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Once in a great while I happen into a place where I'm overwhelmed by a feeling of something that has gone before me. I feel the Light as if seen before. The Light whispers. And I just raise the camera and do as my soul tells me and in turn is being told - This is not the time to think, analyze, contemplate. This is the time to do as the Light inspires my soul.
Over the past few weeks I have been scuttling forth and back along America's Gulf Coast documenting the aftermath of the greatest human-caused disaster so far on Earth. Between the frustrations and the ugliness of crude oil spewed into the coastal environment there were moments of beauty that transported me to kinder moments on Earth. These two images are apair that sang to me - of the sea and the lure that draws every human soul down to the shore.
"Color is joy. One does not think joy. One is carried by it. Learn by doing or even better unlearn by doing. The opposite of what you learned. The paradoxical fact in the aesthetic is that theories also true in reverse."
- Ernst Haas
"The world today is sick to its thin blood for lack of elemental things, for fire before the hands, for water welling from the earth, for air, for the dear earth itself underfoot. In my world of beach and june these elemental presences lived and had their being..."
— Henry Beston
(The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod)
Light often falls on its beginnings; sometime we have to go in search of that place - and know it when we arrive.
I love the way Light reveals other world, draws distinction, renders a clarity otherwise eluded.
I saw a reverse forest silhouette while hiking, a few years before I discovered the camera, I have never forgotten that image and have been searching for its essence for more than three decades. From time to time, I walk again in the woods, or in a market, or in this case a Paris shoe shop, and whispers of that long ago image tickle my thoughts, my eyes search, it's their hiding in plain sight.
To be in Paris and struck by a silhouette made me smile. Drawn from the name of Messieur Étienne de Silhouette, the notoriously cheap Controller-General of French king Louis XV, the word refers to a cheap form of portraiture, mocking the parsimonious Étienne de Silhouette. But ironically the most perfectly executed silhouettes are capture a beauty rarely otherwise seen.
Just back from India, still unpacking bags and cameras, but took a break to see what I saw. Taking the trek through 1,500 images, many of things required, a few others of things inspired. The photo above was the confluence of my passion for the bike, the texture and wear that is Kolkata street life and that lovely Light that graces this city of crowds, cacophony and chaos every afternoon about 4pm in the dry season. The Light becomes like cream pouring into every seam, wrapping itself about every surface like a creature exploring life for the first time. I watched Light move with a quiet smile on my face, like watching a dear friend run her finger over the world after a long sleep.
The past few weeks have been spent learning how to see Light, talk to Light, interpret Light, through new cameras and lenses. It is a new year, it was time to turn my attention towards new tools, new brushes if you will. It's been the better part of a decade since I embraced so many new pieces of equipment - and now all digital - overwhelmingly boundless and exciting as I learn the possibilities.
In two days I leave for India, Kolkata first--the color and magic of a dear friend's wedding, the chaos of streets alive, the intensity that permeates the Ganges Delta, then north to Assam--wedding part deux and a visit with tiger friends in and around Kaziranga National Park. My eyes are incredibly excited!
The trip is a mixed adventure - a set focus in Kaziranga, a bit of my old self, but through new eyes and an untainted palette during days in Kolkata. On both voyages my eyes are incredibly excited! But I must admit it is the unrestricted perambulations the days in Kolkata I am looking forward to most - it feels the most foreign. Despite this being my fifth trip to India, it feels like my first with just enough experience to move comfortably, consciously - Light being my only guide.
Once in a great while I happen into a place where I'm overwhelmed by a feeling of something that has gone before me. I feel the Light as if seen before. The Light whispers. And I just raise the camera and do as my soul tells me and in turn is being told - This is not the time to think, analyze, contemplate. This is the time to do as the Light inspires my soul.
