I put pairs together and assessed textures, colors, etc. See Footnote #2 for more in depth info.
I have always tried to go with my first instincts when looking at a body of work, but it’s hard when each one has some compelling narrative embedded within. It took me about an hour to review different pairings of images, noting framing, whether or not I wanted blue sky or more or less painterliness…
The orange/salmon colored shape shifters presented the biggest challenge - - each one has such personality.
Here are some of the phrases and words I used as I went through the images (If I were my sister, Sarah Swett, I’d have cartons with thought-bubbles to reveal this part)
Love the big swoopy shapes and radiating circles. Leaves on the surface of the water add interesting texture. Ooh, that swirl looks like the profile of a sea creature with a green eye - - cute or creepy? Not sure.
And on it goes, downgrading from 3 stars to 2, removing from the project folder, slowly narrowing down. On a few I do a close crop and consider the painterly effect of using the texture and clarity controls in Lightroom…the added blur creates an entirely different image. More thoughts:
I’m not really into that sea creature…and prefer the swirls that look like puzzle pieces. Not sure what I think about the black tree trunks of some - - too straight or too curvy? Too dark or good contrast? What if I sort them again by color and form?
When I’m down to ten images, I start to sequence - - what I like and how it flows, one to the next…And in the process, I long for one of those images I downgraded before…and others feel repetitive. What interests and intrigues changes with context and time. Maybe a tighter edit on the blue oval image…what if I experiment with more blur.
Funny how I originally created these images in about an hour and it just took me about an hour to sort and sequence…
But in the end, there’s something missing. It’s too much water. How would they look with those images I’ve been creating just this week?
The Edit: The process of assembling words, images, notes or any other media into a format that works. In the case of photography, it can mean cropping an image or, as in 13 Tons of Love, compiling a body of work into a coherent flow, following threads of ideas and collaborations of color…the end of one project is just the beginning of another.
Crazy as it seems, Lilly was so busy off exploring the woods and I was so busy playing with leaves, I didn’t document her escapades this week!
Your reflection about letting go as a way of honoring something that has changed us is both comforting and stunning, like your photographs. Thank you for your work!
Lyn the colors and patterns you’re finding and showing us are amazing! Really fun to look at. Thanks, S