Though clear waters range to the vast autumn sky
How can they compare with the hazy moon on a Spring night!
Most people want to have pure clarity
But sweep as you will, you cannot empty the mind.
Keizan Zenji
from The Hazy Moon of Enlightenment by Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi and Bernard Tetsugen Glassman
pub. Zen Center of Los Angeles, 1977
___________________________________________________________________
Clarity is a fine thing, but the haze,
the haze, such
beauty in the haze.
Walk with me.
We’re going back outside the greenhouse,
round the corner.
We’re looking for the place where life pushes
against hazy windows.
*
***
Photographs from the WW Seymour Conservatory in Tacoma, WA and the greenhouse at the Kruckeberg Garden, Seattle, WA.
*
Happy Earth Day!
and
here’s to a successful March for Science.
Lynn, I love how you see the world – it always challenges me to see more beauty. Thank you, and Happy Earth Day.
I love how she sees the world as well, and she takes us along – how kind of her!
And Lynn and Lisa, you two are very kind. I really do enjoy letting the beauty pass through me and onto you guys, and anyone else who enjoys it.
happy happy!
Good……good! 🙂
Beautiful!!
Thank you!
Wonderful pictures that seem dreamy and surreal, Lynn. I love the poem by Keizan Zenji. Being in Japan right now, I can really appreciate the sentiment. 🙂
Oh, I have to go see what you’re up to! Teaching again, right? So glad this resonated with you, makes perfect sense it would when you’re surrounded by that particular sensibility. Well, probably not surrounded, but enough of it must be there to inspire you.
Beautiful…lovely ethereal feeling….
I seem to be seeing the ethereal a lot lately! Thanks.
me too ☺️
I love your pictures, dear Lynn; these are especially charming and full of life. Hope you had a Happy Earth Day.
That’s nice to hear – I thought they might be a little dry, and not to everyone’s taste, but the idea interests me, and I’ll keep looking for foggy windows.
Are you sure it is possible making pictures to everybody’s taste? And do you wish to?
Point well taken, Ule, thank you!
I just LOVE these photographs!
Thank you Lisa, it’s not something you can find anywhere, but I’ll keep looking…
The phrase about sweeping the mind clean tickled me, because it brought to mind a proverb I enjoy: “A new broom sweeps clean, but an old broom knows the corners.”
The last photo reminds me of a Japanese scroll. Strangely (for me), I rather like the two black and white photos.
I think the last one is my favorite – re the black and whites, maybe it’s the higher contrast, or more tonal range, that makes them stronger images for you? In any case, glad you liked them, and I’ve never heard that saying, it’s very clever.
These are so ‘soft’ feeling – beautiful!
Thank you Margy, thanks for commenting and I’m glad you like them. It certainly is a softer feeling when you’re looking through those windows – or fog, or anything that hazes the view. That appeals to me, but it’s funny, I like a very linear, sharply focused image too.
Oh I’m all for the haze, Lynn, bring it on, bring it on >>> gorgeous pictures!!! >>> and the final picture really, really takes my breath away – to say that it is like a painting is vast understatement. I have plans to do something similar with the occupants of steamy, rush hour buses in winter, but whether I’ll get around to it is another matter – but I have found one good spot to shoot from. I very much like the way you are exploring things, feeling your way very sensitively forwards. A
Glad you like the last one – my favorite – did some work on that (well, on all of them!) to bring out what it seemed to be about. I like that you found a good place to shoot from for the bus photos. There may be rainy days that would give an interesting effect – I’m sure you’ve already thought of that and tried it – but in any case, you should do that in the winter. I’m having a good time, thank you for the encouragement.
The series is as rewarding as promised! There’s a swampy feeling to them, but in that deliciously old, secretive way.
🙂 funny description, I like it!
so artistic 🙂
Thank you, Joshi!
An ethereal quality to these images of the ‘trifids’ straining to escape the confines of the glasshouse. I particularly like the two B&W images. Very unusual but powerful work, Lynn.
Thank you very much, your comment is good to hear. The conservatory I used to visit in NYC (not the grand dame New York Botanical Garden one, but another, smaller one) did have plants literally pushing out, and breaking, the windows. I loved it! Speaking of powerful! 🙂
Wonderful! I am glad to see you are building on this series. The last is my favorite.
Thank you, Denise – step by step. That’s my favorite, too.
A different and so beautiful view. Visually strong and poetic photos, Lynn.
Thanks so much, Otto, I’m working on it.
These are soooo nice, Lynn. I really don’t want to choose. I have loved fog since I was a child, and these hazy windows are just as good at obscuration. I love the element of abstraction here. Rendering crisp photographs in black and white also creates abstraction, but this indistinctness is what I want right now, not something black and white in the metaphorical sense. I’ve just finished—minutes ago—Krista Tippett’s Becoming Wise, and that may account for my present mood. But mood or no, I would favor these photographs. . . . Besides the obvious haziness, I’m also noticing a special wildness. These are plants giving up their decorum, perhaps, as others have said here, longing to escape . . .
Maybe we’re on the same wavelength, gravitating to vagueness. I like Krista Tippet, mostly have heard her on the radio but not lately, so maybe I should check her site, for a Krista dose, or read the book. Interesting ideas about wildness and escape, I hadn’t thought that way, not exactly, but maybe subconsciously. Thanks much!
Really good set, Lynn
Good to hear John, thank you.
I love the soft focus effect of these images. For personal taste I would have done a bit more cropping but i don’t think that’s what you were about here.
Yes, I could spend a day looking for tighter crops and I’m sure I could find some nice compositions – good idea, thanks!
A wonderful set of photographs, Lynn. I set a bookmark…
Fabulous series, Lynn. I love the mood, dreamy effect and the “frames within the frame”. The last shot is quite special and the monochromes are terrific.
Good, thank you Jane – I appreciate hearing your feedback – and more black and whites coming soon!
Beautiful…I always love how you see and capture the lovely things that many other photographers would miss. So many would rush to the plants inside and forget too see the bigger picture of the whole.
Hello! I am finally paying a return trip and very glad that I did, Lynn.Several very interesting images here. I really like the four panes image and the last with its bright abstract quality.I also think that the first, with its borders cropped to rid the collected debris would make a fine less bright abstract, but that’s not to say the frames are not valuable as well.
I agree that haze has its own special beauty and think the mystery of a fog can add much to the content of what may already be a lovely image. Those look to be wonderful greenhouses…inside and out, no doubt.
The window as a gateway to another world ! I really love the theme …
Fantastique ! J’adore
I have a thing for greenhouse shots, especially shot from the outside in..these are all gorgeous! I have to find a good greenhouse around here..
A beautiful post Lynn!
Love the mood of these pictures!
Thank you – not exactly a spa in there, but almost as humid! 😉