A Green World for the Little Ones: Basis of Life

Last Updated on July 10, 2017 by Patrick

I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.
Arthur Rubinstein.

What is the color of life? Have you thought about it. Because in summer that’s mostly what I see: green. Except for the flowers which are many a color. It’s never anything beyond the spectrum of life, or at least that is what we perceive.

I’ve seen in the mountains something that amazed me greatly: how plants can grow just about anywhere, including on high, craggy hard rocks. I’ve thought about it and I don’t think this is a fight for survival. I mean, what drives them to grow in such places? What makes them thrive (because this is what it is, what with growing leaves, flowers, fruits and seeds and all) in such harsh, we may say, places that are really tough to break? There are seedlings that can crack the hardest of rocks and suffer no damage? Why is that?

These are questions that concern me a lot, these days. To one of them I can answer ’cause I think I have found it just recently. They grow anywhere because they love life. If they wouldn’t love life, they wouldn’t grow in any of these places, they wouldn’t bother to spring out of the seed.

Some people also say that there must be the right conditions, but really.. let’s analyze this a little. These are hard rocks we’re talking about, tough to crack open. In spite of the fact that there are many minerals, and a lot of water going through them, one can’t see, at first sight, any reason whatsoever to spring and grow there. So, there must be other reasons for this, different from the food and light triggers.

We were used to thinking that plants don’t love, don’t have any feelings at all, but recent studies point in the exact opposite direction. They do feel, so the studies show through very interesting experiments made by many non-conformist botanists, and they do communicate, share information with each other, just like in any society. How much do we know and understand of our world? Have you thought about it?

It’s like we live in strange worlds about which we arrogantly think we know everything when, in fact, we know extremely little and we are now just discovering more things to complete our knowledge with.

I think that photography can be a great tool for such discoveries, to aid in scientific research as well. I used to think about the artistic purpose of photography and very little about its scientific purpose. Now I am thinking about combining these two purposes to create meaningful images for both uses. We need more beauty in these kind of situations, to depict what we are scientifically talking about. I think we need a little bit of composition in these kind of images to please the eye. I’m not talking about excelent fine-art, but about adding some beauty to these images. After all, what we see in the botanical and zoological atlases are many illustrations made by artists.

I also think that a nature photographer can be a great asset for nature studies because, nowadays, nature photographers see things that many scientists, stuck in their ideas, cannot see. They can’t see because they have not opened their mind, heart, senses and soul to something new. As I said, great recent studies were conducted by non-conformist botanists who jumped out of their pool of centuries old ideas. So, we need some new way of thinking as well. And for this, nature photographers can help a great deal.

Many nature photographers have started photographing just about everything, and I mean everything they could find and like. Now, many of them have specialized themselves in certain areas of photography and have become ambassadors of nature photography across the world. It’s only a matter of time until they will have scientific assignments, not just those by National Geographic.

When we talk about nature photography, we are talking about not only geography (landscape photography and all), but also about botany and zoology, and even microbiology. I also think we should combine fine-art with representative photography to create something great.

As I said, there are nature photographers who are ambassadors of nature photography but for certain companies that manufacture cameras and lenses and all. They do a great job in landscape and wildlife photography but as ambassadors for certain manufacturers that want to put their trademark on the images made by those photographers as if they were made by those cameras. But let’s talk a little bit about this fact. Cameras and lenses have no life of their own. The only life they have, so to speak, is from the fact that we use them. Actually, their life is our life and, I think, those people have no right to put any trademark, or whatever, on those images made not by this and that photo equipment, but with such equipment. The camera doesn’t take pictures unless people do with them.

Also, an image is not made by any such company, but by people who put their effort in making them (in camera and post-processing, also printing). Nevertheless, I am very aware of the sponsorship advantages those photographers have due to their contracts and all. But this is another talk for another time.

If life is those plants that we see in nature, that we contemplate, then life is beautiful. But some of us say that life is bad and ugly, and hateful, harsh, hostile etc. Is it because we make it so? Or what?

What can we learn from these plants? What can trees, flowers, grasses teach us? Can we give up our ignorance and know-it-all arrogance, and can we be simple and open to new information, to new lessons to learn? I think we can do that and much more. New possibilities will open for us and life will continue to be what we make it but differently.

Life is beautiful. We make it ugly, unfortunately. Actually, we make ourselves ugly. Life doesn’t have anything to do with that. Life doesn’t stain its hand with that…

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