Contemplative Photography - rocks on table

 

As I was recently thinking about the idea of contemplative photography, I remembered this image I made in 2008. I had recently taken a workshop with National Geographic photographer Sam Abell. Sam is probably the photographer who has influenced me most. He embodies contemplative photography.

Here, I came upon this picnic table with rocks on it. I was struck by the how the light came from the horizon, skimmed across the water toward the camera, across the table top, across the bolt heads, and across the top of the rocks - a receding field of variously textured horizontal surfaces that carried the light from the background to the foreground. I slightly rearranged the two outlier rocks so that they did not intersect the spaces between the boards. I waited a few minutes for the light to soften a bit. Then I made several different exposures. All on a tripod, of course. Sam would have it no other way.