natural shapes

I have been hanging onto three photographs that I thought would make interesting posts.  But I could never come up with an original hook for each of them.  So, I will let them share a single hook.  Shapes.

For a photographer (amateur of professional), Mexico offers a wealth of material.  Colors.  Light.  Motion. 

But, what fascinates me are the unusual shapes I run across in my walks.  Sometimes within feet of my house.

That shape at the top of this post, for instance.  I found it on the gate post leading to the laguna.  At first, I thought it was nothing more than a glob of mud.  But it was too high on the post to be mud.

Take a closer look.  You can make out what passed for eye spots on the left.  And there are segments.

At one point, this was a caterpillar.  It was now a pupae.

Unfortunately, I never saw it emerge.  I forgot to tell the gardener to let it be.  I suspect he washed it off the wall.

Or how about this shape?

At first, I thought it was another pupae.  Similar color.  Similar shape.

But any resident of the Pacific Northwest could immediately identify this mass by the antennae.  A slug.  The first one I had seen since my last hike in Oregon.  And that was years ago,

It was small by Willamette Valley standards -- where we grew slugs the size of buffalo.  And, on this Mexican variety, I could not see the usual tell-tale slime trail. 

But a slug it was.  It made me feel right at home.

For shape offerings, though, nothing surpasses the laguna.

I knew when I snapped this photograph that it would have an Oriental feel.  Almost like a Japanese woodblock.  The overexposure of shooting into the sun with a reduced exposure on the camera was bound to create a shadow effect.

But the circles of the lily pads, the straight lines of the tule grass, and the delicacy of the wading bird, evoke the simplicity of Japan.  Especially, the squiggle on the right.  As if a calligrapher added a personal stroke with his brush.

at the ancient pond

a bird moves upon the pads

a rippled echo