There is Light

 "Wherever there is light, one can photograph.
...
I have a vision of life, and I
try to find equivalents for it in
the form of photographs.
...
In photography there is a reality so subtle
that it becomes more real than reality."

- Alfred Stieglitz (1864 - 1946)

White Hole

"Unless something goes in or out of the horizon,
from the outside a white hole is
indistinguishable from a black hole.
...
The black horizon, like Gandalf,
has magically turned white.
...
Despite the complete difference between
what happens inside them, time’s
sleight of hand on the horizons allows a
white hole and a black hole to be
the same thing outside.
...
A white hole is a black hole with time reversed.
...
...finite are the lives of us all, of
every living organism, every star,
every galaxy, of all stories,
in this universe of joy and pain.
Not even white holes last forever."

- Carlo Rovelli (1956 - )
White Holes: Inside the Horizon

A State of Information

"There are objects: cinnamon, microwaves, interstellar particles and scarecrows. There is nothing underneath objects. Or, better, there is not even nothing underneath them. There is no such thing as space independent of objects (happily contemporary physics agrees). What is called Universe is a large object that contains objects such as black holes and racing pigeons. Likewise there is no such thing as an environment: wherever we look for it, we find all kinds of objects—biomes, ecosystems, hedges, gutters and human flesh. In a similar sense, there is no such thing as Nature. I’ve seen penguins, plutonium, pollution and pollen. But I’ve never seen Nature (I capitalize the word to reinforce a sense of its deceptive artificiality).

...

Likewise, there is no such thing as matter. I’ve seen plenty of entities (this book shall call them objects): photographs of diffusion cloud chamber scatterings, drawings of wave packets, iron filings spreading out around a magnet. But I’ve never seen matter. So when Mr. Spock claims to have found 'Matter without form,' he is sadly mistaken... You can now buy a backpack that is made of recycled plastic bottles. But an object doesn’t consist of some gooey substrate of becoming that shifts like Proteus from plastic bottle to backpack. First there is the plastic bottle, then the production of the bag ends the bottle, its being is now only an appearance, a memory of the backpack, a thought: “This bag is made of plastic bottles... Nature [...] is 'discovered in the use of useful things.'

...

Matter, in current physics, is simply a state of information. Precisely: information is necessarily information-for (for some addressee). Matter requires at least one other entity in order to be itself... Instead of using matter as my basic substrate, I shall paint a picture of the Universe that is realist but not materialist. In my view, real objects exist inside other real objects. 'Space' and 'environment' are ways in which objects sensually relate to the other objects in their vicinity, including the larger objects in which they find themselves... There is no space or environment as such, only objects... The existence of an object is irreducibly a matter of coexistence. Objects contain other objects, and are contained 'in' other objects... What are these objects, then, that claustrophobically fill every nook and cranny of reality, that are reality, like the leering faces in an Expressionist painting, crammed into the picture plane? On what basis can we decide that there is no top, middle, or bottom object, that objects are bigger on the inside than they are on the outside, that they generate time and space, and so on?"

Timothy Morton (1968 - )
Realist Magic: Objects, Ontology, Causality

Cosmic Trickster

"To explode or to implode - said Qwfwq - that is the question: whether 'tis nobler in the mind to expand one's energies in space without restraint, or to crush them into a dense inner concentration and, by ingesting, cherish them. To steal away, to vanish; no more; to hold within oneself every gleam, every ray, deny oneself every vent, suffocating in the depths of the soul the conflicts that so idly trouble it, give them their quietus; to hide oneself, to obliterate oneself; perchance to awaken elsewhere, unchanged."

- Italo Calvino (1923 - 1985)

Sacred Contract

"Our individual souls hum actively within a kind of global soul comprising all life on the planet. Our words, thoughts, deeds, and visions influence our individual health just as they affect the health of everyone around us. As a vital part of a larger, universal spirit, we each have been put here on earth to fulfill a Sacred Contract that enhances our personal spiritual growth while contributing to the evolution of the entire global soul."

- Caroline Myss (1952 - )
Sacred Contracts

Inward Gathering

"Nature looks dead in winter because
her life is gathered into her heart.
She withers the plant down to the root that
she may grow it up again fairer and stronger.
She calls her family together within her
inmost home to prepare them for being
scattered abroad upon the
face of the earth."

- Hugh Macmillan (1833 - 1903)
The Ministry of Nature

Nature's Calligraphy

"Just as writing can become calligraphy when it's
creatively, skillfully, and consciously performed,
so can all other activities become art.
In this case, we are reflecting upon life itself
as an artistic statement—the art of living."

- H.E. Davey (1961 - )
Japanese Yoga: The Way of Dynamic Meditation

Cosmic Rhythms

"Yesterday and today and tomorrow are not an arrow that shoots from past to present to future; rather all tenses, and sleeping and waking, mix and cohabit in an atemporal duration beyond clocks and calendars. The Aboriginal world began long ago when the Ancestors sang in Dreamtime the cosmic rhythms that give shape to the things we see, and it is the beginning right now, when a living Tiwi sings the Dream songs that continue, or are, the world."

- Huston Smith (1919 - 2016)

Q&A/Portfolio in Gathered Light Magazine

Some of you may have noticed that the latest issue of the new magazine I recently wrote about (GLM = Gathered Light Magazine) featured a question-and-answer (Q&A) with me on a variety of photography and philosophy related topics, along with some general thoughts on the creative process. GLM's editor, Micheal MacEoghain, kindly allowed me to post an Adobe PDF version of the Q&A. While long-time readers of my blog are unlikely to discover anything "new" in these 20 or so pages, newcomers will get a nice summary of my deepest photographic passions and aspirations. I was impressed - even moved - by the depth, breath and overall quality of the questions Micheal asked me to ponder. I have done similar Q&As over the years for a variety of venues (online and print), but past efforts seldom tasked me beyond responding to the simplest, "So, what got you started in photography?" queries. Micheal's probing questions are all distinctly different. "Whoa!" I thought to myself when I got his list at the end of November, "I've never had anyone read through my entire blog and know each and every image posted on my website!" As for what Micheal wrote about my work in his intro, all I can say is that I am sincerely humbled. I'll end with one last shout-out of "Thanks!" to Micheal for letting me post this Q&A. To view it (and/or download) just click on the image above😊

Leaving a Trace

"The enlightened mind is like a bird in flight that leaves no trace of its path. People will say, 'A bird just flew by.' In their mind, there is a trace of the bird’s path. This is attachment. For the enlightened practitioner, that moment is already gone—the bird has left no trace of its flight. Like the bird, from moment to moment the enlightened practitioner’s actions do not leave any trace."

- Sheng Yen (1931 - 2009)
The Method of No-Method