September
30
30
I have seen the stars
Category: Books | Art, Insects etc.Of all the social insects, the behavior and body structure of ants seems to me the closest to humans, which perhaps is why I probably have more images of ants than any other insect.
Here’s a fragment of one of my favorite poems by Federico Garcia Lorca, “The Encounters of an Adventurous Snail”, in the voice of a dying ant, and an image which I hope illuminates it.
“I have seen the stars.
I went up to the highest tree
In the whole poplar grove,
And saw thousands of eyes
In my own darkness.”
He looks like an explorer in the prow of a sailing ship. Hows that for anthropomorphizing?
Nice image, Rick. Do you remember what those pale globes actually were?
Thanks, William. I don’t think humans can help anthropomorphizing everything we see, even inanimate objects.
The globes in the background are sunlight reflecting off leaves and other vegetation.
That Lorca poem is an exquisite choice for an exquisite image.
Wow. What a view. Beautiful.
The Lorca poem is great, I wish I could find a complete English translation.
If anyone knows of one . . .
Rick's images are art. My feeling is that Rick’s images are all tableaux, bits of narrative. We interpret them as little actors frozen on stage. These are very strong images in that the geometry within the frame is what sets them off, and not just the black space where the photograph ends. We all know how weak the latter can be from our own snapshots. Many of these images make us think that we are seeing a still from a motion picture, I would hazard.
That assassin bug looks like he is about to embark on a quest. Rick says that some purists are uncomfortable with the lack of focal detail. That sort of work is being done, and is very important. But Rick’s work can make us see the ordinary in extraordinary ways. And that is no small feat.
Sure, we anthropomorphize these images, and we tend to do it in ways that we have learned from our cultural heritage — we see the insects as a Ulysses or a Tom Sawyer, but we also must surely come to see them as vibrant and vital partners in our immediate world.
As a native of Michigan myself, I am pleased to see these common critters lit in such splendor.
Thanks for the nice comments, Tim. I think you put it well, once we stop trying to dominate and control every other species, and treat them as partners on this planet, we’ll solve many of our problems.
I would love to see other interpretations, even little stories, about the images.