In imagery and in life My dad, a toolmaker for Ford Motor Company, used to say he could make anything out of metal. He also said, “The difficult I can do tomorrow; the simple takes a little longer.” It’s the same with photography—or any kind of art or design endeavor. Although there is an underlying […]
Addressing the soul as well as the mind In this image I see the next generation of professionals being exposed to the knowledge of the past and unfolding present. I also see the learning process accelerating, facilitated by the rapid and global flow of information technology that empowers many more people to make many more […]
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 higher levels of organization. Along the bottom steps of the oil tank, I see the significant ordering that has […]
Principles underlying information in human communication I was thinking about the complexity represented in this image when I noticed that it’s also rich in context, providing both time and space perspectives. The nighttime and elevated point of view displays pattern, while the time-exposure reveals motion. Combined, the image speaks to me of complexity, interaction, order, […]
One of the differences between mediocrity and excellence In addition to the quiet sensibility that this image evokes in me, it speaks to the human journey, our quest for meaning and purpose, even our individual place and function in the world as we paddle this way and that with attention focused mainly on the surface […]
Outside and above the biosphere there is a field of mind. ”Because satellite dishes look skyward, I sometimes imagine lines of light, like coherent laser beams, streaming out of them toward their satellites. If those beams could somehow become visible at night, globally and simultaneously, the resulting web of crisscrossing lines and waves would be […]
There are roughly 300 species and more than 50,000 varieties of the iris flower, beardless and bearded, the latter with a fuzzy petal that hangs down. They range from plants up to five feet tall and dwarfs of only eight inches. The bearded variety reproduces through swollen roots, while the beardless iris has a rhizome, […]
From Peter Wohllenben’s The Hidden Life of Trees, I learned that the roots underground are more involved in a tree’s survival than anything growing above it. They withstand severe changes in climate, regrow trunks from time to time and it’s there where centuries of experience are stored. While trees don’t appear to have a central […]
What is the relationship between data, information and knowledge? And what part do these play in the expansion of consciousness and the development of wisdom? In his 1950 groundbreaking book, The Human Use Of Human Beings, mathematician Norbert Weiner defined “message” as “A sequence of events in time which…strives to hold back nature’s tendency […]
In my experience, more people are moved by color photographs than black and white. That’s understandable—color is more visually stimulating and it’s how we see the world. Our brains are wired for it. Regarding photography I’m reminded of the old saying that “If you can’t make it good, make it in color. And if you […]
Contemplative Photography 