Whole Reality

@wholereality

Amateur photographer/writer in the PNW: macro, nature, spherical (aka 360) panoramas, abstract Exploring the relationship between regular and spherical photography and what it teaches us about how we see. Photos by me except reposts.

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Whole Reality@wholereality· 24d

Surprised to find this #Growing in the rose garden. #photography #closeup #texture #EastCoastKin #BlueSkyArtShow #artphotography #bokeh #b&w #blackandwhite

A solitaire engagement ring hangs from a thorny rose stem bearing several tight buds and dark leaves, photographed in black and white. The ring's stone catches a glint of light against the dark foliage, while a soft circular bokeh highlight glows in the background — a quietly romantic image pairing symbols of love and growth.

Whole Reality@wholereality· 27d

Capturing the rain. #photography #closeup #plantphotography #EastCoastKin #bokeh #leaves #waterdrop

A young rose shoot with serrated leaves edged in deep red-burgundy rises from a dark background, bearing several large, perfectly spherical water droplets that catch and reflect light like glass lenses. The largest drop, perched at the leaf junction near the top, contains a miniature reflected world within it. The vivid green-and-red color contrast of the new growth against the near-black background gives the image a dramatic, low-key quality.

Whole Reality@wholereality· Jul 11

A #Quiet morning in the rose garden. #photography #naturephotography #rosegarden #BlueSkyArtShow #eastCoastKin #rose #morning

A single fully open yellow-gold rose glows at the top of a long stem rising from deeply shadowed blue-green foliage, with soft red roses blurred in the background on either side. The overall scene is very dark and moody, the yellow bloom the only bright element, like a small lamp lit in a dim garden.

Whole Reality@wholereality· Jul 4

A very #Wide (360 degree, actually) picture of a local wildlife refuge. This is part of a 360 panorama. Here is the interactive sphere: link.wholereality.net/dY364t Details in alt-text. #photography #oregon #naturephotography #nature #landscape #EastCoastKin #BlueSkyArtShow #360photography

Located ten miles south of Corvallis, Oregon, the William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge protects the largest remaining tract of native Willamette Valley wet prairie — fields of wildlife food crops interspersed with Oregon white oak savanna, meandering creeks with bottomland ash forest, old growth bigleaf maple, and native prairie. This is an exception of ecological rarity: today only 1 percent of the valley's wet prairies remain, and within this refuge's more than 5,000 acres you'll find the Willamette Valley's largest remaining intact wet prairie.

The refuge is also exceptional for a very specific bird: dusky Canada geese are unlike other Canada goose subspecies, with a population hovering around 16,000. They nest on Alaska's Copper River Delta and winter almost exclusively in the wetlands of the Willamette Valley.

This was taken for the recent "Exception" theme on the World Wide Panorama Project. https://worldwidepanorama.org/

Whole Reality@wholereality· Jun 27

The center of a pink rose. 📷 #photography #abstract #flowerphotography #macrophotography #closeup #EastCoastKin #artphotography #BlueSkyArtShow #Macro #rosegarden #bokeh

An extreme close-up looking straight down into the center of a pink rose, the frame filled almost entirely by the intricate reproductive structure — scores of dark-tipped stamens with curled, comma-shaped anthers radiating outward from a golden-yellow disc surrounding a central amber pistil. The soft pink petals are reduced to blurred bands at the edges, serving only as a pastel frame for what is essentially a macro portrait of the flower's inner architecture.

Whole Reality@wholereality· Jun 25

Spring dreams. 📷 #photography #plantphotography #EastCoastKin #green #spring #abstract #artphotography

Tall grass stems with delicate seed heads, rendered almost entirely soft through shallow depth of field, creating a dreamy, painterly wash of deep greens with warm amber and gold glowing through from behind. No single element is sharply focused — the image reads more as an impressionistic mood than a botanical study, evoking the feel of a warm, still evening in a meadow.

Whole Reality@wholereality· Jun 20

The spiraling curves of a new rose. 📷 #photography #closeup #plantphotography #naturephotography #BlueSkyArtShow #Curve #rosegarden #flowerphotography #eastCoastKin #rose #morning

A small white rose bud, just beginning to open, its outer petals curling back gracefully to reveal a perfectly tight cream-and-honey spiral at the center. The velvety petals glow softly against a dark background, and the elegant curl of the uppermost petal gives the composition a gentle, almost balletic quality.

Whole Reality@wholereality· Jun 17

Playing around with something seen on a walk. A spiderweb full of debris, inverted to make it abstract. 📷 #photography #closeup #abstract #artphotography #EastCoastKin #beautyindecay

A spider's web photographed against a bright white sky and then tonally inverted and processed, so the silk threads appear as dark lines crossing a pale, luminous background. Trapped debris — small insects, leaf fragments, and other detritus — appears as dark silhouetted shapes suspended in the web's irregular lattice. The result looks remarkably like a microscope slide or a neuron diagram, the web's structure rendered abstract and scientific.

Whole Reality@wholereality· Jun 13

Amidst a collection of crisscrossing pine needles, the #Sharp end of one single tip. 📷 #photography #closeup #EastCoastKin #BlueSkyArtShow #texture

A close-up of fallen, dried pine needles carpeting the ground, their long flat forms crisscrossing at every angle to create a dense lattice of warm tawny browns and russets. A small intact needle cluster fans out near the bottom center, with a single needle tip pointing straight upwards, and the base of a cluster of needles is visible in the upper right.

Whole Reality@wholereality· Jun 13

Looks full of #Sharp things, but would it really be painful to touch? 📷 #photography #closeup #EastCoastKin #plantphotography #BlueSkyArtShow #artphotography

A love-in-a-mist bud before the petals have opened, its pale green-white central bud surrounded by a wild starburst of long, thread-like bracts tipped with tiny pink-purple points. Caught in sharp directional light against a jet-black background, the spiky, otherworldly form looks more like a sea creature or an exploding star than a garden flower.

Whole Reality@wholereality· Jun 9

More experiments with abstracted leaves. Playing around with different ways of changing the colors. This isn't quite as striking as the version posted three months ago, but interesting in different ways. 📷 #photography #abstract #artphotography #EastCoastKin #leaves

A top-down view of a forest floor carpeted in dark, heavily processed oak leaves rendered in moody blue-grey tones, scattered with small bright pink-magenta wildflower-like shapes. The shapes are actually color-inverted green plants, but look like wildflowers because of the processing. They pop vividly against the somber, almost monochromatic leaf litter. The color treatment creates a striking tension between the cool, dark background and the glowing pink shapes pushing through it.

Whole Reality@wholereality· Jun 5

Relaxing in the morning sun. 📷 #photography #closeup #plantphotography #naturephotography #flowerphotography #eastCoastKin #morning

This image is a close-up photograph of a flower with soft lavender-blue petals surrounding a bright yellow and orange center. The flower is sharply focused in the middle, while the background is dark and blurred, creating a strong contrast that makes the bloom stand out. The shallow depth of field gives the photo a calm, artistic, and almost dreamy appearance.

Whole Reality@wholereality· Jun 3

Caught in the light. 📷 #photography #closeup #plantphotography #naturephotography #flowerphotography #eastCoastKin #bokeh #backlit

A fully open flower, viewed from below and behind, its wide red petals dramatically backlit and heavily processed to reveal deep purple-black shadows, vivid yellow accents, and an almost painterly intensity of color. The dark purple stem rises from the bottom, and the overall treatment — high contrast, saturated, nearly abstract — gives the flower a bold, graphic quality.

Whole Reality@wholereality· May 30

Sometimes growth comes from joining things together. 📷 #photography #EastCoastKin #macrophotography #closeup #BlueSkyArtShow #Growth #abstract #texture #artphotography

A close macro of a weld bead running diagonally across two pieces of dark steel, its rippled, scalloped surface catching the light in silver and iridescent blue-gold tones against the matte black metal. The rhythmic, overlapping arc pattern of the weld has an almost organic quality — fish scales, vertebrae, or a caterpillar — making something purely industrial unexpectedly beautiful.

Whole Reality@wholereality· May 28

Sunbathing rose. 📷 #photography #closeup #plantphotography #naturephotography #rosegarden #flowerphotography #eastCoastKin #rose #morning

A large, fully open yellow rose shot from directly above against a black background, its many layers of ruffled petals spiraling inward from pale cream-white at the outer edges to a vivid, sunlit golden yellow at the tightly coiled center. Strong directional light carves deep shadows between the petals, accentuating the flower's sculptural depth and giving it a dramatic chiaroscuro quality.

Whole Reality@wholereality· May 23

Underneath a canopy of tall trees, in a research forest. 📷 #photography #EastCoastKin #BlueSkyArtShow #Tall #forest #oregon

The image is a shot looking straight up through a dense forest of tall, slender trees, with the bright sky and a sunburst visible at the top. There is an element of symmetry to the pattern of tree trunks because it was taken in a research forest (Peavy Arboretum), where this stand of trees was planted in rows.

Whole Reality@wholereality· May 21

Leaving the rose garden. 📷 #photography #EastCoastKin #landscape #garden

A metal pergola tunnel, its arched framework threaded with bare and budding climbing plants, frames a view down a mulched path toward a luminous green lawn and misty trees beyond. The dark, shadowed interior of the tunnel contrasts with the softly glowing open landscape at the far end, creating a classic dark-to-light, enclosed-to-open compositional pull.

Whole Reality@wholereality· May 19

A bud that seems to be spiraling into existence. 📷 #photography #closeup #plantphotography #naturephotography #flowerphotography #EastCoastKin #rosegarden #rose

Whole Reality@wholereality· May 16

An earlier morning photo of mine -- long exposure on the Oregon coast. This was an experiment; I hope to try more of these. 📷 #photography #artphotography #EastCoastKin #BlueSkyArtShow #Morning #landscapephotography #seascape #oregon

This serene coastal scene captures dark, rugged rocks surrounded by a dreamy, mist-like veil of water. The effect, achieved through a long exposure, softens the ocean into silky layers of pale lavender and blue. The gradient sky transitions from soft blue at the horizon to deeper blue above, enhancing the tranquil, ethereal mood of the morning seascape.

Whole Reality@wholereality· May 14

Swells. I like the infinite variety of tones and shapes in ocean waves. My pictures usually include sky and perhaps land, but this just focuses on tones and shapes. 📷 #photography #seascape #EastCoastKin #oregon #ocean #waves