{"id":633813,"date":"2026-04-28T09:22:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T09:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/633813\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T09:22:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T09:22:18","slug":"new-book-celebrates-the-hidden-patterns-that-define-our-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/633813\/","title":{"rendered":"New Book Celebrates the Hidden Patterns That Define Our World"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Iceland,<\/p>\n

Iceland, 2025. In southern Iceland, braided rivers spread across broad outwash plains. As ice melts, torrents of sediment-rich water surge downstream, depositing sand, silt, and volcanic ash in overlapping channels that are constantly rearranged by flow, floods, and seasonal change.<\/p>\n

In Jon McCormack<\/a>\u2019s mind, he\u2019s less of a nature photographer than what he calls<\/a> a \u201cpattern photographer.\u201d It\u2019s a fitting label, considering it encapsulates his enduring interest in natural geometries. For years, McCormack has unearthed the hidden patterns that define our world, whether they be microscopic mineral blooms or vistas overcome by flocks of flying birds. Such scenes are at the heart of the photographer\u2019s new monograph, which celebrates the many rhythms that connect our environments.<\/p>\n

Published by Damiani,<\/a> McCormack\u2019s Patterns: Art of the Natural World<\/a> journeys all around the globe, spanning everything from the volcanic coasts of Iceland to the wilds of Kenya. Each image proposes a new way of seeing, unveiling organic phenomena that may otherwise have been invisible to us. A 2023 photograph from Iceland may embody this best, showcasing an ice cave nestled deep within the Vatnaj\u00f6kull glacier. Following a flash flood and intense cold, air bubbles ultimately froze into small, delicate rings, dotting the cave\u2019s floor like ripples in water. McCormack renders the moment with clarity, memorializing a fleeting moment through a vivid color palette, an evocative composition, and a rare immediacy, as though we, as viewers, could simply reach out and touch the ice for ourselves.<\/p>\n

Throughout Patterns, there are dozens of photographs that assume this intimate scale. A vulture guinea fowl isn\u2019t placed within a broader Kenyan landscape, but rather approached up close. In McCormack\u2019s final shot, we trace the bird\u2019s intricate plumage, speckled with fine white dots set against dramatic shades of charcoal and indigo. Similarly, the North Atlantic\u2019s vastness is reduced to a minuscule landscape peppered with diatoms, a type of algae found in nearly all aquatic environments. McCormack employed a microscope to capture these organisms, each bearing an almost metallic sheen and arranged into a pattern so exquisite that it feels intentional rather than biological.<\/p>\n

Other images, though, are grander in their scope. An aerial photograph from Iceland, for instance, reveals braided rivers spreading across broad outwash plains, the earthy tones and formations resembling thick paint. A scene from Botswana\u2019s Okavango Delta, on the other hand, depicts trails gradually carved out by hippos, who, due to their poor eyesight, rely on scent to orient themselves in the dark. The olfactory cues remain in the water each night after the hippos graze, providing them with familiar corridors through the landscape. These pathways may be \u201csubtle on the ground,\u201d as the photographer says, but from above, they\u2019re \u201cunmistakable.\u201d<\/p>\n

To achieve the book\u2019s visual diversity, McCormack incorporated several cameras and photographic techniques. \u201cThere are either seven or eight different cameras involved in the making of [Patterns],\u201d he told Petapixel in a recent interview<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s basically like, \u2018Here\u2019s the thing I want to do, and now what\u2019s the simplest thing to do it with?\u2019\u201d The photographer even leaned on his iPhone, whose camera software he helped engineer at Apple.<\/p>\n

Taken in its entirety, Patterns is a resounding testament to McCormack\u2019s passion for nature. In fact, the book\u2019s proceeds benefit Vital Impacts, a women-led nonprofit founded by photographer Ami Vitale that supports conservation efforts. The volume, then, is not only a literal but also an artistic form of advocacy, exploring the natural world in all of its geometric intricacy\u2014from the immense to the minute.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted people to see what I see in nature,\u201d McCormack said in National Geographic<\/a>. \u201cI wanted to put the wonder I see in front of other people and I wanted to do that in a way that was accessible. I didn\u2019t want it to be a fancy art book, textbook, or treatise. This book is my visual poem to our planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patterns: Art of the Natural World is now available for purchase via Bookshop.org<\/a> and Damiani\u2019s website<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

In his new monograph, photographer Jon McCormack offers a stunning new way to encounter the world: through its intricate and at times hidden patterns.
\n\"\u201cIce<\/p>\n

Iceland, 2023. As glaciers melt in southern Iceland, ice caves are born. This cave, deep within the Vatnaj\u00f6kull glacier, was flash-flooded, and the cold was so intense that air bubbles froze into delicate rings across the cave floor with each ring measuring between one and three inches in diameter.<\/p>\n

\"Kenya,<\/p>\n

Kenya, 2024. Over Lake Magadi, flamingos and algae choreograph living patterns. The lake\u2019s extreme alkalinity creates the perfect conditions for dense blooms of cyanobacteria, whose pigments stain the water in deep crimsons and rusts. As flamingos gather to feed on the algae, their movements trace pale arcs and whorls across the surface, stirring the mineral-laden shallows and reshaping the colors beneath their feet.<\/p>\n

\"California,<\/p>\n

California, 2020. In the blue hush of twilight, the beach rocks of Northern California begin to resemble China\u2019s karst mountains because light, scale, and erosion briefly align.<\/p>\n

\"Kenya,<\/p>\n

Kenya, 2024. The vulture guinea fowl is adorned with a remarkable tapestry of feather patterns. Its plumage is densely speckled with fine white dots, arranged in rhythmic rows across a deep charcoal or indigo ground, creating a surface that reads almost like woven fabric.<\/p>\n

Now available for purchase, Patterns\u00a0ventures around the world to celebrate natural geometries, ranging from microscopic mineral blooms to vistas overcome by flocks of flying birds.
\n\"Australia,<\/p>\n

Australia, 2025. Tigerite from Australia\u2019s Northern Territory is formed when silica-rich fluids replaced ironstone within ancient sediments, preserving bands of fibrous quartz intertwined with iron oxides such as hematite and goethite. Golds and yellows emerge where iron oxidized slowly; deep reds and browns mark areas of higher iron concentration; and blues and greys appear where silica dominates.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Microscope photograph, 2024. Using a microscope to photograph diatoms from the North Atlantic reveals a hidden world of astonishing precision and beauty. Each diatom is no larger than the width of a human hair, yet under magnification they appear like tiny, luminous buttons scattered across the field of view.<\/p>\n

\"Canada,<\/p>\n

Canada, 2022. Each fall, grizzly bears gather along the Chilcotin River as the salmon return, drawn by a seasonal abundance that has sustained life here for millennia.<\/p>\n

\"Botswana,<\/p>\n

Botswana, 2014. Hippos move through the Okavango Delta guided less by sight than by smell. With relatively poor eyesight, they rely on scent to orient themselves in the dark, following familiar olfactory cues as they leave the water each night to graze. Over time, these repeated movements carve clear corridors through the landscape, subtle on the ground but unmistakable from above.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Svalbard, 2023. Deep beneath a glacier in Svalbard, photographing a delicate ice structure felt like entering a hidden cathedral carved by time and pressure. The air was still and intensely cold, and every sound seemed absorbed by the ice itself.<\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/p>\n

\u201cPatterns: Art of the Natural World\u201d by Jon McCormack. (Damiani, 2026 | $51.26<\/a> via Bookshop.org)<\/p>\n

Jon McCormack: Website<\/a> | Instagram<\/a>
\nMy Modern Met granted permission to feature photos by Alexandra Fanning PR.\u00a0
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