salt of the earth

While visiting some wonderful friends on the south island of New Zealand they lent me their car (see, I told you they were wonderful) to do a little sightseeing. Heading down the road to partake in a winery tour (alas, New Zealand no longer had a whisky distillery at the time) I happened across Dominion Salt Limited at Lake Grassmere. Now, a saltworks is not the first thing you would tend to put on your list of places to visit when you travel half way round the globe, but how could you resist the attraction of such aesthetic possibilities?

 

tree

I'm wondering about the nature of the iconic. At least the visual, as there certainly can be other expressions of the concept - Neil Young's voice, the feel of a baby's cheek, the aroma of peat smoke. Recognizable, though bestowed with as many evocations or interpretations as there are people sharing the experience. Indeed, meaning comes from personal experience, but it's the common identification I'm talking about.

I read a few Scottish blogs, mostly about the island of Islay, and especially like to see other peoples' images and how they photograph the same things to which I find myself attracted. Take this tree, along the road north to Bunnahabhain on Islay. I've seen several photographs of the same tree, each one a different perspective, but the same tree nonetheless. Why this one?