Nature's Jewels c. 1916

This is J. H. Field's "Nature's Jewels," a silver print, a small window into a hidden world. I love the tonal range here, all grays and browns, like a dreamscape. I imagine Field, early in the morning, scouting for the perfect web. He must have been so excited when he found it. The light catches all those tiny strands, each one holding droplets of water, turning them into tiny jewels. It's a capture of nature's own process, and a reminder that art doesn’t have to be about grand gestures. Sometimes, it’s about noticing the small, delicate things that are already there, spun out of someone else’s body. I'm sure he wasn't the first to notice a spider's web, but he was the first to make it immortal. What Field did here, as all artists do, reminds us to look closer and value the unexpected, the accidental. We all work in the studio of the world.