TV break, through the kaleidoscope

Henry E. Powderly II — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 02:06:12 +0000

If you thought watching television through a kaleidoscope would give you a headache, you’d probably be right. However, it just might put this parade of mind-numbing entertainment in perspective.

On my recent trip to Minneapolis, I was surprised that in addition to the squat tubes of soaps and lotions, a ubiquitous white robe and an overpriced minibar, there was a small kaleidoscope in the room, perhaps there to help adulterous trysters pass the time while they wait for their pot brownies to wear off. Because having looked through it at the gray and cold landscape of the frost-bitten city, there’s no way it was meant for enhancing the drab skyline.

But watching television through it? It was early, and I was passing time before having to head out to full day of corporate meetings, so I turned on CNN and watched a fluff-filled newscast spin and flash in dissecting, blooming, bleeding and flashing patterns of light crystals.

Suddenly, it all made sense, the repetition, the hypnotic glare, the cells flowing into one another.

It may sound like an overstatement, but I found the mask slipped away when I watched TV through a kaleidoscope. My mask, their masks, all of it. It’s not real, the box, it’s a snowflake melting on your eye, keeping it wet so you don’t have to blink.

I put the kaleidoscope up to my camera, and took a few pics so you can see what I’m talking about. The patterns are beautiful, eerie, gruesome, hypnotic and delicate, like the experience.

Enjoy the photos.

Up close and abstract

Up close and abstract

Henry E. Powderly II — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:24:16 +0000

I’ve been holding on to these photos.

Back in the summer, one rainy day I noticed as I was walking my dogs that the wood grain in the Adirondack chairs on my back patio looked like fish scales. And while when they were dry the chairs were gray, when wet the green moss in the cracks and hidden brown in the wood stood out.

I also took a few photos of a wet sawhorse I had used a few times to hold bed frames as I spray painted them white. With the wet grain and speckles of white paint, the texture in the photos was wonderful. I also photographed one of the rusty wing nuts holding the sawhorse together.

I do love to snap pictures of patterns, and love it when the results look almost like an abstract painting.

These were a batch of really good ones.

Enjoy.

Henry Powderly » pattern

TV break, through the kaleidoscope

Up close and abstract