LJI Second Chance: April Shade

[alycewilson]

This is my entry for LJ Idol's Second Chance competition (https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org) for eliminated contestants to earn a spot back in the competition. The topic this week is "Shade." I'll update when there is a voting link.

APRIL SHADE

Spring sun shadows through bare branches
fascinate me. Again and again, I feel
compelled to photograph the way those crooked
lines stretch across the grass, dark mirrors. Blackness
crisscrosses latent green, undulates.
The grass awash in ripples, dappled grays and fading
charcoal. Glimpsed from a distance, these lines mimic
root systems stretching underneath: that two-brushed
flare of living trees, stretching above and below.

At that moment, when the world lies
dormant, I feel more sharply
the life that suffuses.

---

ETA: As promised, here is the link to the poll: https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1030373.html. Four people will be eliminated from Second Chance this week!

Comments

[bsgsix]

I love how you took "show, don't tell" to a very different level here - not only with the picture, which is lovely, but with the words you chose. The last lines of "...when the world lies dormant, I feel more sharply the life that suffuses" is perfect for your main theme and photo. Wonderfully written.

[alycewilson]

Thank you! That truly is what I was trying to convey with the rest of it: how the movement and beauty of those tree shadows always seem so full of life to me. I've tried shooting video, too, but so far haven't shot a video that perfectly captures the experience.

Also, I guess for a very long time, I have always seen beauty in places where others might see desolation. For example, I adore abandoned buildings, and while I know better than to explore them, I like to photograph them from outside.

[bsgsix]

I think that photos capture things better than videos do so many times. Something about video feels unreal, like a life on repeat. I don't even like watching old videos of myself before the brain injury: I don't seem like myself. But photographs? They seem far more tangible, alive, vivid. They play on our dark and light sides. They capture the life - or lack thereof - in our eyes. And you're right in that there is beauty in desolation. I see it, too. That kind of beauty often seems more - real, if that makes sense.