Thinking together to learn and make sound judgments on behalf of a whole system The Free Dictionary defines dialogue as “An exchange of ideas or opinions on a particular issue, especially with a view to reaching an amicable agreement.” In the image of these spheres, diverse in size, tonality and texture I can imagine the exchange […]
The safety of system’s syntropy against the forces of entropy Obviously, guard rails are intended to keep vehicles from running off the road and to reduce the severity of injuries when they do. Not so obvious is the observation that their presence indicates a lack of trust. Appropriately so. Bad accidents, even death, may have […]
Our backgrounds reveal who we once were and how we got to where we are While writing my novel Soul Train, I wanted to model one of the characters after a dear friend and colleague of twenty years. He’d recently passed away and I realized that the only thing I knew about his personal life, […]
Imagination is at the heart of contemplation My reflection begins with the observation that someone, likely a man with dirty hands, placed this wrench on an oil drum inside a mushroom farm in Loveland, Ohio. But where was it before that? Might it have been used in a factory, a gas station or railroad yard? […]
From darkness we advance toward the light The metal stairway in this image evokes in me considerations of the evolutionary spiral, the universe’s operating system, which we know to “favor” increased novelty, diversity, adaptation, complexity and order. Along the bottom steps of the oil tank, I see the significant ordering that has already occurred. In […]
What’s a citizen to believe? With all the buzz about “false” and “fake” news, foreign influence in elections, intelligence leakers, inflammatory talk shows, social media manipulators and AI capabilities, how can we know the truth of anything that’s being reported? We can’t. Given any situation that’s reported, we weren’t present to experience what actually happened. […]
Nothing is what it appears to be In this image I reflect on the notion of “reality,” that it’s both individual and a construct. There’s the reality that I, as the photographer, experienced—the bright sun and the people on the hill. And part of that reality includes cars in a parking lot and an observation […]
Seeing the best in us raises the rest of us and gives us hope There are certain people in the world who bolster our estimation of humanity and contribute hope for the future. By the quality of their character, defined by social theorist Amitai Etzioni as “the psychological muscle that moral conduct requires,” they demonstrate […]
What we see depends on where we stand In a film script, Point of View (POV) can indicate the camera position or the viewpoint of a character. In a screening of an episode of “24,” the TV series featuring Kiefer Sutherland, the President of the United States and the Vice-president vehemently disagreed on whether or […]
Through coherence, parts unite to form whole systems For me, part of the appeal of this image is that it at once evokes the sensibility of living cells and astronomical bodies—the “innerverse” viewed under a microscope and the universe viewed through a telescope. At both extremes we observe diverse parts that join together to make […]
Contemplative Photography 