
A single, universally shared reality is a nice thought. However, perception and perspective, in their infinite shades of gray, will forever prove meddlesome in the quest for a singular truth or explanation of any one subject.
To illustrate: what might one make of this collection of images? Abstract artwork by an obscure artist? Semi-coherent clusters of dots of colored ink on magazine paper? Aerial snapshots of an alien planet?

All are true; each an equally valid perception of reality. If these pages contained no expository text, the first explanation is cogent. If, on the other hand, one were illiterate or unfamiliar with the English language, the second suggestion is a potential and truthful conclusion. Or, on the off chance one is an extraterrestrial being from the other end of the galaxy viewing these pages, then the third postulation is also rather accurate.
More specifically, these images represent a perception of the phenomenon of winter. One half of the globe tilts on its axis in the void of space at a more oblique angle to the warming streams of radiation cast by its parent star, reactivating the freeze-thaw cycle. Fantastical shapes, composed of ice, snow, water, mud, and pockets of air, form on the surfaces of area lakes, and continuously crack and ripple into a sprawling, natural tapestry.

A drone with the camera angled down 90 degrees over the cold-weather incarnations of water unlocks a beguiling perspective. Devoid of a horizon, trees, wildlife, cars, human figures, or any object of known proportion, the images are stripped of any sense of scale, unmooring the viewer’s spatial awareness.
Captured anywhere from four feet to 400 feet above Earth’s surface, these photographs record scenes as narrow as six and half feet across, to as wide as 650 feet from corner to corner, assuming my trigonometric calculations are sound. On display here are the surfaces of McGregor and Flathead lakes.
Much like water, perception is fluid, and prone to flux with the application of new forces, insights or changes in perspective. One sees what they know.



