Miniscapes: Landscapes within Landcapes

Landscapes. For me, they exist everywhere.

While to most, landscapes encompass your stereotypical mountain range that casts shadows over a valley, to me, the most interesting landscapes lie within broader scenes such as these-- even in our everyday lives: what one sees when standing eye level with a desk scattered with objects, or even when simply lying on the ground, looking at a bed of flowers.

It's about the details within nature; it's about the details in objects we take for granted. But most importantly, it's about scale and transformation: the ability to see the beauty and shifts in such details, and the magical power the camera has to make such details look vast and its viewers, small. Almost like Alice in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass (only without the "eat me" cookies).

A miniscape.

And so, since around 2004, I've been playing the role of Alice. Using either an iPhone or G12 to find such "miniscapes" wherever I go, I have compiled a collection of images depicting "miniscapes" throughout the seasons, my travels, and in my everyday urban life.

 

 

2/6/08

dropped petals

these feet 

(not my own)

onto the thin blades of kelly grass

talked to by the tongue of

a single caterpillar

inching along the solemn earth

stubborn with anger,

stubborn with grief. 

two lips, not tulips

touch the tips of

the tops of the tallness

kelly, you are

the clouds merrily fleeting above,

cross the top of the steeple,

golden glare of tripping light (a sore on the pupils)

corneas burned, stamping the outline

of its symbol onto the caterpillar below

shrinking, her fingertips are,

and drawrfed, she becomes

the blades of grass,

above her now

her arms,

unable to engulf the

bottom 

of its now trunk

caterpillar eyes stare into 

the depth of her gaze,

 big,

and twice the

size of her body

and the creatures so microscopic appear,

befriending her quickly,

as her feet begin to move

sun, pink

sun, red

sun, yellow not:

change colors, now,

because I say it so.

sun big, sun: set

caterpillar inching along

propped petals: my bed made.

and, now, sleep my heart (not my own)