In this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Ann-Christine features a focus on patterns, man-made or natural. Human intellect in general prefers structure and organization. As a result, patterns play a big part in creative photography. Our challenge this week is to find and share those patterns that appeal to us. It’s not hard for me to search my gallery of images to find examples of patterns that attracted my attention. This response is as much how many images I left off. I guess my choices to share here better all be good. In any case, you can read the entire challenge post here. The example above features the main entrance to the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, California. It seems every section of floor, wall, and ceiling has a different pattern. Even the entry doors at the far end of the photo exhibit their own unique pattern. Though the golds of the original color image were attractive, I decided to convert it to black-and-white to focus on the patterns.

The Lavender Mine, an open-pit dig in Bisbee, Arizona, features patterns of color and of texture. Even though one of the colors is lavender, the mine was named for a gentleman with the surname Lavender, no relation to the colors on display in the mine. Though the materials are “natural”, the patterns were created by the man-made extraction of minerals, the terracing providing a mechanism for easily extracting material from the bottom of the open pit. Though pit mines by their nature have a reputation for being ugly, this mine has a unusually beautiful color scheme.

Unlike the two opening images, the image immediately above is a natural pattern, not man-made. The soft sandstone at Page, Arizona has been molded by the wind to create a natural “breaker” not unlike what the wind does to water in the open ocean. It obviously took millenia for the wind to shape this pattern in the rock.

Finally, another natural pattern formed in the sky over the White Tank Mountains at Waddell, Arizona. Mother Nature doesn’t always create repeating patterns, so it’s especially interesting when she does. All images posted in this challenge were reprocessed to enhance their pattern display and also to provide a higher resolution view. In most browsers, you can click on an image to enlarge it for greater detail.

John Steiner