Small worlds

What’s wrong with a photographer wanting to see Nature, its astonishing complexity, like a painter’s palette, full of dreamlike colours? If we look with such sensitivity at even the smallest patch of grass beneath our feet, we have the chance to see a diversity we don’t expect: a wealth of deliciously colourful organisms at different stages of life. It is clear that the most important colour on our planet – green – predominates in Nature, for it is the life-giving chlorophyll that is most abundant. But even green has thousands of shades, and over time green falls in love with yellows, oranges, browns carmines and scarlets. Millions of flowers complement and break up the greens or contrast with them – from subtle transitions to screaming qualities from the entire range of visible colours known to the human eye. In the same way, mushrooms, insects, spiders, birds and myriads of other animals harmonise with the greens in delicious colours. Because our Nature is… a great symphony of colours. Living colours!

There is an old tried-and-tested way of looking at shapes and colours in a synthetic way, familiar to painters, graphic designers and photographers. It is enough to squint hard, so that the world is obscured by the eyelashes. The light bending over them blurs details, unifies colours. Suddenly, we notice a fascinating simplification of the most important shapes, spots, lines. We see a simple and clear arrangement of colours. As if from the brush of van Gogh or the palette of Monet. Let us squint…