I am always amazed when out walking at how nature seems to throw up so many possibilities for creative work. The list seems endless, from rocks, to water, to plant life, to sky. Combinations of elements always seem to work well and today I want to share with you some quick photos I took whilst wandering around some local woods.
Silhouetting trees against the sky always works so well. It doesn't seem to matter what the colour of the sky or what the weather conditions. If it sunny you get one type of look, cloudy another, pouring with rain another one yet again. Winter obviously gives you a starker look than summer, spring will be different from autumn, but each season is just as important as the next. There is no real bad time to watch for the silhouette of trees against sky, all are valid and all have merit for your own creative outlet. All the combinations of season, weather, and even type of tree make the variety of imagery infinitely variable. No two views of the same vista can ever be the same, even from moment to moment, and certainly from day to day.
The great beauty about so much in the natural world is that it rarely has to be taken figuratively. Much of what you see can easily be interpreted as an abstraction. Pattern work is everywhere, as is texture, tone, and line. All can be used for whatever individual and unique perspective you have in mind. What could possibly be more open-ended than that? The five photos taken by me today could well be seen as trees silhouetted against a background of sky, but it is just as easily to see them as a complexity of lines and shapes with infinite possibilities in reinterpretation. You don't even have to have a great camera, which I clearly haven't. Sometimes the idiosyncrasies or limitations of the tools you use can be pulled into the experience, just another form of interpretation.
There are so many variables in our own lives, and it is true to say the same about every conceivable thing around us. Watching just this single phenomenon of trees against sky, every single individual will see differences that are unique to them, and not just in the external influences of climate and time of day, month, or year. Each of us has our own individual way of seeing the world. We are all connected up differently and uniquely, we sense the world on our own terms through our past experiences, as well as our present.
We also have our own individual practical differences that give us unique perspectives of the world around us. The solitary distinction that each of our bodies gives to the way that our eyes are constructed, as well as the individual pathways that connect them to our brain. The way that each brain reinterprets what it is seeing, judging, and quantifying each view in the best way that suits our individual character. No two views through human eyes can ever be the same, despite the fact that there are seven billion of us and counting.
All of the countless checks and balances that go on in our bodies between eyeball to brain go towards making the great beauty of each individual life the truly wonderful and unique experience that it is. That we are able to appreciate the world around us, tasting its multiplicity as well as its simplicity, should give us all a constant thrill of discovery and appreciation, that we can also reflect our appreciation through creativity is especially significant.
The creative arts gives us humans a unique and individual tool in which to express ourselves. It is something that all of us have and yet few of us use. The great tragedy for the creative arts, and certainly for humans in general, is that it is not seen as the integral part of our character that it truly is. We are all as a species naturally empowered to be observant, curious, empathic, reflective, expansive, they have been with us ever since our early development. They are also all character traits that are conducive to self-expression and therefore, should make creative art a natural for all of us, not just a few.
Getting more people to observe the details of life, whether in our fellow humans or the variety of plant and animal species that we share this biosphere with, should be one of the more pressing of tasks facing us. By understanding complexity, by encouraging the growth of our own empathy, by promoting the outward signs of our inquisitiveness, although these are roles that we should find natural and self-evident, if they are perceived to be missing or at least stunted due to the skewed nature of our contemporary culture, they should be enthusiastically encouraged in us all, old or young, it should be irrespective as to who we are, where we live, or what stage of life we are at.
To that extent, most of us have access to trees, and all of us have access to sky. At the moment both are relatively free and can be viewed without having to book in advance. Some of us are lucky enough to have access to some of the great woodlands of the world, others of us have access to some of the great city parks of the planet, but even if the only tree you can find is a stunted example sitting in a pot in a shopping centre, or a clump growing at the edge of some waste urban or industrial scrubland, they are still just as valuable and just as creatively useful as the best redwood or oak. All are worth observing, admiring, and investigating. If all you have is one single poor example of a tree, look through its branches at the silhouetted sky and be amazed at the perspective and experience that you have been given, and then use that gift to give another gift through your own creativity.
Further reading links: