BY LESLIE REGO
It seems I continue to live in an old-fashioned photographic world. As the snow descends, the edges to my immediate surroundings become fuzzy. There are indistinct light and dark shapes. Lines are blurred. My depth of field is reduced. Am I seeing trees or textures in the meadows? Is that the top of the mountain or the sky? My surroundings are becoming a hazy, unfocused world.
As I tramp through the trees, the snow flickers across my cheeks. For an instant, it rests on the tip of my nose before melting. The snow mutes sound, although I believe I can actually hear the snowflakes fall! What I am sure I perceive are the gentle thuds of clumps of snow cascading to the ground as they give up their perch on the tree branches. They descend in slow motion and, with a soft groan, nestle into the velvety white fluff.
Last week I felt like I was in a daguerreotype photograph with indistinct borders. This week the feathered margins have intruded further into the frame and I see vignettes everywhere. One moment I feel like I am in a soft-blur vignette, the trees dark against a background that gets lighter and lighter until it melts into the white of the snowy expanse. Or maybe I am in a torn-paper vignette where my field of vision becomes a ragged fragment torn out of the greater composition. Perhaps I am part of a fadeaway vignette, the whites of the snow on the tree trunks matching the whites of the background world. My eye must discern where one ends and the other begins. The edges of the forms spill over and vanish into the whites beyond my field of vision, fashioning lost and disguised edges. Everywhere I see sketchy lines fading away into a netherworld.
There are a lot of abbreviated stories in the snow—fadeaways, snippets, and out-of-focus areas that meld into the ragged peripheries. I am transported back to a quiet era where my focal point tapers and the outer world seems far away. I repose in an old-fashioned vignette, a place of stillness, unfinished edges, and muted tones.
Leslie Rego is an Idaho Press Club award-winning columnist, artist and Blaine County resident. To view more of Rego’s art, visit leslierego.com.