It’s all lines and light.
That’s what I see. Curved lines, straight lines. Diagonal, vertical, horizontal. How best to frame the lines? That’s the only question I have to answer.
And then there’s the light. Light highlights lines, creates shapes or forms. Soft light, hard light.
It’s all lines and light.
I can’t tell you how many times this mantra has popped into my head this month. It started in Singapore, the whisper about lines and light. And almost every time I pick up a camera to take an image since then that’s all I think, all I see. The lines and the light.
Maybe it’s because it’s been a crazy month. Away more than home. No time to stop and think, no time to breathe. Instead of deep contemplation, I experience the world. I do. I photograph.
And I boil it down to the essentials: lines and light. That’s all we really have to work with.
This is an interesting Photo-Heart Connection for me this month. I literally could have chosen almost any photograph I’ve taken, because this mantra was in my head for most of them. Getting home from our Spring Break trip to the California Redwoods yesterday afternoon, I didn’t even know how to begin approaching the Photo-Heart Connection for March. I have been working my way through piles of laundry, trying to transfer photographs, and getting ready for a very busy week following a very busy month. But this morning, I woke up with my “It’s all lines and light” mantra in my head and I knew that was it. My Photo-Heart Connection this month is about cutting it down to the essentials. In my photographs, in my life. That’s what has to happen sometimes. Sometimes there are periods of intense doing to feed the thinking that will come later. Right now I’m focused on lines and light. I’ll look back and pull the meaning out of that later, when I’m not so busy. I always do.
This month’s photograph, by the way, is from the Botanic Gardens in Singapore. From the Orchid Gardens, actually. I was more interested in the fantastic lines and light in these leaves than the unique, colorful flowers blooming everywhere.
How about you? Where have you found your Photo-Heart Connection this month? Share it with us.
Lines and light in black and white. Nicely played. Analytical lines and light after dipping into abstract trees against painterly backdrops. Quite a 180 degree shift. Mantra. Message. Structure. Maybe hungry for that….or not. Funny how our images play with our heads.
Hope you figure it out-or maybe that more structured message and approach will morph with the abstraction into a new output you can’t even imagine.
Ain’t it fun to ride the wave?
There is nothing else but this – light and lines. You have distilled photography down into its very essence with a magnificent image of that – an therefore, so much more.
I’m so glad I found this link up {thanks to Kim at Picking Poppies) – Over the last year or so I have grown to love my heart connection to the practice of photography – not just to the photos themselves. I am learning to see lines and light…learning so many things! And feel like a world is opening up to me! Thanks for hosting this!
What a powerful image, love the play of light and dark. For me March has been a month of contradictions in which light and dark have featured.
I can feel the texture in this photograph. Pure and simple…and pleasing to my fingertips. I am going to look at my March photos, right now!
Such a new direction for you, Kat — very exciting to see your photography evolve. “Cutting down to the essentials” really resonates with me, as this has been the focus of my energy in the last six months. It hasn’t shown up in my photography yet, but perhaps it will. I love how you found lines and light in nature — just beautiful!
Beautiful! And, yes, photography is all about the light! I just wrote my post which will go live tonight and had a bit of an epiphany when putting it together.
Will link up tomorrow. Thanks for hosting,
Rinda
Very interesting concept – and wonderful photos.
I must be honest. I’ve haven’t thought of photography this way…lines and light. You’re so right, it’s all in how we capture those lines and the light. I love the abstract look of your image. It’s perfect in black and white!
Yes, lines and light are really the core to great images. Lines that create the shapes, that captivate our hearts. Lines that lead us in, takes us out and pull back in again. To me, the lines and the light say pay attention over here! I’m curious as to what you will pull from this later. Glad to had a great time in Singapore!!
Light and line – the very essence. Thank you, it all points to simplicity and it is wonderful to read why people choose the photographs they do.
I love it when I read something like “its all about lines and light” You are so right of course but you wrote it down…thank you and thank you for PHC
Beautiful lines and light!
Hi Kat, I realized that I had visited so many participants in our monthly exercise, but I hadn’t yet been here to visit you! I love your second shot of leaves and how you explain that it’s all about lines and light! I love the different directions the leaves take to create an abstract photo and it’s lovely the way the light creates yet more lines in-between the leaves!