This post is in response to James’ IndieWeb Carnival prompt “Moments of Joy.”

I collect textures.

This is, perhaps, an unusual thing to collect, but I have been gathering them for years.

On most trips I take, whether short outings or long vacations, I photograph textures along with more traditional landscapes. I take them in urban environments as well as outdoors, capturing the visual details that make up a place. So others can appreciate and make use of them as well, I’ve released 15 collections of natural textures photographed in the Pacific Northwest.

But over the past few years, I’ve essentially stopped traveling due to the pandemic. We’ve taken occasional day trips, but those have presented less opportunity for shooting textures. When I went to the beach this week, the visual variety inspired me to photograph textures again — so I shot the bedrock and kelp and eelgrass to create my first texture collection since 2020.

Even though I’ve previously released texture collections from the shoreline in Semiahmoo, Tofino, and Ocean Shores, I find each place offers a slightly different palette of textures. In collection, they reveal a personality.

What I like about photographing textures is the focus it gives me when I visit a place. I find this true of photography in general, but especially textural and abstract photography. This type of looking is another layer of experience: truly seeing the light and shapes of things, noticing patterns, making sense of visual cacophony.

The beach is a riot of textures, all flowing together, but photographing it makes me parse the components of a scene. Much of the power of photography is in the crop: deciding what to include, what is worth documenting. Making a texture photo forces me to translate what I’m seeing into something visually coherent. I isolate (or group) and frame “a texture” as I would narrow in on and frame a story in a photograph with a subject.

This brings me a richer experience in the moment as I scan my surroundings and pay attention to what catches my eye. It reminds me of how a biology professor described spotting animal sign: engage your entire vision with softer and broader focus — with practice you develop a “search image” for sign and it becomes easier to spot. You generate a personal pattern recognition for what’s important to you.

My practice of textural photography has improved my perception for textures. The natural world comes into greater focus with categorization and naming. Nature textures are vignettes of an ecosystem. Each provides a soupçon of the essence of a place.

Photographing textures gives me a framework for noticing and forces me to pay closer attention. Perhaps this is not joy, itself, but deep living is joyful. Like meditation teaches, to truly exist in this moment — and not one future or past — is a beautiful thing. Is it not joy to celebrate reality for itself — to observe truth and pull meaning from disorder?

Thank you James for the prompt! I shy away a bit from (to me) the implied intensity of “joy,” but narrowing in on “moments of joy” felt more approachable and realistic for my relatively mundane but very satisfying life.