There is a class of images I call “texture images”.  They don’t seem to have a central subject, but are at least thematically repeating.  I shoot these primarily as background images for my computer “desktop”, but they can have many other purposes.  I used to put more clearly subjected images on my “desktop” and found that I was always moving my windows around so as to not cover up the subject.  With a texture image, it is precisely this lack of a central subject that makes it ideally suited as a background for a computer “desktop” — seemingly any portion of the image can be covered up by a window and it feels okay (you aren’t distracted by wanting to see what has been obscured).

 

 

Clouds such as these are constantly in motion.  Tufts are combining, stretching, splitting, and otherwise moving in a general direction.  Even though we recognize these as clouds, we are still drawn to them because they are ever-changing and ever-different — no patterns every completely repeat themselves.  There is pattern, and also chaos within the pattern.

 

Similarly, we are drawn to (mesmerized by) fire, ocean waves, water falls, and other matter in motion that has a fluid and continuously varying nature.  With this class of dynamic textures, we tend to recognize what is in the scene; I wonder if there is yet another subclass of dynamic textures in nature that we would not recognize.