being in the moment

As I briefly mentioned  in my  previous post in September 2023  this low key  littoral zone project, with its grounding in Japanese aesthetics, went into a hiatus in 2023.  The  basic understanding  that I had been working with up to that point was that  a central tenet of  Japanese aesthetics is the transience or impermanence of life with its sorrow for the loss of transient things. The relevant concept is  mono no aware.  

The close-up or macro picture of seaweed  is from the 2022 archives. It was made before  we got Maya, our standard poodle pup, who arrived  in February, 2023.  

After Maya came  the   hiatus in the littoral  zone  project took the form of  the  project  grounding to a halt.  I only  walked along the coastal rocks between Petrel Cove and  Kings Beach infrequently  for most of 2023. What I lost in this period was the ritual of daily walking the path across the rocks with its mediative processes that focuses on the presence of things, the moment of now.  

There were multiple reasons for staying away from the rocks along the  coast. It was probably a mixture of reasons --- such as Maya when she was a puppy, the rugged weather conditions (the frequent rain and strong coastal winds), and my concentrating on seascapes.  I realized that I wasn't  open to what was around me when I was walking -- I wasn't aware of of  the light of the sun and the forms and patterns  of the shadows that soften everything --- as  I was too busy keeping an eye on Maya  I missed the nuances of perception in the shadows which are not permanent.  

Japanese aesthetics: 'mono no aware'

The Littoral Zone  project has been on hold in  2023.  The previous  Ephemeral post was in May 2023 after a 5 months hiatus. Then there is nothing until September -- a 4 month gap. So that is  one post in 9 months. What's more there were large gaps between posts before that. 

The two pictures in this post, which  were made in May 2023, pick up where I left off through reconnecting with the Japanese aesthetic concept of mono no aware. It's a return to familiar ground. 

The basic reason for the hiatus in 2023 is that I lost my way - or ran out of puff. The initial motivation was  a blog of photos and text linked to poodlewalks as a supplement.  Over time  it slowly evolved from a blog to a project that  connected the photos of the littoral zone that I made whilst on my daily poodlewalks to Japanese aesthetics.  The blog  became  a way or means for  me to work out  how to do this. 

What appealed about Japanese aesthetics was that it was based on the world of flux that presents itself to our senses being the only reality: there is no conception of some stable Platonic realm above or behind it.This  appealed because the littoral zone was a world of flux and it connected with  the process metaphysics in western philosophy  -- eg., Nietzsche's rejection of Platonism's two worlds  and his idea of the will to power  that sees the world as comprised of dynamic active and reactive forces in tension. 

ephemeral

As it has been a  while  since I posted here -- around 5 months ago.  I've posted  a couple of images of  ephemeral and transitory subject matter from around December 2022. The foam would last a  minute or so  before evaporating with the tide and  the wind. 

This  picture was made was on an early morning walk along the coastal rocks  from Petrel Cove. 

shells + feather

This  photo was made in December 2022 whilst I was on a late afternoon  poodlewalk with Maleko  along the coastal rocks in Waitpinga:

The shells and feather were there one day, gone the next. They vanished  due to the high tide and the surging waves from the strong south westerly wind.  

seaweed form #3

The macro picture below was made in the  early autumn of 2022 when an occasional  low tide made it   possible to walk with the poodles along the coastal rocks of the southern Fleurieu Peninsula in the  late afternoon.  It is a followup to the picture in  this post which was made around the same time.  

It was not often  in autumn that this kind of seaweed was left stranded on the rocks from the tide.  The rocks  are usually clean.

These coastal walks were micro ones that are similar in form to the micro bush  walks.  An hour's  duration, slow walking, concentrated seeing,  making photos.