A
s a proud inhabitant of this planet Earth, I am well accustomed to the concept of leaves. They're everywhere. Trees, flowers, bushes, and shrubs all flutter their appendages at each subtle wind-gust, and for the most part I pay no heed.
And why should I? Out there, in the wild woods, beauty is, to put it nicely, non-conforming.
Hey, shrubs are ugly! And have you ever seen a tree? Examined the obtuse, erratic, misguided bends of a many-lumped trunk, or observed the wild protrusions and detours and u-turns of grey, scraggly limbs? They say money doesn’t grow on trees, but do you know what does? Branches! What kind of a stupid idea is that? Look at any tree and you’ll find some idiot of a twig, contorted beyond contortion, clinging hopelessly to the disillusion that it’s direction is the right direction.
And yet, trees are beautiful. Right? There no denying the exaltation of a green dell of birches, the clean air through sycamores, the coarse texture of a cedar’s fibrous bark, the subtle veins of a delicate leaf.
Their beauty is derived, I think, not from its wanting to please our aesthetic nature, as do our buildings and cars and phones, but from its indifference to pleasing our aesthetic nature. A tree, a real tree, almost never resembles those symmetrical, full-leafed clip-art fabrications that adorn kindergarten halls. And yet, in their weird authenticity, their unexplainable loops and bends, they transcend our expectations, and are more beautiful for it.
So here is just a small cross-section of this world's defiant beauty; blemished and crooked and imperfect as they may be, they radiate still in sun.
Broad, gnarled oaks shelter the roads and trails of many gardens. In the morning, when clear sun shines down, autumn leaves radiate.
I took these shots while panning horizontally. Slow shutter speed blurs boughs into a smorgasborg of fall colors.
Backlit by the high afternoon sun, banana leaves glow with the pronounced patterns of striping veins.
I ducked under this stalk of giant taro to protect my camera from the rain. Despite the weather, the faint sun still made the raindrops glow.
Valleys and deltas reveal themselves in the veins of various tropical flora.
A vein rises from the glowing leaf. This section is about the size of my head.
A black ant makes its way along the stems of gargantuan leaves. Often, these ants can be found in large groups, but this one would not let camaraderie get in the way.
