A Note on the "Movement" Series

"Movement" is a series I began early this year, but I took the first images in middle 2020. Since taking the first images of dead branches and driftwood on various beaches, I have come to love this little hobby of finding dead branches on which the light of midday or afternoon falls perfectly. Coupled with my old Nikon NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8 lens and a very shallow depth of field, I try to create a feeling of "movement" in an artistically or aesthetically pleasing manner. This is the fourth part of the series. (If you are interested in the others, see part one here; see part two here; and see part three here.) I thought that after the second part of this series, I would stop. But as the name suggests, like movement, I went forward with it and found even more alluring images of dead matter.

I also write a small philosophical piece on movement that is linked to the photographs and the series as a whole. If you are not philosophically included, please skip the essay and enjoy the photographs. I hope that these photographs are aesthetically pleasing to you and that they play on your eyes like a piece of art.

Philosophical Musings on Movement

The butterfly flaps its wings and around the world the winds of time sweep over us. For a brief moment, a split second, we might perceive that things come to a standstill, but this illusion is shattered almost immediately with the passing second. Standing in the river, one might contemplate if the river is the same as before. Can one really ever stand in the same river twice? "Semantics" the lunatics might shout from above.

Movement sometimes frustrates, it stifles expectations. We perceive movement as a stoppage, like stepping in the same river twice. As the majestic oak tree falls to the ground, so we too must suffer the same fate, falling from the peak of life to the shadows of death. But this end or stoppage is merely from our limited view as such. From a distance, this stoppage is the next stage of life, new life rises from the ashes of the oak tree, new life grows over the sun-bleached bones.

Nothing really stops. Movement is inevitable. From ashes to ashes and from dust to dust. The great oak will become an acorn again, the philosopher will be humbled and become a toddler.

Movement (Part IV)