Open Your Soul

Visual haiku: Fall in Love with the Extraordinary in the Ordinary

Grass made water

Greetings! Spring is still being fickle: it feels as if we are on the brink - flowers appearing, rowan unfolding leaves, pricks of green on birch but then I wake to find it’s snowing and the hills are white.

As you’ll see from the opening image, this week I’ve been revisiting a few things: revelling in the grasses while still rusty, and tweaking the title of my publication. I’ve a long list of ideas but for now I’ve settled on the suffix Letters from the Moss.

In this week’s letter, I’m considering how a fascination with the seemingly mundane can nourish our souls, and the transformative power of attention and connection. I’ve included an article voiceover in case you prefer to listen, but if so I do hope that you will return to see the images shared and watch the video included.

The wonder of unexpected beauty

Can you fall in love with something even if it is commonplace or seemingly mundane? I think you can, and I’ve been thinking about the why of it. Is it the moment of realisation, the wonder of seeing something unexpectedly beautiful at your feet? The possibility that there may be more to find?

Are we all explorers revisiting the memory of misplaced childhood treasure maps? Finding magic; under the spell.

The poetry of seeing

The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.

Dorothea Lange

Interrupting our vision with a box and lens changes what we notice. This intermediary removes wider distractions and the effect is most pronounced with a telephoto or close up lens. It amplifies our natural tendency to filter the scene to exclude all but the most important; depending on context, what we consider to be important will vary. But beyond the visual, there’s a poetry to it: a feeling; an evocation; a waking dream.

I’m again contemplating the draw, the umbilical that binds and feeds me. The reason for returning repeatedly to the same small quiet places - aside from it being a safety line in what now feel like perpetually troubled waters. It is the feeling, the experience, that sustains me and if I never saw the resulting photograph I think I would still continue my search. The process, not the outcome, is the driver. A connection to something (spiritual?) that we have largely left behind in our 21st century lives.

Embracing the process, not just the outcome

There doesn’t have to be a result - focusing on this risks stripping the joy. If painters can concentrate on the process, why can’t photographers? Is it the immediacy of what we do? If I am honest the images often rest on the hard drive; I select a few to share with you and leave the rest for later. Perhaps this postponement is in part a legacy from film where the process created its own pace notes, but it’s also a dopamine thing - we’re all hungry for more. We take so many images these days; instead of spending the time looking and only occasional taking, we use the camera as our eyes. Is this good? What do we miss? The simple truth is - too much.

The camera can still teach us to see the world if we let it. Front-facing cameras have encouraged humans to place themselves at the centre of the photograph and of nature. Social media encourages imitation and exaggeration. It’s important to remember that the ordinary can take our breath away if we pause, pay attention and look more closely. And through attention we will also notice the sounds, scents, touch and feel of a place. Being human, we begin to fall in love.

The draw of a small quiet place

You won’t be surprised to learn that I’ve been back to the moss since I wrote to you. I was fortunate to see those flowers on the Common Cottongrass last week; when I revisited the northerly stream of showers had dulled them.

I thought I’d share some of the images a little differently this week - to transport you, to convey the evocation that I feel. The video also follows my process of discovery and exploration frame by frame.

I seldom mention equipment as it’s not where my interest lies; so long as it meets my needs I’m happy and can concentrate on image making. I’m back to using my 11 year old Canon 6D and falling in love all over again with my 100mm macro lens. All the images are at f/2.8, varying the point of focus and watching the sunlight come and go.

The flow of words and the resonance of reading

Enter into the landscape. Repeatedly.
And in so doing it enters into you.

Richard Skelton

Sometimes I stumble upon revelation as I read the poetic prose of others. Sentences and fragments that trip the wire; fire the synapses. Their resonance may prompt me to lay down my own depositions of words, as in Hidden Depths.

Hidden Depths

In the seven months that I’ve been writing a weekly letter I’ve come to realise that the flow of words is as important to me as the making of images. Currently I’m back to handmade books, exploring how to reconcile the two to make five. Writing offers a space to dwell, to reflect, to connect, and along with the images it is something that I can share with you. A gift of small beauty, noticed.

Can you fall in love with something, even if it is commonplace or seemingly mundane? I believe the answer is yes, if you look closely and open your soul to what might be possible.

Which place will you enter into, repeatedly, and in so doing allow to enter into you?

Find the extraordinary in the ordinary

Thank you for joining me and for reading this. If you’ve enjoyed it, there are lots of ways to share this: every like, comment, recommendation for FLOW or restack on the Substack app prompts a fuzzy warm feeling and makes it all worthwhile.

Thank you to those of you who have chosen to support my writing here by taking out a paid subscription. If you do value the images and words that I share each week and have the means to do so please consider upgrading to a paid subscription which supports the time that I spend writing these letters to you. Alternately, bring some fluidity into your home with a book or a print from my website.

Thanks to Euan Ross for giving A New Topography a mention in his Biblioscapes newsletter; I have a few copies left if you’d like one.

Until next week, you’ll find more image rich writing in previous posts on FLOW’s home page.

And finally…

The simple that seduces

Sometimes it’s the simple that seduces. Perhaps it’s the old adage – less is more? A small point of focus, a hint of light, but above all else the fluid lines and the sense of movement in this photo speaks to me. It’s hard to leave ‘Flow’ behind: in essence it’s a legacy of the transformative power that water has had, and a guiding principle for how we might see and make and connect.

All words and images copyright © Michela Griffith except where otherwise noted