Dazzling photographs show nature in a new way

Photographer Jon McCormack has found himself rappelling into Arctic ice caves in Svalbard, Norway, diving into the frigid waters off the coast of British Columbia and hanging out of helicopter doors above southern Kenya all in search of his next great picture.

But despite many grand adventures, it was an unlikely set of photos he took just a mile from his home that propelled him on a years-long endeavor to photograph nature from a new perspective.

It was 2020 and the Covid-19 pandemic had brought McCormack’s world to a halt. So he began a new routine: A nightly walk along the beach near his house in Pacific Grove, California. His camera made the trip with him.

A week into the practice, McCormack began to notice how the landscape would shift daily. “This magical combination of the tide, the light, the wind, would create these little compositions that kind of exist only sort of one time,” McCormack said during a recent interview with CNN. “I really got to understand the details, understand how it would change every night, see patterns form where there hadn't been patterns before.”

By the time the world opened back up, McCormack’s photography had fundamentally changed. “I’d become, by then, a different photographer,” he said. Instead of grand landscapes and sweeping vistas, McCormack was drawn to “these small patterns and these small vignettes in nature.”

“I just started to see them everywhere,” he recalled.

The patterns McCormack has captured and rediscovered since fill the pages of his new monograph Patterns: Art of the Natural World. In it, readers will find arresting and colorful photographs with subjects that are recognizable and also virtually indistinguishable. Sand dunes turn into line drawings, microscopic organisms to jewels, and rivers more closely resemble woven yarn than running water.

McCormack estimates two-thirds of the photos in the book were made during and after the pandemic; the rest are past works he found while digging through his archive.

“I've been a photographer for 40 years and it turns out that I've been photographing patterns for a lot of that time,” he said. “It was just never an intentional thing. It was just sort of part of who I was.”

While many of the pictures are from far-off corners of the planet, McCormack emphasizes: “Nature is never that far away.” The book includes a macro image of a hibiscus flower from his friend’s suburban garden and photos from his first days walking on that Northern California beach.

Ultimately, McCormack’s hope is that his book — which is intentionally not “a fine art book” — will help people feel like nature is accessible to them.

“It really is designed to be able to go anywhere and be accessible by anybody, with this one central message of, our world's a pretty cool place,” McCormack said. “You should go out and see it. And then maybe, after you've gone and seen it, maybe you'll protect it.”

Editor's note: Jon McCormack's book " Patterns: Art of the Natural World " was published by Damiani Books and is available now.

摄影师乔恩·麦考马克为了寻找下一张伟大的照片，曾多次冒险，包括绳降到挪威斯瓦尔巴群岛的北极冰洞、潜入不列颠哥伦比亚海岸的冰冷海水中，以及从肯尼亚南部上空的直升机舱门探出身子。

尽管经历了许多伟大的冒险，但正是他在离家仅一英里处拍摄的一组意想不到的照片，促使他开始了长达数年的从全新视角拍摄自然的努力。

2020年，新冠疫情让麦考马克的生活戛然而止。于是他开始了一种新的习惯：每晚沿着位于加州太平洋格罗夫家附近的海滩散步。他的相机也随他同行。

练习一周后，麦考马克开始注意到景色每天都在变化。“潮汐、光线和风的奇妙组合，创造出一些只存在一次的奇妙景象，”麦考马克在最近接受CNN采访时说道。“我真正开始了解其中的细节，了解它每晚的变化，看到以前从未出现过的图案逐渐形成。”

当世界重新开放时，麦考马克的摄影风格已经发生了根本性的变化。“那时，我已经变成了一个截然不同的摄影师，”他说。麦考马克不再拍摄宏伟的风景和壮丽的景色，而是被“自然界中这些细微的图案和小景”所吸引。

“我开始到处都能看到它们，”他回忆道。

麦考马克此后捕捉和重新发现的各种图案，都收录在他的新专著《图案：自然世界的艺术》中。书中，读者将欣赏到引人入胜、色彩斑斓的照片，照片中的对象既有我们熟悉的，也有几乎难以辨认的。沙丘化作线条画，微观生物宛如宝石，河流与其说是流水，不如说更像编织的纱线。

麦考马克估计，书中三分之二的照片是在疫情期间和之后拍摄的；其余的是他在翻阅档案时发现的过去的作品。

“我从事摄影工作40年了，结果发现我拍摄图案的时间其实很长一段时间都是在拍图案，”他说。“这从来都不是我刻意为之的，而是我生命中自然而然的一部分。”

虽然许多照片都来自地球遥远的角落，但麦考马克强调：“大自然其实并不遥远。”书中收录了一张他朋友郊区花园里拍摄的芙蓉花的微距照片，以及他最初在北加州海滩漫步时拍摄的照片。

最终，麦考马克希望他的书——这本书并非刻意打造的“艺术画册”——能够帮助人们感受到大自然是触手可及的。

“它的设计理念是让任何人都能去任何地方，都能欣赏到它，其核心信息就是：我们的世界真美好，”麦考马克说。“你应该走出去看看。也许，当你亲眼看到之后，你就会想要保护它。”

编者按：Jon McCormack 的著作《图案：自然世界的艺术》由 Damiani Books 出版，现已上市。