A blog about photography & transformative art
Viewing entries tagged
Light
“I need to photograph more,” I said to myself on a crisp, spring day. I was in one of those artist’s slumps where I felt the desire to make something but not quite having the energy to lift myself from my chair. Instead I rocked myself into further justification for doing nothing. I looked out my window knowing that I was wasting a perfectly good day.
The city, San Francisco or most any city, is full of small, fleeting treasures. Riches are everywhere—little vignettes of joy, intrigue, and ephemeral pleasure that compel me to click the shutter of my camera. Many are haphazard collections of life’s serendipity. Most affirm my belief that the cosmic powers that run this universe of ours have a very good sense of humor.
Like a cluttered attic, sometimes my head gets stuffed. I've tried every time-management method there is. I've written lists, kept journals, made Gantt charts, flowed flow charts, and checked checklists. My brain still hurts. Sometimes it feels like pinballs are rattling around up there, bouncing off the padding of the inside wall of my skull. "Do this, do that. The world will end if you don’t…” Thoughts. I've become a human doing instead of a human being. That's why I like to watch grass grow.
The equinox has passed. As days lengthen into summer the light surrounds the house with its daily dance. Every room is a stage, each one having its hour of performance as the sun moves from spot to spot. No two days are ever alike. No two performances are the same. The only thing certain is the sun itself. It is impossible to escape the sun inside or out during its peak months. Why even try?
I have rekindled my love affair with black & white. For awhile I'd been seduced by the juiciness of vibrating color. Push and pull. Chroma. Intensity. Color is a magic carpet that can transport our emotions to faraway places. It is a lifetime obsession in emotion, physics, mathematics, chemistry, and alchemy. Once smitten, color is impossible to shake off. Lately, however, it has given me a hangover.
There are times when the quality of light tugs at the heart. Like a familiar song or smell, it provides an onrush of emotion so poignant that we are instantly transformed.
If you are regular reader of this blog, you know that my buddies and I hike Grand Canyon every year. The trip is generally exhausting and to help us forget the pain which is shooting through every fiber of our bodies we tend to resort to an endless loop of repeating banter. To the casual observer it is mindless, silly, and incomprehensible nonsense. But, to three stooges from New Jersey, who have known one another for some 45 years, it all, scarily, makes perfect sense.
I had to rise at 4:00 AM this morning, earlier than is my habit. The morning light is lazy this time of year, not getting around to lighting our neighborhood until after 7:00. As I write this the trees outside my window are nothing but dark shadows looming over a dim sky. It is a time of day that brings out the optimist in me. The world awakens to all possibilities.
