- Carlos Castaneda (1925 - 1998)
Tales of Power
Sunday, September 04, 2022
Luminous Beings
Thursday, August 18, 2022
Different Perspectives
Each person has a different reason for being here;
if a person looked at it from the outside, he'd see
us all sitting here and maybe wouldn't know why.
And then...?
Trungpa Rinpoche: That’s what tantric people say.
Question: You mean the more confusion there is,
the more difficult it is to stamp a system on reality?
Trungpa Rinpoche: You see, chaos has an order by virtue
of which it isn’t really chaos. But when there’s no chaos,
no confusion, there is luxury, comfort.
Comfort and luxury lead you more into
samsara, creating more luxurious situations
adds further to your collection of chaos.
All these luxurious conclusions come back on
you and you begin to question them,
which leads you to the further understanding
that, after all, this discomfort has order in it."
Tuesday, August 16, 2022
Light Prancing
It can be found anywhere far from
where he lives or a few feet away.
It is always on his doorstep."
- Paul Strand (1890 - 1976)
Postscript. These images were all captured within minutes of each other in a garage near a local farmer's market this past weekend, as I was waiting for my wife to gather our grocery bags to go shopping. I have written before about how mesmerizing the "abstract cacophony" of shimmering reflections off car's hoods and hubcaps are to a photographer's eye 😊 What is hard to express in words (though I'm obviously trying, obliquely), is how joyful these few minutes' worth of prancing back and forth in-between park cars inevitably are to my soul (I look forward to my "light prancing" almost as much as the delicious recipes my wife cooks up with what we gather at the market!) My only regret (as usual) is that all I had with me was an iPhone.
Embrace light.
Admire it.
Love it.
But above all, know light.
Know it for all you are worth,
and you will know
the key to photography."
- George Eastman (1854 - 1932)
Friday, January 14, 2022
Fine-Tuning
Postscript. And so, we have a repeat of the "apology" I made a bit over a week ago, after posting a "poor quality" iPhone image captured while out on my morning walk with my wife. But I continue to be mesmerized by the (unfortunately, dwindling number of) ice abstracts our walks sometimes reveal. This one is from this morning. And, as before, I am looking forward to resuming an earnest search for "otherworldly vistas" (with "real" camera in hand) tomorrow, as some cold weather is again predicted over the next few days. Stay tuned 🙂
Saturday, January 08, 2022
Nonlinear, Experiential, and Receptive
"The creative process,
like a spiritual journey,
is intuitive, non-linear,
and experiential.
It points us toward
our essential nature,
which is a reflection of
the boundless creativity
of the universe.
...
To be still means to
empty yourself from the
incessant flow of thoughts
and create a state of
consciousness that is
open and receptive."
- John Daido Loori (1931 - 2009)
Wednesday, January 05, 2022
Being, Meaning, and Another Order
"Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. The function of the brain and nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive or remember at any moment, and leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely to be practically useful.
Sunday, November 21, 2021
This Place is a Dream
Only a sleeper considers it real.
...
A man goes to sleep in the town
where he has always lived,
and he dreams he's living
in another town.
He believes the reality of the dream town.
...
and then into being human,
forgotten our former states,
slightly recall being green again.
- Rumi (1207 - 1273)
Postscript. The triptych consists of three "quick grabs" with my iPhone during the trip my family and I took to the Pacific Northwest this past summer (e.g., see this blog entry). The left- and right-most images show the play of sunlight (reflected off the door of our car) with the pavement as we were going to breakfast one day in Sequim, WA. The middle panel shows a similar play of light (this time reflected off a kettle on our stove) with the stucco walls of the kitchen in the cabin we rented in the northern cascades. Most of my photography is quasi-deliberate, by which I mean that most of my images arise during planned "expeditions" (such as to a local park, or hikes on a family vacation 😊 using my "real" camera. But some of my favorite images - such the ones in this triptych - are captured purely by happenstance, and when my conscious "attention" lies elsewhere (such as on, say, getting breakfast at a restaurant or the first sip of coffee in the morning). Of course, any distinctions I may choose to draw among these various states of being and attention are, of course, at best illusory, and, at worst, utterly meaningless. Even as my "eye" looks toward the path to a restaurant or at the handle of a coffee kettle, my "I" never ceases to revel at the magic of light, color and form that surrounds us in each moment in time and space!
Friday, November 12, 2021
A Moment or Two to Just Be
- Thich Nhat Hanh (1926 - )
Postscript. The picture above was captured not with my "real" camera but with my iPhone, whose ability to capture scenes such as this continues to impress. I was on a short "day job" related trip to the beautiful town of Newport, RI, and had a few precious moments of magic hour light at the Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge (just a few miles from the center of town). I was initially despondent over having not taken my real camera (and rationalized the "complexities" of mixing business with pleasure; what, with a laptop and pounds of technical notes already stuffed into my carry-on). I then got even more melancholy over having neglected to take my other "real" camera that I bought specifically for this purpose (an absurdly tiny but equally as absurdly capable digital camera I wrote about earlier this spring). But then I remembered Thich Nhat Hanh's sage advice (quoted above). Stilling my mind as best I could, and clutching my iPhone, I managed to find a moment or two to just be.
Thursday, April 29, 2021
Patterns
- Oliver Sacks (1933 - 2015)
Postscript #1. The triptych consists of images I captured one day last summer after my wife parked her car in a garage near a local farmer's market. I was mesmerized by the "organized cacophony" of shimmering reflections off other car's hoods and hubcaps that arranged - and revealed - themselves to anyone interested in looking. Though I lamented not having my "real" camera, I was happy to have my iPhone to capture this lovely visual feast! Yet another gentle reminder that we must always be on alert to the universe's ceaseless wonders. And, though I rarely talk about the "nuts-and-bolts of photography on my blog (and much prefer posting images and musings than highlighting what f-stop I used), here's a small - hopefully useful - foray into the "nuts-and-bolts" department: to better prepare for unpredictable contingencies (i.e., for when I'm out and about without my usual shoulder and/or back-breaking warehouse-in-a-bag assortment of cameras, lenses, and filters), I recently purchased a tiny - almost babyish-looking - camera; albeit one that is fully functioning! Since it is designed to fit in even a child's pocket (!), I've resolved to always have it on my person when leaving the house for any reason. For those of you curious, it's Canon's G1X Mark III, which is best described as an ultra-miniaturized mirrorless version of their (older) 80D DSLR. While its fixed-lens is neither particularly bright nor sharp, the sensor is effectively the same one used on the 80D; yep, an APS-C sensor in a body that fits inside a shirt pocket! You can check out a review here. So far, I'm loving it, though have yet to post any pictures captured by it. But I suspect that'll soon change :)
Postscript #2. For those of you saddened by not having Oliver Sacks' sage wisdom around anymore (though his books forever enshrine his genius), there is a wonderful new biography available, called Oliver Sacks: His Own Life. Highly recommended!
Tuesday, April 27, 2021
Cognition
- Donald A. Norman (1985 - )
The Design of Everyday Things
Postscript. The triptych consists of "iPhone snapshots" of staircases (OK, not quite head-on views of staircases) inside the office building I used to go before the pandemic hit. They were taken in 2017.
Monday, April 26, 2021
Focal Points
- Bernardo Kastrup
Dreamed Up Reality
Postscript. As I alluded to a few blog posts ago, owing to this will-it-ever-end-pandemic, my photo-safari opportunities are - as for most of you - few-and-far-between. Thus, quality "photography time" nowadays amounts to either immersing myself in an unfathomably deep gorge of unprocessed raw files or looking to make this gorge even more unfathomably deep by saving an endless stream of impromptu "experiments" with light and form in my home studio (i.e., my day-job work desk after I clear it of my day-job notes and scribbles). The diptych above (as well as the one from yesterday) combines these two practices; i.e., they are "experiments in abstraction" captured a few years ago with my iPhone. Yesterday's images are of two ceilings, one in a local grocery store, the other at a local department of motor vehicles (where I sat, bored, one day in 2017, while waiting for one of my sons to test for his driver's permit). Today's images come courtesy of a local mall. There is appreciable comfort (from my otherwise omnipresent angst over few-and-far-between photo opportunities) in knowing that there are always wonders to be discovered, even if such "discoveries" are of discoveries made long ago!
Sunday, April 25, 2021
Geometry and Space
- Bernhard Riemann (1826 - 1866)