Chapter 10: Gradation Aesthetically speaking, “gradation” refers to a gradual or graded change of tone over a surface. Artists refer to it as a grading of “values.” In color photography, gradation can be a transition from one hue to another or to a different level of saturation or brightness. In black and white, it’s the […]
Chapter 3: Color as Subject Objectively speaking, the world is colorless. So is the sun. Our brains construct the sensation of color from various radiating wavelengths of photons, depending on how they’re absorbed in and reflected from various surfaces. Visible light occupies just a tiny sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum, constituted of wavelengths that stimulate […]
Chapter 9: Connecting to Spirit by Rewinding Time In the Introduction to this series, I observed that, because the spiritualization of matter occurs in consciousness, photography is an ideal medium for personal growth and spiritual development. In my experience, the most powerful and effective practice for expanding perception, illuminating the spirit within a photographic subject […]
Chapter 4: Everyday Beauty Searching for opportunities to compose elements within a frame in ways that fed my aesthetic hunger, I frequented scrap yards, construction sites, abandoned buildings, empty fairgrounds, railroad graveyards and antique shops. As a consequence of creating order out of visual chaos, I was experiencing beauty in unconventional places and subjects. It […]
From where we are looking, what is our view of the world? Being six-foot-five, I’ve always viewed the world from a slightly higher perspective than most people. For instance, I see the tops of furniture and people’s heads, and I can see farther in a crowd. No big deal. But that each of us […]
Individual expression matters Do you see the jetliner? Remove any one of the pixels in the above image and there would be a hole in the whole (photograph). It wouldn’t be complete. It wouldn’t be the same photograph. Some might say it would have a flaw. The universe presents itself to us as a system […]
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 […]
A gift freely given Oddly enough, the word that came to mind when I came across this image was “grace.” Considering the thorns and this subject being no longer living, I wondered why. I think it lies in the composition, the uplifted “arms” that seem to “praise” the thistles; the buds on each side have their […]
It’s not “out there.” It’s in us. The above color and form evoke in me a sense of calm, and at the same time a feeling of strength and vibrancy, of life rising up—life both simple and complex. The cells are like pixels, individual packets of information, each unique with a life and mind of […]
A time to ponder and assess As December 21st approaches, I reflect on the significance that the winter solstice held for indigenous people and mark it in my own life as a way to attune, as they did, to the order and rhythms of nature and the cosmos. Having studied Mesoamerican cultures, particularly the […]
Contemplative Photography 