Images of Granite Mountain

 

I took an early evening walk at Granite Mountain today and was taken by the moody light and shadow-fall. A storm is incoming and the extra moisture in the air diffused the remaining daylight. The earth looked heavy and solid, a dark underling beneath the whitewashed sky, reminiscent of Italian landscapes. The Southwest skies here are extraordinary, endlessly shifting and bending the light.

These photos were taken as prototypes for drawings and watercolors, and I was able to pull out the aspects that I wanted with my computer photo program. I increased shadow and highlights while decreasing contrast, and the results are moody and smolder like the diffused light in the early Dutch master's works. During the Monsoons, I've seen light run along the ground the way a flood of water would move. As the clouds travel swiftly across the sky under the sun, waves of light and shadow pass over the earths terrain in quick succession.

I like these images because much of the detail is lost and the crispness is blunted. They look like portals to another world, like dreams in passing. They have a quiet sense, like the vesper hour that is swiftly approaching.

On a more humorous note, I also found a dog poop enso. A perfect little ring of dog poop bleached white under the Arizona sun. Enso is a common circle form seen in Japanese calligraphy. Enso's origins appear to come from Zen Buddhism, symbolizing enlightened mind. It's said that the internal state of the calligrapher is revealed in the way they paint the enso, and I suppose that, in turn, it could be said that the internal state of the dog is revealed by the way they poop the enso. And it's back to the proverbial question " does a dog have Buddha nature?"