Introduction to a 10-Part Series No matter how slow the film, Spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer it has chosen. Minor White, fine art photographer, educator Today I’m beginning a series that describes my spiritual approach to photography. The title of the blog itself, “Contemplative Photography,” can mean different things […]
It can manifest as an open hand or a clenched fist Nationalism is a point of view that puts the identity, interests and values of a nation ahead of other nations, regarding itself as independent and self-sufficient, the ultimate authority on what’s best for its citizens. Grounded in national pride, it has brought people together […]
Precious silence often accompanies a fresh and heavy snowfall. The contrast between it and the sounds we normally tune out, calls our attention to it. We go outside to watch and listen closely. We even seem to breathe easier as the snowflakes make a barely perceptible sound. Before the shovels and snowblowers come out, before the […]
Where peace precipitates the power of potential On the evening this photograph was made, the dominant sound in this airport parking lot was birds—a stark contrast to the busyness and clamor of cars, shuttle-busses and conversations that once pervaded it day and night for several years. The difference between the activity then and the serenity […]
The chambered nautilus is a creature that inhabits the Pacific and Indian oceans, today between depths of 600 to 1200 feet. Appearing in the fossil record before fish, dinosaurs and mammals some 500 million years ago, they grew up to 20 feet long! The spiral occurs as walls are formed to seal off and […]
Energy is vibration. It’s largely invisible, but when energy takes a form it’s always geometrical, prescribed by the fundamental laws of physics including gravity and the three Laws of Thermodynamics: 1. Conservation of Energy: Energy cannot be created or destroyed, just changed. 2. Entropy: Matter dissipates; disintegrates. Entropy either stays the same or gets bigger. […]
It abounds when and if we look for it Sunlight reflecting off sink fixtures Whenever I hear “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” I take it to mean that some people find […]
Children are influenced most by what they see Joseph Chilton Pearce, a respected author on the subject of brain development, wrote that a child’s capacity to operate in the world is determined entirely by the models he experiences in everyday life. He observed that all human intelligences—music, math, art, logic, mechanics, even emotions and intuition—are built into […]
Life before and after them In the summer of ’76, the year Linda and I were married, we went to the Cayo district in Belize so I could better appreciate where and how she’d lived for a year, teaching English to high school students under the auspices of the Papal Volunteer’s—the Catholic church’s version of […]
Can they provide a model and direction for human evolution? Color texture and geometry combine here to elicit an immediate visceral response—a Wow!— whether from a potential pollinator or a human observer. It’s the energy of attraction. But from where does it originate? From the flower itself? From the image of the flower? From the […]
Contemplative Photography 