Reflecting on Sight – Color and Emotion
Reflecting on sight…If we were to lose it, what would we miss? We would neither miss cold or warmth, nor hard or soft, nor loud or quiet…for we could still feel those. We would miss color. As a word, it is a vague concept and, perhaps, meaningless until it is bundled with emotion.
As a visual interpretation of emotion, color connects us with the landscape…it connects us with a moment. With color, we experience a scene rather than just observing it. We feel a tingle in our flesh as our hairs stand on edge. We feel an elation that the color feeds and in that moment we feel cold, warmth, hard, soft, loud and quiet…all in one visual and emotional thought.
The landscape of the West, when captured in color, gives me that sense of elation that comes from this visual emotion. Each time I see the canyons with a slight change in perspective, a new emotion is born as if it experiencing it for the first time. Shadows and light in varied perspectives constantly create new new scenes and visual interpretations of our world and ourselves.
Zion National Park and the East fork of the Virgin River, Utah
The Aerial Horizon 