Weekly Prompts has challenged us once again to share something inspired by their prompt. I love their weekly encouragement because they include the following:
Show us or tell us, and don’t forget there are no rules and no deadlines.
On days when I actually have the time (and energy) to post something, but my mind is empty, I go to their site for ideas.
This week’s is great for me because I have a whole category of photos for my blog called saying about “Art is in the eye of the…” . Having this category helps me include my ongoing theme of Chosen Perspectives. Today’s challenge is perfect! How I (we) look at something is everything.
For some personal historical context aesthetics (and choosing a perspective): I spent much of my early life feeling very “homely”, a conclusion I came to about myself when, at age six, I asked my grandmother if I was pretty. I was probably playing “dress-up” with her clothes and jewelry at the time. In her defense, her answer was probably based on a religious edict to prevent vanity. She said, “well…(long pregnant pause here)…you have nice hair, Dear.”
I was crushed…and you can see here why I had a tough time believing Gramma about my hair…
It wasn’t until I was about eleven years old that I began to reconsider her declaration about my looks.
I saw an episode of Twilight Zone called “Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder”. Clearly, I was impacted as it’s been 61 years since it was aired, and I still remember most of the scenes. If you’ve never seen it, it’s worth the time. Go online and watch it! If you did see it, I bet you remember it. Mind boggling for an 11 year old.
Anyway, it fit right in with my early thoughts on the lessons my Dad was covertly demonstrating about perspective.
I finally arrived at a time in my adult life when I was seeing myself as at least mildly attractive, with really great hair. My mane was apparently very appealing, even to strangers on the street or at the grocery store. Enough so that people would come right up to me to comment on my hair. Maybe Gramma was right after all?
And then…AGING hit with a vengeance!
I am currently losing the battle between a really loud cultural bias about women and choosing a healthy perspective on my own looks.
Back to the theme for today. Here’s what I came up with on what is (and isn’t) Aesthetically Appealing….for me.
The first four are random shots of things I found beautiful. You, of course, don’t have to…
Next, some comparisons…photos showing how the perspectives you choose can show you so many things…
This is a photo of the San Juan Island rock, that’s been painted over and over for 30 plus years, by anonymous “artists” . I think the first one is not very “appealing”…
But this next one…well, what do you think?
Same rock…
I really love photographing flowers. I have hundreds of shots of perfect flowers that are hard not to categorize as beautiful and aesthetically pleasing…
as long as I don’t zoom in too close. Then, they can be downright creepy! Not at all appealing.
One of my favorite flowers is the Hydrangea. It is so pretty in absolutely all of it’s stages.
Like these luscious, richly colored examples…
But Hydrangeas have taught me a lot about beauty and aging. Have you ever noticed how lovely they become, in a whole new way, as they age and even die?
You tell me, from your perspective, which photo below is more beautiful and appealing?
This?
Or these?
I really love them both.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about nature and aging and death, probably normal given my age. Why is it more difficult to see beauty in something old or dying, than in something fresh and young?
I did a post earlier this week for Wordless Wednesday, showing the dying process of a beautiful leaf from one of my favorite plants.
you can go here and see more: https://chosenperspectives.com/2020/02/06/wordlesswednesday-02-05-2020/
These are my final shots, taken just this afternoon. From my perspective, these photos are every bit as interesting, and appealing as the first ones I took.
Thanks for coming on this long journey.
I’d love to hear your perspective now.
Your photos are perfect for our Weekly Prompts Challenge, I love the flowers, really gorgeous! Thank you 🙂
I’m so sorry the initial pingback didn’t work for you. Once you remove the forward slash from the start of the address /http to http it should work fine. I couldn’t use the link you sent because our challenge pages are set to accept pingbacks only.
Thanks so much. I love your challenges!
so how did you finally see mine? I’m still not getting it. Did my ping back work eventually or something??
Oh, thank you 😊
I came here to your site to see what the problem was. Look at the pingback address at the bottom of your post, this is what you should have
https://weeklyprompts.com/2020/02/08/w-p-challenge-aesthetically-appealing
The address you typed has a forward slash at the start of the address and that makes the pingback invalid.
Delete it and and use the one above. This should solve the problem 🙂
Excellent the edit worked! 🙂
oh YAY!
so many thoughts in this post. I love that photo of you as a child- and yes, a beauty you were. I try not to focus on how aging is changing how I look, but it is not an easy task. Thank you for sharing wonderful photos and allowing us to find beauty in what is old, you are right- there is beauty in everything.
Thank you so much! That’s what I was hoping to get across (and remind myself about).