A Living Magazine - Day 283 - Homecoming - Colonial Heights: The Incidental Alignment of Objects

I was quite happy to have such a great sleep spot here, as there would be rain the next day and I had saved up for a hotel room (thanks to some very generous donors). I would have to spend one more night outside and to already have a spot nailed down was a huge relief. Mostly, it meant that I could work late at Starbucks and know exactly where I was going afterwards. Getting out of the woods was easy, and the walk to Starbucks quite short--under a mile...

The intersection of Conduit and Temple.

Almond Joy wrapper in a grassy place--picked up and thrown away. 

This was an amazing coincidence: the contrail from a plane reached the moon,

making it look like a meteor. 

Life, uh, finds a way.

This whole day was spent writing. I was able to publish three posts here, beginning to make up for falling behind during the 100 mile walk.

As usual, there were other things on my mind. I had done much thinking in the last few weeks about what makes great photographs. For me, it really has to do with sudden and random circumstances. I'd like now to just write a very short explanation that may be expanded at some point about a phenomenon that continually shows up in my experience out here on the road. I won't link to a lot of specific pictures or videos right now, because so many of my posts have examples of this, you should be able to find a bunch. I encourage the interested reader to find some and describe how this concept might be appropriate to the pictures you choose. Or, link to some of your own pictures or videos that present this aspect!

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THE INCIDENTAL ALIGNMENT OF OBJECTS (IAO)

Many times in my life, while just sitting around, walking by objects, or looking for the right angle to take an interesting photograph, I have noticed that sometimes a certain stance will make several objects align in such a way as to create a single and interesting new form. I have never heard a term for this, so I invented the above.

In a city, buildings can be viewed together at different elevations or from different angles to appear as a strange and architecturally unique idea;  a fantasy building, or even Escher-like impossible optical illusions. This shot from Greenville, South Carolina gives some idea...

The corner of the foreground building meets the corner of the background building, and the black railing on the left seems to blend a bit with the white railing on the right, while the patio

stones apparently are all one level (even though they aren't).

Also, notice the very thin vertical line on the brick building to the left of center. It just happens 

to almost align with the line on the level below it. The sun is what betrays it as an illusion. 

Manmade objects in particular lend themselves nicely to IAO. Patterns and long distances can create rough tunnels. When they bend slightly it is almost like looking between two mirrors, as with these three shots from Salem, Oregon. But, especially notice the three shapes that are implied within each...

The top of a five pointed star (pentagram) is implied near the center.

Clearly, an X is displayed here.

Here, I see a D shape, as well as the left sides of pentagrams.

The three photos above are part of a day's post in which I intentionally went looking for Pattern, Form, and Distance in it's images.

Trees can be photographed in such a way that many can look like one single tree. There are many instances of this in the blog. Just Google: "iwallk trees".

I was walking by guy wires in a recent post and saw that, no matter how I viewed them, they still created a pyramid-like shape and preserved the diamond shapes between them. So, I made a video of it (click here and scroll down to view the video).

Now that I have this current post to refer back to, I will try to find more instances of IAO as I continue to walk north.

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When I was done writing - after twelve hours, with a lunch break in the middle - I headed back to the sleep spot. This time I ventured a bit deeper into the woods. The blue tarp is being used as a place to stand lately. It is my way to keep the little critters off my shoes and from crawling up my leg.

Unfortunately, as I would find a week later, it did not prevent a deer tick from feeding on me,completely engorging itself--not good.  I will now have to keep a watch on my condition. I've had Lyme disease before, and I know the symptoms. Lyme disease is a bacterial infection, therefore one cannot become immune to it, even if completely healed the first time. Chances are, it will not happen again. But, in my life, as we've seen, anything goes...

I climbed in and fell asleep. I was beginning a pattern of vivid dreams again, and hoping to reach a lucid awareness at some point.