I just finished a new gallery on my website entitled, Marin Shadows. The body of work has been emerging unconsciously, which I suppose means, I really can't explain it. It is the result of the mystery of creativity. If one truly lets go and allows the creative process to do work, unexpected things emerge. I never planned to photograph dark, dreamlike images of Marin landscape in black & white. It just happened. And right after I proclaimed, on this very blog, that I'd had enough of it, I found more to say, more to do, more images in my database that wanted to be shown the light of day. And so, on it goes.

Living here, in Marin County, California, is a blessing. There is so much to see, so much to photograph, it is an embarrassment riches. The light changes daily, it teases me with its elusiveness and dances around me like a band of fairies. I feel surrounded by some strange enchantment. Sometimes it all lulls me into complacency. There is so much to see so close to home I sometimes figure I can always go out and photograph it tomorrow. That is never a good idea.

Knowing a place well can dull an artist and make him lazy. But it also allows him to constantly go deeper and to get beyond the superficial. The grand cliches are everywhere around here. Money shots. Photos that are screaming at you to be made. Getting to another, quieter, and more subtle place can be a challenge in a place that has golden gates and shining cities on a hill.

The Marin Headlands are the result of tectonic tensions—faults of building pressures that might, one day, take everything away from us and cause massive destruction. Maybe it is that tension that I feel as I hike and walk my way around the hills and rocks and beaches. There is something deeply mysterious and ancient that I'm just beginning to unearth. In the months ahead, as the days grow longer, I hope to discover more of the mystery that is found in the shadows of Marin.