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Cloud build-up over the Highveld

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I am never entirely sure which of my photographs will stand the test of time: the ones that I am always pleased to see again, no matter how often they have passed in front of my eyes via the screensaver on my laptop. This particular shot was taken 11 years ago at Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve in Gauteng, and at the time I thought little of the fact that I experienced it as pleasing.  Now it puzzles me that I have grown to love it. I wonder what it is about this relatively simple composition that I find so enticing. Is it idiosyncratic, or would others find joy in it too? I often have huge skies in my photographs, because of an internal need for expansion, and this shot leaves me with a sense that I can stand next to that dark little bush on the edge and that the world will fall away and I will be able to see forever. 

Inner cohesion and variety

The yearly West Coast flower season is opening up to the sun every day, and after the good rains we had it is promising to be a good one. It has me thinking of mandalas, secrets and variety. I climbed a koppie in the West Coast National Park and within half an hour I had photographed the inner hearts of near a dozen beings. Technically I used an extension tube for this probing, and handheld a 135 mm lens using a high ISO. But in my heart I was joyful for this symbolic mystery of resilience.