Photography
How often is it, in good times or bad, when we take a moment to just stop and admire something around us just by looking? Even down to the simplest of details or subjects? Furthermore, what all can be seen or recognized in a simple detail or subject? I took this picture back in November 2019 while on a dog sitting job in Sterling Heights, Michigan. It was after dark, a day or two after a big snowfall (one better suited for Christmas, as this particular big snow occurred too early before the holidays). While standing on the backyard patio having let the dog out, I just happened to look down and underneath the ambience of a porch light I saw a bright red Japanese maple leaf lying in the snow. To think I could have almost stepped on it! I have always loved Japanese maple leaves, and so with the dog taking her time roaming around in the snow I took advantage of the moment to admire the beauty, the strength, the resilience of that red leaf. Drink it in—the power of that red saturation. As someone who loves to read, I easily thought of Snow White’s mother at the beginning of the Grimm brothers’ fairy tale when she pricked her finger while sewing and could not help admire the beauty, the strength, and the resilience of the blood in the snow—the red. Something so simple, yet so remarkable. Such moments can be very tranquil and entrancing, which I hoped to capture in snapping a picture of that beautiful leaf—that strong saturated red. I hope to inspire that tranquility I felt when taking a moment to stop, breathe, and look. Sometimes a moment like that in our everyday lives is just what we need.
Upon further reflection on the leaf in the snow from the perspective of an art and art history scholar, when it comes to the subject of red and humanity the leaf is essentially a living thing. Though having been blown and separated from its living home (the tree) and its community (the other leaves), the leaf itself as an individual I would argue is a cyborg of us. Going deeper, the saturated red signifies all our good qualities put together to help make us a collective of individuals—something we all share to make a humanity. The amplified red against the neutral cold snow in the ebony of night mirrors our warm-bloodedness, passion, love, hope, strength, determination, life: our own resilience. There is strength in numbers they say, but there is also strength within in each of us when standing alone, such as this resilient red leaf in the snow. When reminding ourselves to stop and take a moment to look at what may be around us as I did with the leaf, I also hope to invoke a cerebral challenge of what can be recognized in the leaf, down to simply the resilient red itself in the leaf’s body.