For the past month we have been in Florida struggling with spaces - spaces with too many objects and spaces with not enough objects. The first five nights we took up space in a hotel down the street from our condo and worked towards filling condo space with bed frames, mattresses, toilets and taps with water. We worked to clear out space in cupboards and closets by taking out boxes of kitchen "stuff" brought down on a previous trip then filling other spaces in the kitchen cabinets and closets with unpacked stuff. Then we worked to clear floor space of mountains of cardboard, styrofoam, plastic sheeting and other trash so we could create living spaces with furniture for sitting and eating. Our son and daughter-in-law came down to help us on the promise that we would at least have toilets and running water in their bathroom. It turned out that we had only the running water (although not hot) for the first four nights of their stay. They were good sports about going to the bathrooms by the pool after I reminded Mike that it was like the primitive camping we did when he was a child. His wife enjoyed the beauty of the middle-of-the night walks in the warmth of Florida air. Yes, I've been thinking a lot about empty spaces.
How perfect that Patti posted her Lens-Artist Photo Challenge for Empty Spaces this week. Mike and his wife had gone home and Jim and I went to the Botanical Garden for a short walk around this week and I took my camera. There aren't many empty spaces in this garden because it is small and, being a tropical garden, the plants grow at a tremendous rate trying to fill every nook & cranny. As I sat on the boardwalk looking across the lily pond, I gazed at the empty space of a bench that I have frequented on previous visits. I felt the stress of the past three weeks drain from my shoulders and back. I lingered in this visual empty space for several minutes and contemplated all the ways "empty" can be perceived.
The Naples Botanical Garden does have naturally growing areas that provide some open spaces although they still aren't large in size, as the shore grasses at the bottom of this next photo hint at. This isn't high season yet so the garden has a feeling of being empty especially in the early morning when I like to visit.
Having spent my entire life living in Michigan, I know the wonder of looking out over the huge empty expanse of the Great Lakes that surround our state. This is Lake Michigan at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Shoreline.
My favorite photographs, however, have some shoreline vegetation that seems to comfort me and give me some bearings. This next photo was taken on an large inland lake on Manitoulin Island, Canada in the North Channel of Lake Huron.
I also tend to like photographs of empty spaces when there is a hint of the space not always being totally empty, like this photo taken in Vermont. I have many photographs of large expanses of land with a home or barn in the distance. Technically this would be a focal point, emotionally it feels like a tether for my social needs.
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