Églantine
Experiment 90 with Unexpected Results
It is the unexpected eye that reveals itself first. First the eye, then the line of the jaw. What follows after that is the smile on the face of the viewer.
How do you spot a bird perched in a tree? By the outline of its body. How does the bird avoid being spotted? By obscuring the outline of its body. Zoologists call an animal’s ability to avoid observation crypsis; the combination of cryptic coloration and pattern disruption is known as camouflage. Camouflage works by creating visual confusion. When the familiar patterns of body shape are disrupted, the eye doesn’t know where to focus. It’s not really a disguise; it’s visual disorder. It works much the same way for a military sniper on the ground as it does for a bird in a tree. It works the same way for the person concealed by a bit of torn cloth.
Camouflage has an odd sort of beauty. We can only truly appreciate it when it ceases to work…when the bird moves, when the concealed sniper stands up, when the viewer spots that eye peering back through the torn cloth.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
