Nets have always drawn my photographic eye. Besides organizing visual space across the image (horizontally), thus weaving a matrix (see "Matrices"), nets set up at least two planes, the nets themselves and a scene behind, which, when interacting, create ambiguities, the heart of the fun. Shadows sometimes get into the act by also disturbing the third dimension. 

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#1
#1

Over a baseball complex near Beaumont, TX

 

(a detail of #2)

#2
#2

symmetry, disturbed

(#1 is a detail of this.)

#3
#3

Berkeley, CA 

 

#4
shadow
#4
shadow

To make the exposure, I climbed into a tree whose branch is visible as a black blur in the bottom right corner. Ilford's chromogenic film made for such delicate details over a long scale that even large (20"x30") prints from a scan reveal every strand of the hammock, small leaf on the terrace, and animal on the plastic pool at the top in the center, from darks into brights. This photograph demonstrates structured presence to intimate ties that bind.

Santa Barbara, CA

shadow
#5
shadow
#5
shadow

The net, its shadow, and a "negative shadow" of the hole in the net are visual facts arranged for misdirection. The player did not pose.

Monterey, CA

shadow
#6
b&w
#6
b&w

By pointing the camera up (as compared with #5), I removed the foreground, thus some information that keeps #5 grounded, so this photograph should be more disorienting, puzzling -- though not, I hope, coy.

Monterey, CA

b&w