What goes around...

March 24, 2011

My experience in the Contemplative Landscape workshop was eye opening in many ways; I came home to find more successes in my image making than what I thought when I was there. Such is the case with 'Frosted Hills'. In the chill of the morning, as I scanned the pink snowy mountains tops and setting moon, my eye kept returning to the texture of these frosted rock formations covered with snow In the editing process I was looking perhaps too hard for something more transcending, and yet this was what moved me. 

My landscape work has traditionally featured some hand of man to create the context of the overwhelming beauty and power of nature. There was no such evidence here, and it took some time to get comfortable with trying not to turn over rocks, but to accept the richness in the given scene.

I also found myself going back to root subject matter; the kind of photos I was drawn to when I first started taking pictures; a trip to the ghost town of Rhyolite and a long contemplative session with a box car proved to be a gold mine. 

I returned home intrigued with that sensibility. Following are images made with the feeling of forgotten places; that have stories to tell to those willing to pause and consider; a factory in Connecticut; a highway overpass in Providence; a rail yard in Portland Maine. There is an intuitive mystery in these things that I connect with on a soul level, one that continues to give me profound satisfaction to pursue.

The Journey Continues

 It is almost a week since the Contemplative Landscape workshop in Death Valley with Lydia Goetz and George deWolf.  It was an incredible experience artistically; we were encouraged to explore our awareness of place and self through mindfulness training.

  At times I felt like the new tools I was given were getting in the way of the visual experience, after all, I was in Death Valley, a place of remarkable beauty contrasted with endless desolation. I had to learn to let go of the search for the postcard. In reflecting back through the images, I see the beginnings of a heightened clarity of vision, and the intuitive sense of what can be possible.

 What I now possess is  the mindful practice of feeling/seeing what is in front of me without the filter of expectations.  I have been told it will take a couple of years to truly grow into this new level of authenticity in my work. I am including a few samples of the week's experiences.