Surfacing Attention

Surfaces and Textures are an interesting theme for photography.  There are so many kinds of surface structures, details, shapes, and textures as the subject of the image. The photographer's task is to showcase the surface and texture itself.   There are so many places to find these - everywhere - in the grain patterns of wood, the surface of stones, crystals of snow and ice, water, fabric, metal, leaves, sand, woven objects, clouds.  Included are urban decay surfaces such as rust and decay where scratches and dents create surface structure, texture, detail, and colour. Textures can occur at all level – including aerial photography and landscape views. The types of surfaces and textures include: rough, ragged, gritty, bumpy, spiky, sharp, fuzzy, slimy, slick, slippery, smooth, soft, silky, scaly, coarse, burl, knot, slub, abrasive, scratchy, shaggy, bristly, prickly, spiny, thorny, burnished, glossy, polished, powdery, and fine grain. So I went to two of my own portfolios to see what was there - Surfacing Attention and Nature's Impressions - and clipped the thumbnail image displays.  We see the array of surfaces and textures all around us.

Barking Up a Tree

How loud is a typical day? I wondered this when I was walking into the wind yesterday and it seemed to fill up my ears. Here are the measurements of a blogger who has serious hearing impairment: "I wake up to the flash of the alarm on my iPhone. (For those of us with hearing loss, there’s no point having an alarm that makes a sound, as we aren’t able to hear it.) The noise in my quiet bedroom room measures 44dB. I cough (87dB), then I get up and nip to the loo. Flushing the toilet registers 84dB. I go downstairs to let our dog, Tilly out. As I wait for her to come back in, I run the tap (85dB) and put the kettle on to boil (82dB). I pour water from the kettle into a cup (52dB), and open the door of the refrigerator (65dB). Then, I empty the dishwasher and put away the items, which make the following sounds: Crockery/Dishes  (89dB) Cutlery (91dB) Glasses clinking together (94dB) I pop some bread in the toaster and it makes a kind of ‘ticking’ sound as the control knob rotates. (70dB) I go for my shower (93 dB), then I dry my hair using the hairdryer (95dB). The loudest sound I was exposed to on this particular day, was the traffic noise when in the car with the windows open, which registered 99dB. The hedge-trimmer was the second loudest sound I encountered at 97dB.  She used the Decibel 10th app. Her article says that sounds louder than 85 dB can cause permanent hearing loss.  So I guess I met a big noise yesterday.  Here are abstracts of tree bark.

Barking

Christmas is its own Season

What makes Christmas its own season?  We are well into the Christmas season, with lots of shopping, decorations,  and lights. The weather seasons are what first come to mind. There are four seasons defined as divisions of the year marked by changes in weather, ecology and hours of daylight in our Northern Hemisphere.  In tropical climates there are two or three - rainy and dry are the common ones.   Some calendars in south Asia have a six-season method where there are from one to three seasons between summer and winter.  The two polar regions have two seasons - all sun and no sun. Wikipedia helps us understand  our current experience of the "Christmas season".  Also known as the festive season,the holiday season (mainly in the U.S. and Canada), or simply the holidays - an annually recurring period recognized in many Western and Western-influenced countries that is generally considered to run from late November to early January, defined as incorporating at least Christmas, and usually New Year, and sometimes various other holidays and festivals. Christmastide started as a season of the liturgical year in Christian religions. As you would intuitively know, it changed in the twentieth century with the rise of retail shopping.  The transition to the term 'holiday season' is a North American expression that has come about with increasing secularization.   We're looking at abstracts of birch bark today.  This one is at the Vineland Research Station where there is a little arboretum. We think of the birch as a smooth bark, like the first photo, but a close-up look reveals many different landscapes.