Newsletter #207: December, 2023
© Chris Harris. All rights reserved

 

Seasons greetings from the Cariboo

 

Hello everyone,

Here in the Cariboo, it’s the time of year when we transition from autumn into winter; the time when textures of the landscape change from muted greens and browns to white. These textures and their colours often determine how we feel and respond to a landscape.

 

Seasonal Textures of the Cariboo Landscape

Photographers often use texture as an expressive tool that speaks to a landscape.

Textures reveal the surface quality of an image, giving it a 3-demensonal effect. Different subject shapes generate different textures, which in turn add dimension.

Below are seven images which depict summer/fall textures followed, by seven winter textured images. As you look through them, enjoy your response to each. The look of each image surface may invoke a sense of what it would feel like to be there in person.

Travelling through a garden of texture

Clumpy sagebrush has a rough and mottled surface; easy to drive through, challenging to walk through.

Textured by wind

The linear variations of tone provide a very different textural quality than the clumped sagebrush above. Travelling through each would be a very different experience.

Textured sagebrush

Textured Rabbit-brush

The above two landscapes are densely textured; an unwelcoming feeling for the foot-explorer. They are, however, deeply scented; the grasslands are a bouquet of fragrance.

 Landscape of textured sage and rabbit brush

Landscape of textured boughs and bulrushes

Texture encroachment

Winter textures evoke contrasting feelings

Hiding behind textured boughs

Textured by wet snow

The harsh uneven textures in this image generate an incompatible feeling to that of the following image.

Textured bunchgrass

Rhythm, repetition, and a warmer tone give this image a soft calming effect.

A dry calcareous lake bed

As there are no distracting interruptions in this landscape, texture literally becomes the subject.

Textured canyon wall

Textured canyon wall II

Colour pallet, and different capture techniques, evoke different responses to the two above images. The sharper rocks in the cooler blue-hued image speak a different language from the warmer image with a soft canyon wall.

In all the above highly textured photographs, technique and compositional strength played a role in shifting their emotional message or emphasis.

 

 

Visual Narratives

Many of you have subscribed to my newly published Visual Narratives. These are short visual stories where you see the world as a sacred landscape, an emotional response, an artistic philosophy, or as a creative expression.

Today’s Visual Narrative takes us into the Fraser River Canyon to see a rare occurrence; the formation of river ‘ice-cakes’.

Visual Narratives can be seen on my website. You can subscribe here to receive Visual Narratives in your inbox.

 

Seasons Greetings to All!

 

All of us at Chris Harris Photography thank you for your subscriber support!

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