Nature Pics

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Prim, I don't think its necessary to adhere to strict no man-made structures rule. After all, things made by humans are a product of nature, in a way.

However, posting something like an oil refinery would be a bannable offense.

[Primula Baggins]

Engines of Saruman!

[Cerin]

Thank you, Athrabeth. It looks simply heavenly.

Voronwë, that picture made me gasp. How extraordinary!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

From Big Basin State Park, just down the road from where I live:

[Sassafras]

Nothing so dramatic as Voronwë's pictures, I'm afraid.

But this is a view of the Sussex coastline where I lived once upon a time far back into the antedeluvian past. <Okay, so I exaggerate.>
The chalk hills, really the South Downs, are called the Seven Sisters.

It still represents home to me.

[truehobbit]

Just to both these pics!

I'm always curious, also, if the pics here are pics you've taken yourself, so please say so, if they are!

Voronwë - surely that pic is somehow modified? What eerie colours!
But it must be a lovely place even in its natural colours - and especially to have it round the corner from where you live!

Sassy, I didn't know you used to live in England!

[Sassafras]

I'm a British subject, Hobby, even as we speak.

[truehobbit]

The things you learn! So, you have an English accent, too?
But you live in the US, don't you?

[Whistler]

I see we’re already touching on the question of whether man-made structures are acceptable in these settings.

I say yes, absolutely. I have never subscribed to the extreme view that man is an aberration, and that a human structure should automatically be called a rape of nature while anything created by an innocent animal (a nest, a dam, a hole) should be held in reverence. We are as much a part of nature as anything else. If our structures tend to call more attention to themselves, it’s because our needs are greater and more complex than those of birds and beasts.

I was raised, as a very young child, near the east Texas oil fields. I remember that I regarded the oil refineries, then, as things of unequalled beauty––at night, I mean, when they shone like impossibly enormous Christmas ornaments. I was going to post a picture, just to show you what I mean.

But VtF terrifies me!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Whistler, PLEASE post the picture. I love being proved wrong. (Not meant sarcastically, in case anyone wondered.)

Hobby, I don't believe the pic is modified, though I don't know for sure, since I obviously did not take it. I've seen it look very much like that, when conditions are just right. I think it is just a matter of the wondrous juxtaposition of water and light. No wonder Tolkien was so enamored with both.

[truehobbit]

I'm sorry to contradict, but I think man-made structures would not fit so well in here, unless they merge naturally with the surrounding countryside, like Prim's lighthouse, which is just a small part of the picture, and a necessary one for the composition (adding a vertical element without which the image would be too flat).

Of course I like a fine building too, it could even be argued that much of today's landscape is man-made, and I know that even Saruman's engines can look awesome with the right photographing technique - but couldn't we just start a thread for these things in the arts-forum?

I don't mean to be too strict on this, as it's obviously something where the boundaries are fluid (hope that's not too bad a Germanism) - but I'd really prefer it if we put images of man-made structures in arts and pictures of nature in here.

Edit: or start another thread in here about other kinds of beauty. Because, come to think of it, each kind of beauty is an aspect of "Arda Unmarred".

I've seen it look very much like that

Wow! Hmmh, I could imagine it would like that in moonlight. But it seems to me that the vertical light is some kind of fractured light, the way you get it when you take a picture with the camera directed towards the light-source? Or is that water, too, coming from higher up?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Hobby, yes, that is water coming from above. It is a layered waterfall.

Maybe this thread can be kept to pictures of nature (hence the name) and a separate thread can be started for showing the beauty of man-made structures. I actually like that idea alot.

[truehobbit]

I had first thought to post a landscape picture today, to show I'm not only interested in the beauty of small things, but this pic has been sitting in my sig-pic file for so long (I might have used it on TORC once) and I love it.
(Taken some years ago on my balcony.)

[truehobbit]

Hobby, yes, that is water coming from above. It is a layered waterfall.

Wow, I see - well, it looks positively Elvish!
To almost quote "Anne of Green Gables":
But they shouldn't call that lovely place Basin State Park. There is no meaning in a name like that. They should call it--let me see--the Water of Elven Light.

Maybe this thread can be kept to pictures of nature (hence the name) and a separate thread can be started for showing the beauty of man-made structures. I actually like that idea alot.

Thank you!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Moonrise over Half Dome, Yosemite National Park. California.

[Athrabeth]

<Sw00ns for all the lovely images being posted>

I'm so glad the camera was invented!

I'm feeling introspective today, and was drawn to this photo in my collection: a close-up of dewdrops on a spider web...........

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Wow.

[truehobbit]

Ahh, time for my daily swoon!

Voronwë, again, a perfectly Elvish scene!

Ath - wow, perfection!
I had forgotten to answer your post a while back, in response to mine about small things - yes, spiders' webs are definitely it!
I don't think I've ever managed to take a decent photograph of one, not so as to make it look as impressive as it is.

[Athrabeth]

In the fall, our place is covered with spiders and their webs of all kinds, but it's the orb weavers that fascinate me most. There always seems to be a garden spider that chooses to share her performance art with us by maintaining a web just outside our kitchen window. We always name her "Charlotte".........I like to think that each year we see a descendant of the original weaver who first chose that particular place to spin her webs, lay her eggs, and quietly die before the onslaught of winter. I can get quite lost just standing there, watching her delicate, wire-thin legs place and attach each strand of silk so precisely. It's like watching a ballet dancer.

Whenever I become focused on the intricate, minute details of nature, I always think of the first verse of Blake's "Auguries of Innocence"

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

But I would say that each of the photographs so far in this thread have brought those words to mind, from the symmetry of a butterfly's wings to that indescribably beautiful veil of falling water.

Sass.........I remember distinctly seeing those cliffs for the first (and only) time many years ago. They just glowed in the morning light. We took photos, of course, but none captured the almost otherwordly quality of that whiteness.

[Cerin]

This was such a lovely idea for a forum!

Sassafras, that picture was so moving to me for some reason. Is that a melancholy place? Or perhaps it is that the sea can make one feel so sombre but joyful at the same time.