first, catch your beech tree

A technical exercise in transformations, starting with a photograph of a Mount Auburn Cemetery beech tree:


7x18MtAuburnbeech11

It occurred to me to wonder how the image would be changed with a simple black-to-white inversion, easily accomplished in GIMP (with some cropping, to clarify the image). The result seems to emphasize the form that first attracted me to make the original image:

inverted beech

Creatures manifest, if one is open to such things, but in this case I decided to work further with the abstract forms via a mirror image and vertical flip:

inverted beechx2

I can read this version in several ways, imagining for instance the head-on view of a duck in flight in heavy weather, or a wrathful English judge in full-bottomed wig about to deliver a death sentence (the black cap on his head…), though you may be excused if you see neither of those figures.

The next thought was to make a 4x tessellation, which produces an image of a vajra (Sanskrit) or dorje (Tibetan), understood by Mahayana Buddhism as representing a diamond or thunderbolt.

A diamond is spotlessly pure and indestructible. The Sanskrit word means “unbreakable or impregnable, being durable and eternal”. As such, the word vajra sometimes signifies the lighting-bolt power of enlightenment and the absolute, indestructible reality of shunyata, “emptiness.”
(see more at thoughtco.com)

invbeechx4

…and that led to wondering what would happen if the image was inverted again, back to its original black-is-black configuration:

inverted beechx4inv

The last two images are also reminiscent of illustrations of magnetic fields, as seen with bar magnets and iron filings.

So what, or where, does all this flipping get us? Certainly a long way from the original beech tree, and (if we choose to go there) deep into representation of the mysteries of cosmic forces. Each transformation is a flight of fancy, an excursion into what if…, a disclosure of possibility, and an alternative reading of the implications and thus the meaning of the antecedent image. Form Finds Form.

1 thought on “first, catch your beech tree

  1. Paige

    So interesting… how immediately I find my mind saying, “this looks like…” My how I’ve grown in my awareness of how my form gathers form, makes meaning… These images are rich. I will use them in my classes! Thank you!!!!

    Reply

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