Faces of Nature

Many faces are quite obscure until you first perceive them. Once you've found one, though, it can seem blatantly obvious, and impossible to ignore. Your mind then starts filling in all sorts of facial detail, adding to the character of the face. I find that squinting at a scene often helps emphasize the interplay of light and dark areas, and helps in perceiving the scene in two dimensional space like a photograph instead of the normal three-dimensional interpretation we are so good at. Both of these things can help you find faces in the most unexpected places. In case you don't see a face in this photo at first, I've isolated one of them with some contrast enhancements in the next image in this gallery. After you pick out the bearded profile from that enhanced version, try coming back to this original image again, and you'll likely wonder how you could have missed it.

Can you see the bearded profile of a left-facing man, with eyes closed in quiet contemplation? This is a contrast enhanced version of the photo to help you pick out the face. It has also been slightly cropped. The original is the previous photo in this gallery.

This image was captured on the shoreline of Lake Temiskaming, at the base of the cliff just south of the location known as "Devil's Rock". (Note: This is NOT where the location get's it's name, which was actually assigned by early Christian missionaries to discourage the practice by the indigenous peoples of using the top of the cliff for vision quests and other aspects of their native spirituality.)

Here's another face on the far right side of the same original image, another left-facing profile. Again, after being seen once, it seems to remain relatively accessible to most viewers, even when returning to the original after some time.

There are many other faces to be found in this single image, but these two (this and the previous) are the largest, most obvious and best proportioned faces, at least to my eye. Nevertheless, for the more adventurous and imaginative among you, let's explore a few more together.

Moving up to the top right corner of the image, take the eye from the previous face and make it the mouth, and the previous eyebrow now becomes the bottom of the nose. You now have another left-facing profile of a man with a pointed beard, craning his neck slightly upwards.

Some of you may prefer to put the mouth in a different location, and to not include the pointy beard. If you move the mouth back to the right, the face is now tilted slightly downwards, and you can easily imagine that this face is in the process of spitting out some yucky green stuff from an open mouth defined by fairly well formed lips.

Alright, now that you're warmed up, let's push your imagination a little further, and you might be able to see this large-nosed face between the faces. The mouth may not be obvious to you right away. It is the very thin horizontal line halfway between the green foliage and the bottom of the chin, not the more prominent line within the foliage, which I imagine to be the bottom of the nose.

Just below and to the left of the previous face is another, smaller profile with a small, round mouth and beady eyes.

And up at the top of the image is another profile, albeit with the forehead chopped off by the edge of the photo.

Here's yet another profile, half hidden as though peeking out from behind a large curtain of rock, and looking just a little bit melancholy.

Or how about this very large-nosed, sad-eyed face near the bottom of the photo, yet another left-facing profile? The nose of the previous image has become an eye. The small mouth, right at the water line, is not well defined, and the chin is out of sight below the water line, but I imagine this fellow has a beard nevertheless, partly because the dark stain just above the water line looks to me like the top of a dark beard. OK, now we might be pushing things a bit far, but you get the idea. Part of the point I am trying to make is that with some rocky cliffs you can go on and on finding more faces, some large, some small, some embedded within others. This is one such outcropping. I can see a half dozen more relatively decent faces on the left side of the image that we haven't really looked at yet, but I won't bore you with them. If you're interested, try to find them yourself. It's time to move on to some fresh source material.

There's just one obvious face in this image, located on a large north-south oriented cliff on the west side of Flavelle Township, just a little to the southwest of Middleton Lake. The escarpment faces almost due west, and the north end of it is visible briefly as you travel Highway 66 eastwards from Matachewan. I hiked in to the base of the cliff during one late afternoon in June, and was greeted by this fellow.

A little further to the north along the same escarpment in Flavelle Township lies this patch of exposed bedrock. It wasn't until I was reviewing the pictures back home on my computer that I saw the bearded face on the upper left side of this image, profiled against some background vegetation. He reminds me of paintings I've seen of some of the early explorers, like Sir Walter Raleigh or Jacques Cartier. If you haven't quite made him out yet, look at the next image.

The Early Explorer

This is an altered version of the previous photo to highlight the face of the this left-facing profile. The pointy goatee style beard, like those popular in the 19th century, combined with the rugged, weathered looking features of veteran woodsman, are the main things giving me the impression of one of North America's early explorers.

The Politician

As frequently happens, there is more than one way to make a face out of the same structural features. Drop the beard from the face in the previous photograph, then take the upper lip and imagine it to be, instead, the bottom of a clean-shaven chin, and you get this completely different face, even though using the same eye and nose as before. The thin, horizontal line that is now the mouth had been de-emphasized in the previous, bearded face so as not to distract you from the face that I wanted you to focus on, as it falls disruptively in the middle of the mustache of that face, but the line is prominently visible in the original photograph.

Moaning Mummy

Looking a little like the head of a petrified skeleton, this face was formed in sedimentary rocks along the ocean shoreline through the work of wave action and tidal movements. It was discovered on Gabriola Island, which is in the Straight of Georgia, between Vancouver Island and mainland British Columbia. The moving water agitated hard pebbles that sat, at one time, in the those cavities, spinning them around so that their grinding motion enlarged their little rock pockets. Eroded away from below, this large piece of rock then toppled forward into its present position.

Here is another product of waves and pebbles on the sedimentary rocks of Gabriola Island, B.C. There must be something very interesting in the gravel and algae on the flat rock below, because he's been staring down at it for a long time! (Note that if you take the open mouth of the large face and turn it into an eye, you can get a smaller profile from the chin area of the larger face.)

This brooding brute was discovered on Hornby Island, off the east coast of Vancouver Island. What he lacks for a nose he more than makes up for with that ample, down-turned mouth. Actually, he kind of reminds me of a Hutt from the Star Wars universe.

Here is another sculpture in the sedimentary rocks of Gabriola Island, B.C. Quite a happy looking character, with an animal like snout and a raised left eyebrow. This face is looking slightly to the right. The smiling mouth is the curved brown band just below the whiter raised area. The eyes are the large hollows in the bronwish rock.

Can you see the bespectacled hound dog in the top half of the waterfalls? I'll bet you didn't know hound dogs wore sunglasses.

Back on the shoreline of Lake Timiskaming, this photograph features a section of the cliff showing one of the old adits cut into the rock by silver miners during the winter sometime around 1908. Although there is a lot of structural detail to play with here, there are actually very few good faces. The best one that I can see is near the water line on the left side, as more clearly revealed in the enhanced image below.

In this enhanced and cropped version of the previous image, we see that the ghost one of the old silver miners has become one with the cliff. Do not put the mouth at the line just below the small horizontal patch of Cedar, nor at the small dark patch immediately left of those cedars. Instead, put the mouth a bit further down, just below the whiter rock, and at the top of the darker stained rock. This mouth is open a little, as if frozen in mid-sentence, and has discernable upper and lower lips. I imagine the darker rock above the water line to be a black beard.

The layered sedimentary strata of the limestones making up the tip of Dawson Point do not lend themselves well to faces. After originally dismissing this image for facial potential, upon review I did find a few weak faces, though none are terribly convincing.

Here's one of the faces, highlighted with some contrast adjustments.

Here's a section of shoreline on the Quebec side of Lake Temiskaming. The rounded rock on the right could be the right-facing forehead of a large, bald, half submerged face, with the water line just above the lips.

Here is an enhanced version of the left side of the above photo, where I see a very large animal face. The mouth is the large dark patch just above the lower vegetation, with the tongue sticking out from the middle of it. The blunt nose, dead center of the highlighted area, has well defined nostril openings. This gives lots of room for a large upper lip area, giving the face a somewhat monkey-like appearance to me. The lower lip is partially obscured by small trees, and the chin has become completely lost in the foliage at the base of the cliff.

Rocky cliffs area not the only places where I find faces. Trees can also offer some interesting countenances. Our brains are hard-wired to see or extrapolate faces. It has evolutionary survival value. All it takes for our minds to see a face is three dark patches arranged in a triangle. Sometimes only two patches will suffice if they look like eyes. If the "eyes" look convincing, our brains can manage to extrapolate a mouth out of almost anything, or for that matter, almost nothing. Most people have no trouble seeing the face created by the three Pileated Woodpecker holes in this White Pine tree on Mann Island in Lake Timiskaming. The face, although easy to spot, is not very satisfying, though. For me, it is just too simple to be compelling. Although there is some "expression", almost a look of shock and surprise at being attacked by that nasty woodpecker, the three simple dark patches offer none of the additional facial details that give a face character and make it memorable.

Here is another tree face. The additional components of the bridge of the nose, a mouth that is more than a simple dark spot, and defined creases at the edges of the mouth for the cheek lines, make this a more interesting and convincing face. The tree with this face was found on the side of the old Silver Centre highway running down through the Lorrain valley in Lorrain Township.

Another fairly simple tree face, looking downwards and slightly off to our right, provides more development to the eyes. The heavy, half closed eyelids are the most clearly developed features of this face. There is slightly better definition to the bottom of the chin compared to the previous face, which in this case is somewhat cleft. Imagination is still required to provide an overall outline to contain the face.

How about this frame-filling smug mug? Remind you of anyone you know? That "Five-o-clock shadow" on the chin is actually due in part to the positions of the shadows after Five-o-clock, when the picture was taken, and not due to any lack of recent shaving activity.

Here's a grizzled face I happened upon one evening at the base of an old tree on Lakeshore Road in Haileybury. This is the point of view I had when I first noticed the face.

Here's the same face from a different angle, a little more head on. I couldn't decide which one I liked better, so I'm showing them both to you. He was very reluctant to look me in the eye, preferring to cast his gaze down to the right instead.

This old fellow was found lying on a beach in British Columbia's "Inside Passage" somewhere in the vicinity of a place called Troup Narrows.

The Centurion

This half rotted old branch on the side of a back road stuck me for how particularly well formed his right eye (on our left) is. His left eye is in shadow, so it's lack of detail can be excused in this shot. Much of the lower part of the face, especially his right cheek, looks like it is protected by some sort of battle armour, giving the impression of a Roman soldier.

The Haileybury Tree Troll

Normally it is the eyes that first alert me to the possibility of a hidden face, but in this case it was most definitely the mouth. This gargoyle-like creature, complete with grotesque toothy grin, was discovered near the base of an old tree on Lakeshore Road in Haileybury. Talk about character - there's even a wart on the upper lip. The eyes, little more than thin dark patches, appear almost closed, in keeping with the growling, teeth-barred expression on the rest of the face.

The Forester

This scaly old face was found on the same tree as the previous photo, not much more than a foot away. His right eye and lips are particularly well formed.

I'm not sure exactly what kind of creature this is. All I can say for sure is that it's not human. This reptilian face was discovered on a large old tree in front of the OPP office on Armstrong Street North in New Liskeard. It looks like it might be friendly, but I'm not putting my hand anywhere near that mouth.

This grumpy old bloke with the protruding chin, on the other hand, is decided not friendly. He was found sullenly glowering at the world from his station near the corner of Beavis Terrace and Armstrong Street in New Liskeard.

His distaste for sunny summer evenings was even more evident in this more head-on view. I love the well defined character of the ample nose on this guy.

The Bulldog

This dog-like face was found by my friend, Lionel Venne of Elk Lake, revealed in a protrusion on an old White Cedar burl.

I knew I had something interesting when I saw this tree on the side of the road in North Cobalt. I find that I have a hard time looking at it though, because I can easily see three distinct faces, and my mind does not want to stay with any one before switching to another, and keeps flipping back and forth between them like some kind of crazy Necker Cube. I have to consciously force my eyes to settle on one to give me time to explore its individual details more fully.

In case you can't pick them out, I've tried to do a trace sketch of each one as I see them. Please pardon the crudeness of my drawings. They don't really capture the expressions well, especially around the eyes and mouth. They do, however, manage to show you roughly what I perceive as the primary features of each of the three faces. This first one is a fairly angry looking fellow, with a slightly scrunched up look to the face.

The second is much friendlier looking. His mouth has taken on the very circular "O" shape of astonishment. This face uses the same eyes as the previous one. Interestingly, moving the mouth down and enlarging the nose has opened up the whole face considerably, which also seems to have had the beneficial side effect of opening up the eyes noticeably, making them much better suited to the surprised expression of the mouth.

This is, perhaps, the trickiest one to see, though I find it by far the most interesting of the three. The entire face is a positioned a little higher, with the forehead of the previous two faces now occupying the nose and upper cheek area. What used to be eyes have now morphed into dimples on the lower cheeks, while the eyes themselves have moved up into the crotch of the main tree branch. The forehead is not sharply defined, having merged into the branch above, but there is enough texture there to imagine a heavy crop of hair draping over the forehead area. He's looking a little more downwards than the other two.

I think that it is the position of the eyes that makes this face a little more difficult to pick out, being fairly close-set and small. Even in this sketch they do not jump out at you. I find them a little on the sad side, but with an intimation of deep wisdom. I have not captured the mouth very well in this diagram. (I never claimed to have much skill at drawing, and it seems that even tracing presents difficulty.) It is a complicated mouth, full of wry expression, which I'm sure you will see better if you go back up to the original.

This profiled character, facing off to the left on a tree in a residential area of New Liskeard, looks like a weathered east coast fisherman wearing his rain slickers. The upper eyelid is covered by the edge of the large brim of the fisherman's hood.

This howling left-facing profile was discovered on an old stump in Kap-Kig-Iwan Provincial Park near Englehart, Ontario. He has a very leprechaun-like quality to him, an impression enhanced by both his relateively small size (compare to the Bracken Fern fronds on the left) and by that tall pointy hat.

Here's a happy fellow, found on a tree in Haileybury. The large bulbous nose is well framed by an open, smiling mouth and a pair of dark, close-set eyes. The covering of lichens adds textural details that almost overpower the main facial features, so it may help to squint a little to see the darker patches that form the basis of the features more clearly.

Charge of the Mantled Snow Leopard

As featured in my book, "Impressions of Temiskaming", this snow drift was easily morphed by my mind into a graceful feline creature with a large snowy headdress lunging down the slope at a gallop, the thick mane flaring dramatically over the shoulders and back. The face is actually quite small in this image, small enough that you may be tempted to try and make it larger than I do, so I have highlighted it in the next image to ensure that you are seeing the face as I perceive it.

Here I've zoomed in and highlighted what I see as the actual face. Everything above this highlighted area is what I am calling the "mantle" of this exotic snow creature. The thin line for the mouth does not actually appear in the original image. I have added it here to make the face easier to discern.