DAVID
FOSTER
HEALING POWER OF WATER
We are delighted to introduce our first regular columnist, photographer
David Foster. He begins his series of stories with a piece on the healing
power of water. See more at www.davidfosterimages.net
As a lover of nature and particularly as a nature photographer, I have a
nearly boundless fascination with water. I am captivated by its beauty,
mystery, energy and magic. Water has so many qualities that entice my
interest. Perhaps most compelling is its extraordinary variations:
Dew, fog, rain, stream, waterfall, surf
Opaque, translucent, transparent
Prismatic, refractive, reflective
Still, flowing, swirling, churning
Silent, soothing, roaring
Solid, liquid, vapor
These variations offer such diverse elements for discovering and creating
engaging images. Add to these, sunlight at different times of day, times
of year, and angles – along with the varied colors, shapes and textures in
the surrounding landscapes. These provide myriad ingredients for endless
fascination and exploration in my photographic endeavors.
The geography of water images is also richly varied, from the seemingly
mundane worlds of my front yard or a nearby park, to the more exotic
worlds of a waterfall in the mountains or an ocean shore halfway around
the world.
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Water offers experiences of both grace and power – sometimes one,
sometimes the other, and occasionally both at the same time. While
these qualities are inherent in the
water in that context, the visual
experience of them in photography
is the result of particular techniques
that allow for one to convey this
essence though showing a moment
in time.
In some images the flow of water
is frozen in a fraction of a second,
dynamic, evoking one kind of
emotional response – in other
images the flow is silky, more
serene, evoking a different set of
emotions.
A wide array of water experiences
and images draw me in, hold my
being, and mesmerize me, taking
me out of my states of angst or
worry and enabling me to be fully
present in the moment – either as
the photographer finding a magical
image or as a viewer engaging with
that image made manifest.
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