Elemental, my dear Watson

When not photographing living things, or more accurately, photographing spaces in which living things were moving just a moment ago, or sometimes photographing the blurry outlines of living things moving out of said spaces, I get distracted and wind up taking photographs of non-living things because they are much better at remaining in focus.

My favorite non-living things to photograph turn out to be real objects in the real world that wind up looking, after I photograph them, either like abstract expressionist paintings or bathroom tiles or both.

I have no idea what the underlying reason is for the gratification that this provides for me, but I must say that I take real pleasure in it--especially when I find that what my camera has observed looks so much different than what my eye observed.

For whatever reason, I find that I am particularly pleased by the way basic elements--earth, air, water, and light--can surprise me in their conjunction.  I think it is something about diffraction--the way the world changes when waves encounter particles--that is underneath my pleasure, but it may have something to do with the way these images play with my sense of the relation between surface and depth as well.