When I began my rock collection 20 years ago, it was for my students, Free educational materials that you can pick up off the ground and actually make a lesson more meaningful than a book are "hard" to come by, and a short drive (well, six hours) from LA through the Owens Valley in California will reward you with excellent representative specimens of all the three major rock group types I always explained to my kids that mineral identification was an important skill, and always followed the maxim with a joke... Do you know what you call a mineral specimen that you aren't able to identify? A Rock!
I moved on to mineral specimens, crystals and the like, then my collection outgrew my display shelfs I am allowed by my wife to have in the house, and I started collecting only only museum quality specimens.
I was always very careful to record the name of the minerals, and their origin, because an identified mineral out of its natural context happens to be a rock too! I would then place these records of note, UNDER the heavy rocks believing that would be a logical and safe place for them.
What I did not count on, was our housekeeper of 15 years, who occasionally, pick up each specimen and dusted it and the shelves, which moved the papers and regardless she would never put them back in the same place, so many of my prise collection remain unidentified until I befriend a mineralogist, and even then he would be giving his best guess, for they are out of context.
I admit I am a verbose man, both in the spoken and written word; my philosophy is why limit yourself to 1000 words while there are 10,000 in the dictionary! So you may wonder why the diatribe just to explain a photograph.
Because I KNOW that at least one person will say, My, what a pretty picture? Is that stone? How does it glow so??????? And my answer must be...
Its a ROCK! But a pretty one though! :)
OK, for those of you who think I am holding out on you, and may know a bit or two about geology, my best guess that it is a piece of Picasso Marble either from New Zealand or Australia, which at some pont in time picked up a vien of opal. Split and polished along the vien, when the sun hits it just right according to the crystal structure, it becomes brilliantly iridescent, similar to how an opal or mother of pearl will. Turn it two inches in the wrong direction, you are holding a rock again that you would wonder he I would grace my shelves with it..
Was it hard to shoot? Yes, because f the necessary angle towards the light source which produces the iridescence. Note the shutter speed, and that was under a white awning, full sun was just to bright.
If you have rad this far, you deserve a prize, so I offer you this... Like the misfit toys from Toy Story or Rudolph, these finely identified mineral specimens proudly sit in a place of honor in my home. But through the years,when the trade barriers fell and world became flat, they lost their identity, became mere rocks again, And were replaced by newer and prettier specimens who have a sense of self, and were regulated to under the cupboard, gathering dust. If you have an interest in mineralogy, or just like pretty stones, and wish to come visit and view my collection some day, I will send you home with one of the misfits to love.
It took a small miracle to create each gemstone you have admired at the breast of a pretty woman, or each mineral specimen you hav viewed in natural wonders. The conditions have to be just perfect, else they grow together like marble, and then stop just in the nick of time. Years upon years to create each one, and when you have one, you have a piece of the earths history!
Strong words coming from an atheistic science teacher! ;)
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You asked for feedback and negative comments to help reconcile your score with the positive comments. 5 from me. Don described the positives below; however, you may have been able to leverage that further. It's chaotic, which I like, but to be an effective chaos (look at images from clive_patric_nolan and cutout to cite two examples) it needs to have purpose and a sublime order. A well controlled chaotic image will have a path to lead the viewer on a journey. This image does not reach that level. With this image, I would have explored as many perspectives and various apertures to get a feel for the patterns of lines, highlights, and shadows. Seek to understand these relationships within your chosen subject/muse/etc, and you will create a lasting image.
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