#19 Saturation

Saturation.

Does the camera lens capture the colors of nature accurately? In this age of photoshopped everything all images are suspect. Critical, skeptical seeing has become the norm. While highly useful for watching media, reading print, reading the expressions on the faces of politicians, the wry eye gets in the way of allowing the pure joy of reveling in nature’s palette. Immersing yourself in pure color is bliss.

There is much to be said for daily life in a stripped bare environment, the zen if you will, of particular places. Rocks and water, clouds and sky offer ranges of color which astound. Space and time and quiet allow enhanced awareness. Color emerges out of this frame. With some practice, a camera can be used to isolate, then emphasize, what can be seen. Therein lies one of the joys of photography.

As in all things the spectrum of this isolation has grown to the point that backgrounds are being erased and precise images of birds or wildlife are shown in detail that totally removes them from their environments. It’s a preference on the part of both photographer and viewer. However, color can be one of the winners of this technique–think of the neck feathers of a Ruby Throated Hummingbird.

My personal eye revels in the larger landscape and color ranges on a more vast scale. A morning of dense fog renders the world in shades of gray-white, all other colors present muted in the dense light. Crystal clear mornings, mornings bursting forth after a night of storms, can dazzle with brilliance, the flashing of diamond whitesilver from the top of waves and intense blues and greens far beyond the crayon box palette in the rolling waves of the ocean. I have been surprised by pure gold light on a beach at daybreak and by teal sky streaks at sunset or sunrise.. Such color intensities need no enhancement, just a touch of sharpening detail here, a bit of shadow lightening there. Even the most technologically advanced camera is not as perfected as the human eye.

Nothing beats rising from sleep, mind blank in the transition between occupied realms, and witnessing the sun rising between the edge where water meets sky, when the joy of pure color is nearly all there is.

That is true saturation.