Driftwood by the Lake

You may have noticed but I like taking photos of clumps of things: paths, walls, stones, grass – anything that has no natural boundary or can be defined as a “unitary” object. Every part of the picture is part of the picture. In this case it is a clump of driftwood on the shore of Lake Wanaka.  Around the world there are billions of options for taking photos of clumps of driftwood, but once the photo is taken the clump is unique as defined by the borders of the picture. There can never be another picture exactly the same. From the picture patterns emerge, in fact everyone who looks at the photo will see different forms and patterns. Clumps take their own form and change every time you look at them. For me clumps are one of the ways photography can get close to what the impressionist and post-modern painters were trying to achieve. A picture that is a picture in its own right, not a representation of something “out there”. And clumps make great wallpaper for computers.