looking at one thing at a time

June 17, 2024 4:13 PM

The just-before or the just-after tell a story; whether of becoming, or of letting go. For over 12 years, Mary Jo Hoffman has been taking a daily image of a gathered natural object (usually plants, sometimes dead birds and in one case, a live toad). Click on "details" at the bottom right of each object for, well, details. Hoffman on technique: "I spend a lot of time waiting for the sun to go behind a cloud so I can get softer lighting."
posted by spamandkimchi (5 comments total)

beautiful
posted by HearHere at 4:43 PM on June 17

There's just something so striking about an object of nature on a white background. Lovely.

Also probably why I've always been such fan of DK Publishing.
posted by gwint at 4:49 PM on June 17 [1 favorite]

Super-bookmarked. If it took her twelve years to do this, I'm not going to gulp it down in ten minutes.
posted by kozad at 6:26 PM on June 17

Gorgeous. This reminded me of the book Thin Places by (survivor, poet, observer) Kerri ní Dochartaigh. In recovery, she developed the habit of picking up feathers and stones because they were there so fucking perfect: exemplars of their kind. You cannot keep a poet in a box, they have to walk about this dark world and wide looking sideways at feathers and stones and the beating heart. The rest of us don't even notice the feathers, let alone reflect on how form and function collide. The rest of us shear away from Thin Places where real life steps through those rents in the fabric of the universe to confront The Other.
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:05 AM on June 18

How delightfully serendipitous: I just got her book out from the library. It’s a very cool project. She speaks quite convincingly about the joys of tackling a daily project like this.
posted by oxford blue at 6:34 AM on June 18