Part One: Flora

A True Story:  

M and I stood in swarms of mosquitoes on the side of a mountain in a slippery pile of ankle breaking talus to photograph wildflowers — she whipped out her wide angle lens and I chose my trusty, rusty 50mm.  We shared our photographic secrets freely, laughed a lot and she swatted a million bugs (they don’t seem to care for me like they do her).   There was so much softness captured: softness of petals, softness of light, softness of the baring bright of souls…
____________________________________________

We don’t need many.
No one does.
A few true is enough.
A few true who allow that softness,
make room for it (as it billows and consumes 
the quiet of spaces)
and beam it brilliantly back
into the palms of open hands,
into the quiet corners.

You can choose to see.
You can choose not to see.
But if you choose to see, 
there is a second choice to make therein:
to see deeper, to see harder, to sometimes strain, 
but always to illuminate.
______________________________________________

On that talus, 
you can let the weight slide off,
down the mountain,
like so many tumbling pieces of granite and fir.
Tumbling.  
Turning.

Turning to sand in the sun.
Disappearing in the hungry mouths of wind and water.

Comments

  1. Sybil Ann says

    Oh, how I miss my best friend.

    And yet I never do. I carry her with me always as I do my family.

  2. Holy crap!
    There were SO MANY MOSQUITOES!!!!!
    I love you.

  3. The Noisy Plume says

    Syb: True enough. x

    M: BAH HA HA HA!!!!! I've never seen them love on a human like they loved on you…

  4. kerin rose says

    why IS it that some of us are evil mosquito magnets?…( Melissa, I feel your pain!…me too!)…

    and yes,
    you only need a few…
    true blue
    like the forget-me-not….

    such photographic prowess…grrrrrrr!
    xo

  5. pencilfox says

    lovely posting.
    lovely comments.

    x

  6. The Noisy Plume says

    KR: I don't know. PH perhaps??? Or maybe a developed immunity? I'm Canadian (= practically raised by mosquitoes), I lived in Alaska and then at the only water source on an Indian reservation in Arizona for 4 years. I think I've been injected with so much poison over the years that they think I'm one of them…

    Fox: Thanks, dear one. x

  7. Caitlyn U. says

    These photos are so beautiful. I am wondering if you will start working with resin and incorporate your photos into your jewelry.

    I have heard some people are "juicy" and some "barren" and the bugs will feast or not accordingly. I, thankfully, am "barren" when it comes to bugs!

  8. The Noisy Plume says

    Caitlyn: I do work with resin from time to time, but I use it to suspend natural objects in sterling settings. I've never considered using my own photographs but I'll ponder on it! Thank you for the inquiry!

    I think I'm barren too. Thank goodness!

  9. Caitlyn U. says

    Yes, that's right, I forgot you do resin! I also thought you could put them behind glass in a pendant or ring. Imagine the possibilities! (if anyone can, it's you!)

  10. creative quest says

    sigh*,
    Oh Jillian,
    these are so soft and precious,
    captured in one moment of their annual performance.
    A post card series perhaps?
    Macro is my favorite way to wield a lens.
    perhaps that's one of the reasons we make such wee things (sometimes).
    xo