Creativity

The Power of Art in a Challenging Age

In these transformative times, we need art to help us navigate difficult conditions, find ways to endure and reconcile both individual and collective suffering, and locate the path towards a realistic, hopeful future. Can you name an image that has endured in your mind and served to alter and expand your consciousness? I remember many but a few stand out from my formative years. As a high school senior in […]

Oceano Dunes #12, CA, 2019 © David Ulrich

What Are We Working For?

So many heartbreaking conditions are taking place in the world today: environmental destruction, massive inequality, violence and oppression, income inequality, extreme polarization, and a vast tearing of our social fabric. As world citizens, we must not be silent. We must speak out and protest all forms of injustice to each other and to the environment by any and all means possible. That is our necessity and our responsibility. But we […]

Oceano Dunes #21, Oceano, CA 2018 by David UlrichOceano Dunes #21, Oceano, CA 2018 by David Ulrich

Mirror of the Mind: Creativity and the Nature of Consciousness

Creative work can be a pathway into the nature of the mind. I am currently exploring the science and art of creative response with a camera and in viewing art with a recent body of photographic work. The human mind runs deep. Of this there can be no doubt. Cognitive neuroscientists claim that only 5 percent of our brain is conscious while the rest lies beyond our awareness. The conscious […]

Conversation, photography by Hengki Koentjoro

Photography and the Fluid Awareness of Zen

What is the relationship between photography and Zen? Both share an emphasis on cultivating presence, the capacity for being attentive to the moment, and both encourage an intuitive, spontaneous approach.  Zen has attracted many artists and musicians for good reason. It is a system of thought that allows our minds to soar, that examines the human condition, and attends to our individual evolution in fluent, effective ways without being theistic. God […]

Lower Calf Creek Falls, Escalante, Utah @ David Ulrich

Awakening Sight

What motivated me to write Zen Camera: Creative Awakening with a Daily Practice in Photography? Sometimes it feels as if all the elements of my life have lined up, conspiring to help me realize this endeavor of writing a comprehensive book on the creative process in photography. A lifelong passion for the arts, a propensity for teaching, a long-term investigation of creativity as an artist and writer, and the resonating […]

Maui Cane Fire © David UlrichMaui Cane Fire © David Ulrich

Healing a Broken World

“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake … I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium […]

Escalante Falls, UT © David Ulrich

Creativity and Zen

Creativity and Zen practice are deeply allied. They are both ways of life and are not just something you do. Rather, they are related to what you are—how you live your life, and on what kind of values you bestow meaning and importance. Creativity and Zen are pathways that can help make us whole and help us become more present, awake, and alive. Many artists intuitively grasp the necessity for […]

The Paradox of Permanence © Alison Beste

Zen Camera: Seeing and the Five Visual Elements of Photography

Each of us has in our possession a powerful and time-honored way of knowing about the world. Observation, direct perception in the present moment, teaches us about ourselves and others and helps us interpret the many dynamics that surround us. It shapes our response to the world and forms the basis for both knowledge and action. In one’s way of seeing lies one’s way of action. —Alfred Stieglitz, photographer Both […]