Order, Disorder, and the Lens
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the theme of order and disorder. It surfaced while rereading Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations and again while revisiting Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life. Both works, in different ways, remind me that existence is shaped by a constant tension: order brings structure, clarity, and calm, while disorder carries change, uncertainty, and possibility. As I’ve been photographing, I’ve begun to see that this balance reveals itself in the natural world — and in my images — far more often than I had realized.
Marcus Aurelius reflected often on the idea that what appears as disruption or difficulty is part of a larger natural order. Peterson describes how life is lived most fully at the border of order and chaos: “Order is where the things you do produce the results you want. Chaos is where the unexpected occurs.”
At first glance, these two seem like opposites. Order suggests symmetry, stability, and structure. Disorder suggests chaos, interruption, even collapse. Yet the more I look, the more I see how the two shape one another. Order is most striking when it is touched by disorder, and disorder only has meaning because it unsettles a sense of order.
Water slowly pools before tumbling over the edge of a rock, shifting from calm to motion. Where do you notice the transition from order to chaos? How does each state shape your perception of the other?
Nature makes this visible everywhere. In the Smoky Mountains, I noticed how some trees rose in clean, vertical lines while others twisted and sprawled without pattern. In other places, I’ve seen spiderwebs with perfect geometry torn by wind, or wildflowers pushing through cracks in pavement. Each moment was more alive because of the tension between calm and chaos.
In the Smoky Mountains, some trees rise in steady, architectural lines while others bend and twist without pattern. Through multiple exposures, this image captures the dialogue between order and disorder — showing how each gives meaning to the other.
A spiderweb jeweled with dew glistens in the morning light — yet part of it is torn. Do you notice the perfection of the pattern first, or the fragility of its break? How do beauty and impermanence depend on one another here?
A plant has taken root in the barn’s wooden wall, growing close to the roofline. Life asserting itself where it shouldn’t — disorder breaking through structure, and in doing so, becoming its own quiet form of order.
As Peterson suggests, too much order leads to rigidity, and too much chaos to disorientation. But in that middle place — where structure meets disruption — we find vitality.
Order and disorder aren’t just opposites — they depend on one another. Disorder often clears the way for new order to emerge, just as order eventually unravels back into disorder. Forest fires, though destructive, create the conditions for regrowth. Even in our personal lives, moments of collapse often give shape to renewal. Without disorder, order would grow stale. Without order, disorder would remain meaningless noise.
The wave holds its own moment of tension — the brief pause before collapse. Even in its fall, there’s form; even in its form, the promise of change. Order becoming disorder, and back again.
So when I make photographs that explore order and disorder, I’m really practicing a way of seeing — a way of noticing how calm emerges from chaos, and how chaos gives shape to calm.
New blossoms rise toward gathering clouds — renewal and turbulence sharing the same sky. Even in the threat of storm, there’s a quiet order to how things unfold.
A half moon hangs steady on one side, while a shapeless cloud drifts on the other. Order and disorder share the same sky — each giving meaning to the other.
As you look at the photographs I’ve shared here, I invite you to pause with each one. Ask yourself: Do you notice the calm or the chaos first? The structure or the scatter? Which one pulls at your attention, and which one quietly frames it in the background?
There’s no right answer. What matters is the noticing — how order and disorder coexist, shape one another, and give meaning to the world. Pause, and consider: where in your life does calm emerge from chaos, and where does chaos flow from calm? Attend to it, and you may sense, as the Stoics did, that every disruption carries the seed of order, and every order holds the possibility of transformation.
“In every calm there is the whisper of chaos, and in every chaos the promise of order — together shaping the rhythm of life and the lens through which we see it.”