Monday, April 1, 2013

"Midges Ascending" and Ordinary Miracles

                                          Midges Ascending ©Lynne Buchanan
                                          All Rights Reserved, Watermarked by Digimarc
         
The photograph above, Midges Ascending, is one of approximately 50 images currently on view in my solo exhibition “On the River’s of Florida, Lynne Buchanan’s Photographic Meditations."  The exhibition is at the South Florida Museum in Bradenton and has already been extended through May 12th.  The image was made on Thanksgiving Day on the Santa Fe River in North Florida.  We were almost back to the boat launch, on a canoe trip following a delicious picnic, when we saw these midges illuminated by a shaft of light.  They looked like tiny golden orbs rising to the heavens.  The way the last rays of sunlight hit them cast reflections that looked like streaks of gold in the water.  It was truly magical and made me realize how miraculous even mundane things can be when viewed in the right light.  The scene was so surreal that the photograph feels more like a painting to me.  The way the midges transformed everything around them, even the water, made me think about the fabric of the universe and how everything is interrelated and in flux.  When my intuition picks up signals from animals, or I feel the energy of plants and trees, I often sense the energetic interconnectedness of life.  On this special day, however, I was actually able to see this web of life with my eyes and I was so thankful I had my camera with me to capture it visually.  Light is both the doorway to observing vibrations in the universe and the medium photographers work with, which is what makes photography the perfect art form for capturing and sharing everyday miracles.  I remember watching the sun hit the rippling waves in Vieques several years ago and feeling that I was connecting with a perpetual sense of becoming because everything before my eyes was shimmering so intensely.  Yesterday, each time the waves receded and the sunlight illuminated the mica in the wet sand on the beach at Torrey Pines, the shoreline sparkled and seemed to be made of gold.  When the light strikes and reveals the underlying magic of the universe it is hard not to appreciate the gift of life.


No comments:

Post a Comment