I saw this and it made me pause

When I turned my camera lens towards this climbing rose putting out its new and very special spring leaves I did not expect to see in the image things that my eye had missed.

But this can be the way with cameras and eyes. More commonly it is that the camera has not recorded what my eye was seeing.  However in this instance it was the recorded image that made me pause.

The grey background of the fence was one detail I had overlooked and in the whole picture it had become a key aspect.   It allowed the light, the gloss and sheen of these fresh, bronzey, silver, green leaves to stand out even more.   Such a display of early new spring growth is very short-lived and within days these leaves look very different. Such is the nature of the abundance of spring energy.

I am still contemplating on this photograph and it may be that no great hidden message exists in it for me. It might just be that the stunning digital workings of the camera, combined with nature in a special moment has offered me a gem to enjoy in many ways.

Delights can come in many ways.

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We know an awful lot about nothing

Friday last week was another day of high winds so I decided on a day at home using the sewing machine.

I turned on the radio and began to listen to an interview with Professor Gerry Gilmore, a New Zealand born Astrophysicist.

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/News/Gerrys-role-in-3D-map-of-stars-26042012.htm

He is the principal leader of the Gaia project. My ears began to prick up more when I heard that the purpose of this project is to map, in 3D, 1 billion stars and the project had begun way back in 1990. Twenty three years is a long time to plan something.

The most precise telescope ever built, with the biggest camera ever made and including 10 mirrors will be launched on Wednesday 20th November 2013 from a site in French Guiana.

The destination of this amazing piece of equipment is 150 million kilometres away in outer space. It needs to be that far away from the sun, the earth and the moon to escape the gravitational pull of these celestial bodies. In order to function at its optimum it needs a gentle, stable environment and one which is shaded so it has a sun shield as part of it.

Pictures of the silicon carbide Gaia can be found here on the Radio New Zealand website.

Apparently the universe is expanding at a rate that is too fast and I would have to say that what I went on to learn from this interview caused my mind to expand at an accelerated rate too.

Gaia will take exquisite measurements of 1 billion stars, measurements equal to measuring a shirt button on the moon from earth.
• It will measure the whole sky, find what is up there and map it.
• And all this will be in 3D. A first for mankind.
• It will measure things in the sky 80-100 times, over 3-5 years because things move and will return to be viewed.
• It will find planetary systems and weigh them.
• Gaia will accurately weigh the Milky Way.

• It is hoped that Dark Matter, which astrophysicists know exists because without it the sun would fly off into outer space, may be understood in greater detail and potentially made visible thanks to Gaia and its technology. Dark matter has mass and can be weighed…..at this point my humble sewing seemed a mere speck in the great body of human achievements.

• It is also hoped that Gaia will discover and explain remnants from the early universe and explain reality around chemical elements and their relationships to earth and human beings.

source: clipart

If all this is not enough it is also hoped that IF Dark Energy is out there, and currently it is just a name and not understood at all, then Gaia might advance learning on this. Super Novae will be studied, critical distance calibration will be fine- tuned and perhaps answers to why the expansion of the universe is accelerating rather too quickly will be found. Suffice to say that learning will be stretched and more questions generated and more evidence accumulated.

The interviewer drew an analogy between this project and the days of the sea-going European explorers in the 1600 and 1700’s.

Source:http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/european-discovery-of-new-zealand

When Captain James Cook set off for the southern ocean he was tasked with finding land and mapping it. Other European explorers, such as Abel Tasman had reported back that there was land so James Cook had some data to work with. He was successful in mapping the coastland of my homeland and now we have a countryman who is heading an exploration of the heavens above us, seeking a 3D map of it all.

Here is a link to the Gaia project website. I will be following progress come November 20th 2013 with great interest. It feels a real privilege to stand on the edge of such awe inspiring discoveries.

Light and shadow

Both light and shadow are the
dance of love.

-Rumi

I have been playing with light more as I go about with my camera and realising that a slightly different angle on an adjacent object can offer up very different results.

Wherever there is light there is also shadow and in these two photos taken last week in warmer autumn sunshine I was surprised to see that a subtle shift of the camera gave me a very different picture with the shadows defined as strongly as the light.

Here is the first photo I made as I enjoyed the light on this highly patterned ice plant.

And then the subtle shift to this. I love the strong shadows and the quote from Rumi above seemed apt for this revelation.

Two sides of the same tree

I am playing around with the point and shoot camera a lot at the moment and on this gloomy day earlier in the week I visited the stand of Flowering Cherry Trees which were in various stages of autumn decline.

A few trees were still displaying vibrant and colourful leaves.

The light was rather cold on this day but here is a photo looking into the light.

And this shot, with the light behind me is looking at the other side of the tree.

The differences were surprising and pleasing to me and my growing curiosity with photography.