By Dan P

15 October 2008

I shot these images for a school project with a Mamiya RB67. The idea behind them is rather simple; I wanted to show a relationship between humans and nature. Where I live there is a pretty large nature-to-human ratio, but I think you can find it anywhere. Sometimes you just need to dig a little deeper, but in any event, I discovered that it's not as simple as photographing somebody standing in front of some trees.

I thought about this relationship, and I decided that our connection with nature is largely, if not solely based upon our senses. Standing in front of trees doesn't really show that. But how would one show the way we perceive - and even sometimes influence - the world surrounding us?

The dandelions were all fuzzy at the time, and with some basic motivation and a couple of rough ideas, I set out on a mission. What I aimed for in these images was to capture the moment of connection - the moment at which we either physically or mentally come into contact with and perceive the power of nature.

There are only four images. I hope to continue this series after my life calms down, but for now, I'd like to share these with you, and maybe inspire you to try capturing something that's really of value to you; not just something that's hip but you don't really know why.

Remember, even though so many people have made so many photographs before you, there is still an opportunity to create something new and original that will have meaning, and in an increasingly confused and misguided world, maybe we need to help show others what's really important in life.

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I processed and printed these images on my own, and "scanned" them by photographing the negatives with my digital camera while they were taped to an upside-down condenser head acting as a lightbox.

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