It was overcast the other day and just warm enough to get into the darkroom. I’ve been experimenting a lot with the direct color positive prints. So far, I like them a lot. As it gets warmer, I’ll push this process even more. There is a depth and beauty in these that’s not translating very well to the screen, but I wanted to show you the direction I’m going.
"I have a friend who's an artist and has sometimes taken a view with which I don't agree with very well. He'll hold up a flower and say, "Look how beautiful it is," and I'll agree. Then he says, “I, as an artist, can see how beautiful this is, but you, as a scientist, take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing," and I think that he's kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and, I believe, to me too. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is... I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he does. I could imagine the cells there and the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean, it's not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there's also beauty at smaller dimensions, in the inner structure and the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions, which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery, and the awe of a flower. It only adds “I don't understand how it subtracts."
- Richard P. Feynman, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out