10%

back to nature

Macro Challenge #5

By Tineke Ziemer

November 23^rd, 2019

No matter where I go, I usually come home with my pockets full of riches. I am a scavengar at heart. I spend hours scrutinizing and picking up rocks and sticks, sea shells, driftwood.... My favourites end up in a big jar for me to take out and hold and remember. I'm on to my second jar now. These are my greatest earthly treasures because they all hold memories.

"these dry bones"

This is my favourite treasure I have ever been given. I'm not even exactly sure what it is. Perhaps a piece of birch bark or some other wood that coiled up and then landed on a rocky shoreline on Vancouver Island and dried into this spectacular shape. I found it on my 15th anniversary trip with Len, one of the few times we made a big deal about our anniversary. It's a trip that brings back some of the best memories we have ever shared together. I had just had emergency surgery and was told our trip would have to be cancelled, but the surgeon mercifully found a way that I could go. I was very weak and ill the whole trip, but because of it, we spent our days quietly, soothingly, peacefully enjoying each other's company and little walks on the beach. We connected in a way we never do in our busy lives and fell in love with a different side of each other. I love this treasure, I treasure all that it brings me back to.

I shot in the house today, picking through my jar and trying to capture the emotion that I feel when I hold each of the items in my hand and let my heart wander. It was truly the most glorious time I have had taking photos in as long as I can remember.

skin & bones

This skeletal leaf has been in my possession for two years and still has not crumbled. Somehow it still bends and flexes and remains intact, despite the fact that most of its skin has long ago fallen away. Beauty is in the places most fail to see, and in learning how to bend.

I was down in my basement studio this afternoon shooting these images, all of my treasures spread out on the floor around me as I took a turn with each, one at a time, savouring the moment. I was lost in beautiful reverie, when my husband went walking by upstairs. His vibrations sent a painting tumbling off of our upstairs fireplace and down the stairs, where it bounced off the corner of my basement mirror. The full length mirror then slammed to the ground and landed literally 1.2 mm from my most treasured, fragile, irreplaceable earthly treasures. The edge of the mirror was touching one of the items, but not one "hair on their heads was damaged." And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I know there is a God.