He would always miss my class on a Friday. At first this weekly habit annoyed me and then one day he invited me to visit his nursery in the forest. He wanted to show me how to “comb a mountain” for a wild orchid. “You need to learn to undress the landscape without leaving a trace,” he said.

I never took the trip but his wild orchid now grows in my mother’s fern tree: “a gift to the only lecturer who understood my deep love of plants and why my nursery was more important than business management.”

Now, three years later I understand what it means to “undress the landscape.” It means, metaphorically, that you search all of the hidden and dark places until you find a bloom.

This undressing of the landscape, is it important? Photographer Colin Prior writes about it in similar terms: ‘Disassembling a landscape and then reassembling the pieces helps me to understand my place in it.’

Network photographers Cecily and Emily have undressed their own landscapes so well:

For this month’s challenge:

• Take two images. If your camera has the manual function, try shooting in manual mode.
• First, capture an object or a scene that represents a period of darkness which you have experienced.
• Second, capture a scene that represents a period of renewal and light in your life.
• Your scenes should not only symbolize these periods, but the mood of the images ought to be communicated through darkness and light.
• Remember that by setting your f-stop to a low value, e.g. f3.5, you allow a lot of light in. By setting it at a higher value, e.g. f8.0,  you allow less light in.
• By setting your shutter speed to a fast setting, you allow less light in that way also. By setting your shutter speed slower, you allow more light in. Just remember to keep the camera steady.
• Load your images into the High Calling Focus Flickr group with the tags: ‘photoplay 14’ and ‘The High Calling’.
• Give a brief description about these periods in your life.
• Join us next week in the gallery here at The High Calling where your image will be featured.