Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Photos From Around The World


For those of you who use Facebook, I’m sure that you’ll agree that one of the most interesting things on anyone’s profile is their collection of photoalbums. I, presently, have created about 23 photoalbums to share many of the experiences that have been created during my children’s art programs. I also have photoalbums that showcase my commissioned artworks and another showcasing the art that I’ve donated to charities. One of my favourite albums is entitled “Our Home in the Stars”. It is a collection of images showcasing many beautiful landscapes of the Earth, as well as photos of moons, stars and galaxies. The landscape photos I find in a variety of places on the internet and the galaxy and sun images I find on a special N.A.S.A. website that I know about.

Just recently, a young monk from somewhere in Asia, requested to be my Facebook friend. Of course, I said yes! He had many, many photoalbums sharing images of things that interested him. Most of them where landscape photos of the area where he lives. I really enjoyed his albums and I ‘borrowed’ a few of these pictures to share with you.


His monastery must be very isolated in the mountains because there were many landscape photos like this one, in his collection.


Vast fields of wild flowers flourish throughout the countryside.


Now, everyone around the world has seen many sunsets, but this particular photo really delighted my senses, with all the colours and textures of the clouds.


From the great vistas of the mountains to the confined beauty of the jungle interior, my journey continued into a strange and beautiful land.


When I saw this photo, I paused for quite a long while. I found this photo very captivating, as I had never seen a tiger, such as this, before in my life. I watch a lot of Nature television shows and I flip through lots of picture books, but I had never seen a tiger look so… magical and totally ancient in it’s being. My mind began to trip through time and space into an ancient world dominated by the wild, where man and machines hadn’t yet destroyed.


The photo of the tiger captivated me with it’s ancient aroma, just as this photo hurled my mind back to the future; to the world of man, with it’s walls and weapons.

The internet is such a powerful tool for communication. It can make the world seem so large and vast one moment and then so small and irrelevant the next. As our growing knowledge of our Earth expands around us, we can begin to see how precious and fragile our planet is. Let us acknowledge these growing understandings and use these tools of communication to share in the responsibility of contributing to all existence in positive and constructive ways.

Jim

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