Ascending

This is a photograph of a staircase in a Mexican border town. The framed mirror on the landing wasn't reflecting enough light so I dropped in a photo of my mom on one of her early morning walks in Tucson.

I like the juxtaposition of the dark stairs in the photo leading down to a photo of her going up a hill, ascending toward the sunrise.

Red Amaryllis

Here is an amaryllis that, from the package, I expected to be white (my intention and desire was to grow a white amaryllis) but turned out red. As it grew, at every stage I wondered, "Is this the right time, the auspicious moment to photograph this?" Yesterday I looked and everything told me, "Yes, this is it."

I set it under a spotlight and made this photograph. Within an hour of shooting, the two blossom heads began to separate and this progressed through the morning until there were two distinct flower buds.

From the perspective of duality, reality is the world of opposites; it has to be either/or, up/down, time/non-time, but unity is always there. It's like the sun hiding behind the clouds. In choosing that moment to photograph my amaryllis I was aware of the precarious balance between here and there; through my lens I witnessed the play between these two worlds of duality and unity consciousness, two very real worlds that live both as one and side by side. There is always an edge of truth between unity and duality, a fleeting, transient edge of truth. It's a calm place.

I'm always drawn to photograph unusual doors and windows. They are like portals into worlds I know nothing about. I had a visceral response to this door while wandering around what looked like a warehouse district in Tacoma. Someone had spray-painted the word "NO" on it in neon yellow. I liked it's abrubt quality; the way it commanded the space on that cracked and peeling door.

Taken in the setting of this retro-urban environment, I appreciated its spontaneous "counter-culture" message; a universal response to all of the bull-shit that ever was and ever will be.

And aesthetically, at least for me, a door with a neon "NO" is more interesting than just a door.

Urban Shangri-La

I think of the domed fountain at the Seattle Center as an urban Shangri-La. On a hot summer day it becomes a giant fire-hydrant, the center of the earth for throngs of happy children. I grew up around Seattle and the scene depicted in this image is so familiar to me that I can practically hear the loud music from the PA system and feel the spray in my face. But I like the way it has a universal feel to it, like it could be anywhere, because children everywhere behave the same way around water on a hot day.

Photo Walk '09

I've been busy this week going through the images I captured last Saturday for the Annual Worldwide Photo Walk. When I heard about this event I knew I wanted to be part of it; the idea of thousands of photographers all over the world hitting the streets at (roughly) the same time, zooming, clicking, capturing whatever was there, whatever presented itself. My group met in downtown Tacoma. It felt like a treasure hunt as everyone headed out in search of his or her own pictorial prize; an image, or maybe more than one, that always seems to be out there, just waiting for you to claim it with your unique perspective. The weather was clear and hot. There were beautiful, stark shadows everywhere which I love for their strong, graphic lines. In this photo of two red umbrellas I used the shadows to counter the bright, vivid color and my lens baby to blur the edges.

Breathe

Breathe
Breathe
as the ocean breathes.

Follow the rolling

swells and notice,

the clattering of pebbles
of your chattering mind.

like fragments of torn hearts

mended smooth as

an oceanic prism;
a heart-mind of changing

shapes and colors.

 

Barbed-Wire Spiral

I got a link on Facebook recently from my cousin, a piece from a literary online art gallery on improvisational surrealism. Featured there was the work and ideas of Rodney Tuttle who says, "Grab a camera and walk out into the world; treat the world like a gigantic surrealistic sculpture and capture some surreal images." 

I love to do this.  This image of some tangled up barbed-wire draped across a chain link fence is an odd juxtaposition, my take on the "sculpturally surreal", and I like the improvisational feel of it.  I watched as many people walked right by without seeming to notice it, how out of place and strange it seemed there on a pedestrian walkway.  

Graphic Color

My eye naturally leans toward subjects where color or a strong graphic structure dominates. I think about balance and perspectice when working with an image and I have an aversion to visual clutter. I value brevity and simplicity, much like the form of poetry I'm drawn to most often is Haiku.

In the image shown here, I have used color as the predominant element of design. The bright red wall of the fish tank overtakes the strong, graphic lines and contrast of the composition. I think it's because of the basic, primal level that red seems to operate on. I couldn't get away from thinking about the fish, once lively and flashing through the waters of the Sea of Cortez; now on ice. One juror said it was "effective and strange with the red, black and white strength and the fish upside down with eyes wide open."

People Shadows

When it comes to photographing people I am somewhat of a coward. The direct opposite of paparazzi, I seem to always choose an oblique angle or shoot into the shadows people cast so as not to be too intrusive. It's partly to avoid the legal issues involved with photographing people and obtaining model releases, etc. But I think it's also to do with the way I see things; the way I tend to break an image down into negative space and the elements of design. This gives me a much less literal approach to my subjects. I look for the shapes and angles in the shadows that loosely define the human form. They seem to be both solid and ethereal; mysterious entities with lives of their own. I think of Carl Jung's treatise on the importance of integrating our shadow selves; or Balinese shadow puppetry where the spiritual is given theatrical expression and the shadowy shapes define the characters.

Window Shopping

Window Shopping is a series I've been working on, a collection of things in shop windows. They represent the transient, illusory nature of our material world and the desires that emerge from it.

Window Shopping is a metaphor for the never ending pursuit of fulfillment, of goals that change like seasonal window displays, catching our eye and feeding into a vague sense of longing. Objects of desire, seen in shop windows, are like moving targets. We can't seem to pin them down or make them last. We can possess them briefly, but once possessed they lose their magic.

In Sanskrit there is an ancient piece of wisdom, "Tat Tvam Asi", which translates in English to "Thou Art That". I describe it as a bridge that helps us reach the realization of unity. Whether molecules happen to be arranged this way or that way, a human being, a white dress, a piece of glass; we are all essentially the same stuff and very much connected.

There is a scene from a popular movie in which the main character has just arrived in Rome. The light is reflected on her face and as she takes in the beauty around her, she embodies peace in that moment. She seems to have slipped into a kind of daydream; a merging of what only moments ago seemed two separate realities.

Moments like these are gifts that reveal the illusion of 'this vs. that', of 'me vs. not me'. They point to new possibilities that lie just beyond our conditioned patterns of perception.

If I look into a shop window, I see many things behind and reflected in the window glass, including myself. Who's to say where one leaves off and the other begins? Maybe the universe is like a Venn Diagram, with three parts... a shaded portion that intersects with everything and falls within our perception, unshaded portions that are not always perceived but still have boundaries and an infinite portion that spills outside of the diagram itself.

Abstract Shadows

My abstract studies in shadow, pattern and reflection come from a peculiar way of seeing, of always being drawn to the light and serendipity of a scene. Angles of light interfacing with solid shapes create a lot of interesting visual phenomena.
Abstracting from reality is a visual exercise; a probing into the dynamics of pattern, shadow and reflection. I look for repeating shapes, unusual points of view or a fortunate presentation of elements in a scene. I sometimes extract my subjects from their ordinary context to create ambiguity. I like the challenge it poses to our sensibilities, our need to make sense of the world.

Blue Buddha

There is a bonsai garden about 30 minutes away from our home in a small town with not much more to offer than a gas station, a gun shop and a strip club. I decided to go there one day, with my camera, hoping to find a fortunate location for photos.

I found the garden in the midst of a construction site. The first thing I noticed were stone Buddha statues, lined up like sentinels in front of the gift shop. They were beautiful. Then, I entered the garden, which appeared to be in need of maintenance. The paths were strewn with debris and the plants seemed to be struggling. The place had a neglected quality that left me feeling uneasy, especially when I leaned over a rain barrel and saw a dead rat floating in the water.

Then I turned the corner and there was a pond filled with water lilies. Again, beautiful. I thought of the lotus blossom and what it symbolizes in Buddhist culture; the soul's journey through the mud of materialism, through the waters of experience and into the bright sun of transcendence.

I got this shot, Blue Buddha, on my way out. According to Buddhist scripture, Blue Buddha is the Buddha of medicine and healing, the color blue symbolizing coolness, infinity and ascension.

Mexico, A Photographic Journey

This past week The Wall Street Journal featured an article illustrating the worsening problem of drug cartels in Mexico. It saddens me to see this happening in Mexico, a country that I love to explore and photograph. I think of the friendly people who have extended their hospitality to my family over the years.

Following is an excerpt from a book project I am working on entitled
Mexico, A Photographic Journey of Color and Light.

In Mexico, I’m inspired by the folk art and spirit of creativity in the people. The language of myth and magic animates the culture and breathes life into religion. I think of the “Day of the Dead” as a day when the veil separating the dead from the living is thin, a prism through which the pain of loss gathers life into sharper focus, as if death can spark an even greater passion for life. A dark satirical twist and humor often shows up in the art, music and literature of Mexico. Especially memorable for me are the Day of the Dead Figurines, carved out of wood and displayed with bottles of tequila and bouquets of crepe paper flowers.

Age of Aquarius

And finally, there was the girl playing her violin, pictured here, at the public market in Seattle. There was something Madonna-like in her face, in her serene expression; her melody was rendered all the more sweet in the midst of the bustling street... people passing without seeming to notice..

A Memory of Cherry Blossoms

I think of Soapbox Photo as a new medium for examining what it is I'm communicating through photography. Since this is a space I am devoting to the interconnection of images and ideas and stories, I thought I would begin by posting this photo of a ceramic figure captured after a snowfall along the Seattle Waterfront. The image had a Haiku feel to it so I looked through my Haiku books and found this poem by Den Sute-jo (1634-1698)

Yuki no asa / ni no ji ni no ji no / geta no ato,
or translated from Japanese by Hiroaki Sato:

Morning snow;
figure two figure two
wooden clog marks.

It seemed an interesting companion for this image. I saw an air of nostalgia in the woman's expression. I felt a Haiku of my own which I included in the photograph.

Just as every digital image file is embedded with metadata (invisible pieces of information that determine its visual content), every photograph is embedded with messages, emotions and the idiosyncratic leanings of the photographer. It's part of my creative process to look at an image and ask myself what I see in it. Photography sometimes feels like an act of rebellion in a hyper-mobile world, a vain attempt to seize it before it changes or disappears, to freeze it in time and give it space on my hard drive. But what makes a photograph most interesting for me is the emotion that comes through and the knowledge that the captured image embodies the impermanent nature of our world and our lives. The moment is here and then gone. The photograph becomes not only the tangible proof that it ever existed, but an unflinching reminder that life is a constant stream of letting go in order to be present.