Lens-Artists Challenge #396: Pick A Favourite Quote And Illustrate It

 

Lens-Artists Challenge # 396 – Pick a Favourite Quote and Illustrate it

I've always been a big fan of space. I think I developed this interest before I was a teenager, I vividly remember my parents waking me up to watch Neil Armstrong take his first steps on the moon, and I spent many an hour glued to the eyepiece of my small telescope as I looked at the wonders of the solar system, and beyond. Of course I was a nerd, or is it a geek? On a Saturday night, I would impatiently wait for the sports and news to come to an end for the unmistakable tones of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop as the theme for the long-running TV series Dr Who would begin. (And then as often as not I would discretely retire behind the sofa as the show got a little too scary.)

Over the years, I devoured as many science fiction books as I could, watched all the TV shows and films, and just basked in the adventures of the Doctor, Captains Kirk and Scarlet, Buck Rogers, Luke Skywalker, and the rest. A passion for science fiction has been present throughout my life, as have the characters that have shaped it. Back in the 1990s. the writer and producer J. Michael Straczynski created Babylon 5, a television series spread over five years that detailed the adventures of the eponymous space station and its crew.

One of the main characters of the series was Delenn, an alien played by the wonderful Croation-American actress Mira Furlan, who might be better remembered as 'Danielle Rousseau' in Lost. Sadly, she passed several years ago from complications of West Nile fever. Until her death, she remained positive, and on the day of her passing posted this (https://mirafurlan.net/miras-last-tweet/) on her website: 'I look at the stars. It's a clear night and the Milky Way seems so near. That's where I'll be going soon. "We're all star stuff", I suddenly remember Delenn's line from Joe's script. Not a bad prospect. I am not afraid. In the meantime, let me close my eyes and sense the beauty around me. And take that breath under the dark sky full of stars. Breathe in. Breathe out. That's all.'

It's a lovely sentiment, and I really latched on to the line, 'Let me close my eyes and sense the beauty around me. And take that breath under the dark sky full of stars' to the point that it appears on most of my social media profiles. In setting the theme for this Challenge, Ann Christine asked us to 'illustrate favourite quotes', (https://lagottocattleya.com/2026/05/02/lens-artists-challenge-396-pick-a-favourite-quote-and-illustrate-it/) and I would have liked nothing better than to try my hand at making images of the milky way, or even of the moon. But sadly weather conditions, and the light from the streetlights, always makes this impossible. 

So instead, I thought that I would use what nature has given me and try to represent phosphenes. When you close your eyes, or enter a dark room, after a short period of darkness you might start to see colours and shapes morphing in front of you (or at least I do) and if you rub your eyes, these shapes might shimmer and dance. These effects are known as phosphenes, and are caused by the visual centres not completely shutting down, and sending random impulses to your brain. So for the Challenge today, I'm presenting a series of abstracts taken over the past couple of weeks that I hope represent the random shapes and colours you might see when you close your eyes.

These are actually photographs, taken with a cheap action camera/GoPro knock-off. I've circuit bent the camera with a little piece of tin foil jammed into the ribbon cable that joins the sensor to the main board of the camera. Instead of a normal looking low quality image, instead we get a corrupted (even lower quality) image filled with artifacts. Just to let you know, these are all cloudscapes.

Themes for the Lens-Artists Challenge are posted each Saturday at 12:00 noon EST (which is 4pm, GMT) and anyone who wants to take part can post their images during the following week. If you want to know more about the Challenge, details can be found here (https://photobyjohnbo.com/about-lens-artists/), and entries can be found on the WordPress reader using the tag 'Lens-Artists'.

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