The shape of a landscape is an ancient and silent form of consciousness. Mountains are huge contemplatives. Rivers and streams offer voice; they are the tears of the earth’s joy and despair. The earth is full of soul.
John O’Donohue
Contemplatives
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Reflection…
Snake River at Oxbow Bend from October of 2003 Love is the movement within life that carries us, that enables us, that causes us to break out of what Alan Watts calls the “skin-encapsulated ego.” Without love, we are self-centered, but love enables us to move the center of our lives outside our ego. Therefore it expands our lives and, needless to say, enriches it. Any human being would give anything to love or be loved. When it really happens, it is like heaven on earth.
Huston SmithThere are those moments when I am touched at some deep level when taking images such as this and, more importantly, the opportunity to witness scenes like this. Photography has allowed me to slow down and experience those sacred moments. Our friend Earl is spot on when he says these moments are transforming and revitalizing. At this stage in my life I ask myself the question, “How much love is actually being shared between me and Nature herself?” Just asking that question now is transformative and revitalizing. I agree when Earl mentions in his post about this chaotic world. Seems to me it is in need of a touch of heaven.
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The Next Unfolding
Taken with a Nikon D100 using a Nikon 24-85 mm f2.8-4.0D AF-D lens at 85 mm.
Exposure: 4.0 seconds at f 16, ISO 200.The breaking of day, the silence between words, the light emanating from a real conversation, and kindness, truth, love and the apparent random hand of grace: I want to remain gobsmaked by all of it. Rendered speechless by wonder, I await the next unfolding.
Richard Wagamese: EmbersThis image was from a week long trip I took back in October of 2003 to Smoky Mountains National Park. It was my first and only visit to the park. I had only owned my Nikon D100 (6 megapixel sensor) for less than a year. It was my first ever digital camera so I was still early in my digital photography formation, getting to know the camera and using Photoshop Elements. A slight break in the clouds on an overcast day offered a gold glow on the water of the Roaring Fork River that lasted just a few seconds before it was gone. It is still one of my favorite moments on that trip and ignited the desire to experience the next unfolding in nature. I find it interesting that I just happen to remember these images and that experience. So I went back into my archives to see what Lightroom enhancements could do today. I also wondered how would I approach this scene today? I also believe that photography has helped me see the world with new eyes and I can easily get gobsmakedto be extremely surprised or shocked, almost to the point of being speechless, like being smacked in the mouth by something I see in the viewfinder.
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Silence
Sunset along Peralta Trail, Arizona – November 2003 My whole silence is full of prayer.
Thomas MertonNot sure about you but so far the year has run rather smoothly. We’ll see what day two brings. This morning we had clear blue skies, sunshine and cold. Pretty much what a January day is in Colorado. I rode my bicycle to coffee this morning and took the long cut home. Good start to my day! I have a crockpot of cabbage and sausage cooking. This afternoon we have had soft white clouds floating across an azure blue sky.
Silence has become a gift in my life over the past 10 years. I have adjusted to living a single life and its freedom. Living alone allows silence to become a prominent part of my day. Because of the silence in my life I find the noise of the world disturbing and annoying. There are few places, if any, where there is not some impact of sound by man’s machines. I am learning in my practice of prayer and meditation to allow them to become a distant hum. I like to believe it’s at those moments that I am in prayer. When I can do the same in a coffee shop I also consider that silence to be prayer.
This image was taken along the Peralta Trail east of Phoenix with a Nikon D100 and Nikon 24-85mm f2.8-4.0, at 1/6 second, f16, ISO 200.
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I Have a Backup
Nikon D100 Yesterday I found myself again wishing I could afford a backup DSLR camera to my D300. Every one knows a good photographer has to have a backup camera body, right? If we have crawled out of a warm bed before the butt-crack of dawn and driven twenty miles on a cool October morning, we do not want to have a camera failure on location. We also know that any wedding photographer is going to have two of everything. Since I’m not selling myself as a wedding photographer backup camera is not a necessity. But, I still have these thoughts roaming through my head about having a backup and how could I afford it. These thoughts include picking up a used one on ebay or buying a new D300s and making my D300 the backup. All legitimate thinking, right?
Every once in a while an epiphany appears in my life. The one that showed up yesterday was that I already have a backup! When I hung up a shingle to work as a wedding/portrait photographer in 2003 I purchased a second D100. It was essential. Then three years ago when I upgraded to the D300 I basically stopped shooting the D100. I took the batteries out of them and stored them away. I enjoyed the newer camera so much I had no interest in using the older ones. I had a new toy/tool in my hands and did not want to put it down. But the epiphany suggested I get them out of storage, charge up the batteries and use them. When I look through the metadata in Lightroom I found that half the images in my archives were shot with those two D100s. I have a backup. Of course, when they come out with the D400 or D500 or whatever hundred, my mind will again forget about the D100.
