I love the idea here of the 'natural' Christmas tree because, as many of us already know, the real trees that many people buy at Christmas did not naturally fall down from the forest and were gathered by sellers. They were chopped down for a profit because there was such a demand. Here, we have a tree still standing amidst other trees rooted firmly in the ground and no artificial ornaments need to hang for decoration. Nature has taken its own course by giving the tree droplets of sparkling rainwater for decoration free of charge! Moreover, this can be shared by all who passes by and not just to a privileged few who can afford buying a tree. What more can we ask for?
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Natural Bridge in Virginia
I find this image especially intriguing because the focus here is suppose to be on the Natural Bridge in Virginia that poses to be natural. However, instead of capturing the bridge, the photographer chooses to focus on the commentary written about the bridge instead. Is it natural enough to read text and admire pictures relevant to the history of a bridge instead of looking at the bridge itself? Is this why schools have long encourage students to learn and read from textbooks because the real thing is just not that important? Is this educative process natural?
Natural Beauty
This image of the sea and sky with a part of a mountain has been named "Natural Beauty" by the source. I infer that the title relates to the naturalness of the three things captured in the photograph: sea, sky, mountain. I, too, agree that these are very natural things in our world but they are regularly being polluted and threatened by unnatural things in our world.
If one observes carefully, there are boats far away polluting the sea water. I'm sure if there was an oil spill, it would be far from natural when it incidentally wipes out the ocean life. If the boats were fishing, that isn't considered natural as well. The fish does not capture us as dinner, why do we capture them?
The sky seems too far beyond our reach for us to possibly de-naturalize it but then why do we have acid rain and why are our UV rays so dangerous today? Is the thinning of the ozone layer natural and inevitable? Or did Al Gore really released an inconvenient truth?
Surely, the mountains seem difficult to contaminate but as summer rolls around, we hear of many forest fires in the alps and interior of BC. Of course, some of these fires are inevitable because they were due to lightnings or other extreme weather conditions. Yet, humans are to blame for many other forest fires. Just the other day, I heard of a huge forest fire spreading causing Highway 1 in BC to close off because a motorhome and truck caught on fire. Can this possibly be a 'natural' accident?
An Italian Natural Mineral Water in Japan
With today's filters and 'natural' spring mineral water, they just make us question how dirty our tap water really is? We're very fortunate to still be able to drink from our taps in Canada despite the fact that it's likely there are pollutants in it. In many countries, such as Japan, they never drink from tap water; hence, they resort to boiling or natural mineral water such as this one from Italy. But this whole process of taking water from a natural spring, packaging it, shipping it, and selling it to another country...are these all processes that we have accepted as natural today?
Natural Light
Babies, to me, are natural human beings that perhaps have yet been exposed to the artificiality of the world. They are curious creatures that become fascinated by other people, things, places, and ideas easily. This is perhaps one of the most natural photos I've found so far with regards to naturalness. The simplicity of black and white shades of light shone on a babies facial features surely reminds me of nature. However, being the devil's advocate here, I wonder if photography itself is natural? Do we have to capture memories beyond our brains or are they best left there? Has this photograph been photoshopped or edited in any way? These are questions we begin asking with the continual advancement of our photo technolgies. Is getting the simple, natural, original form that difficult?
Mr Natural - Robert Crumb 01
I laughed when I came upon this image of a cartoon creation, Mr. Natural, as part of my search results. I'm not familiarized with ths character, so for those of you who are, please feel free to comment and let me know his history. I just found it very amusing that we have now evolved so much that we can animate any idea or concept, including naturalness. Is Mr. Natural here attempting to depict what it means to be natural through his 'natural' white beard and simple clothing or is he challenging the concept of naturalness through his thought-like pose and well-groomed hair and beard?
Natural History Museum - London
The Natural History Museum of London possesses one of the largest collection of natual historical items in the world. In fact, when I typed in the word "natural" as my search keyword in Flickr's Creative Commons, image results from this museum came up the most. As a result, I thought it would only be logical in include it in my inquiry to what is natural. Obviously, to the many who have tagged this photograph as natural, this photograph must be natural, or is it? I mean, are museums natural to nature? They never existed before humans discovered how to build and preserve, so although the many artifacts within may be deemed natural, is preservation and the building itself natural?
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