Come Hither #15167

The Story

In this black and white photograph, a small bed of lily pads floats easily on the lake water. Sunlight fills the clear sky, which shows as pure black in infrared photography. The also pure black rippled black water reflects back a single tree standing onshore mirroring the lily pads in near-perfect symmetry. It seems one admires the other from a distance.

Across the wide lake, the trees line the shore; there are no fields down to the water’s edge over there. But here I could walk close down the water’s edge to see this composition.

In my imagination, the tree and lily pads seem to call one another…come closer, come hither. Or, oppositely, perhaps these two hold each other in place as do repelling magnets and this is as close as they’ll ever come.

It’s up to the viewer’s imagination…what do you see in this photographic Rorschach test?

Location: near Flinton, Cambria County, Pennsylvania. Picture and story © Andrew Dierks