Nothing to Look At, Plenty to See

A doctor once asked about my photography, and I mentioned I liked working with landscapes. He said it must be really difficult, as there was nothing here in eastern North Carolina to look at. That response stung quite a bit. While it’s true that there are few of the kinds of landmarks and geographical features often associated with landscape photography, I’m rarely bored when driving around the countryside.

I’m remembering a Dennis the Menace cartoon from long ago where he’s almost covered up in toys and opened boxes on Christmas morning; he looks around and says “Is this all!?” Sometimes I have felt that way while reviewing photos after a trip out - I was excited there, let down here at home. I began to wonder if the transition from sight to perception might be handled differently.

There was a TV program on the Parthenon a while back, and when they came to explaining entasis a neuroscientist was brought on who said “We think the eye sees images and sends them to the brain, but there’s no one up there to look at an image. Images are put together in the brain with the raw data that comes in.” (Eihei Dogen said much the same thing in the 13th century.) Well, is there only one way to assemble that data???

These are shown in the order of their making. The exploration continues.