There's nothing like a quiet walk out in nature to clear the mind and recharge the body. Whether it's a short time or several hours, I always feel better at the end of the journey. The walks never seem to get repetitive or routine - and we are fortunate here in western Oregon to live close to so many trails which can be enjoyed, rain or shine.
It was on one of these local trails where the natural tree patterns and structure caught my interest. The patterns change from season-to-season as well as during the day with the angle of the sun. This led to some whimsical experimenting in the digital darkroom, and eventually hatched a series of the "blots" you see here and in the books.
If you studied psychology in college, you probably remember the chapter about Rorschach Ink Blots. These abstract images of symmetrical ink blots on a page were meant to help in diagnosing certain mental conditions back in the 1920's. It would be an understatement to say the method was met with skepticism, then and now. You can read more about the history of those ink blots on Wikipedia.
Not to worry though, no psychoanalysis is at play here! Rather, the enjoyment of creating an expanded, alternate view is my only motivation in this project. That said, feel free to stare at each image from varied distances - you may just notice something staring back!
This endeavor has taken many months for it to arrive at this stage and has been a fun and rewarding one for me. I hope you enjoy following along as I share more of the images here! To preview the Nature Blots books, see the links below. The links take you to PDF versions of the books. One is a hard cover, the other a smaller, soft cover.
Here are a few examples of the photos to come out of the project. Click a photo to enlarge.
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| Nature Blot 230962 |
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| Nature Blot 3622 |
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| Nature Blot 1346 |
Nature Blot Book Preview Links
To date, I have created two "print on demand" books which you can preview here. One is a 13 x 11 inch hard cover "coffee table" type book with 46 pages. The other is an 8 x 10 inch soft cover book with the same photos, just a bit smaller. Here are the links to the PDF files you can view in your browser or download.View the Hard Cover Book
View the Soft Cover Book
