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 […]
Photography
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Earth Day and the Living Planet
The Social Conscience of Memory For those of us who were alive before the 70’s, we must remember. And in doing so, poignantly remind others, speak out tirelessly about our experience of the scarred earth that is forever blazed in our minds and likely still lodged in our bodies, and advocate strongly for mother earth to anyone who will listen — our elected representatives, corporate leaders, and the masses enamored […]
Photography for Social Change
After the election of November 8, 2016, a healthy majority of Americans feel fear and despair over the impending erosion of our constitutional liberties, the potentially shattering setbacks for our hard-won civil rights, and the likely acceleration of environmental catastrophe. Many people are asking where are we heading? What have we done? And the most important question: What can we do to avert the potential consequences of social and environmental […]
Photography in Hawai‘i: Part Two
In a previous post, I wrote about accomplished photographers from elsewhere who have created bodies of work in Hawai‘i. Now I have the privilege—and the much harder to task—to write about photographers who live and work here as part of the island’s vibrant photographic community. I must disclose that I am one of those photographers and many of the others are old friends and colleagues. What I have to say […]
In Focus: Self Discovery through Photography and Art
Why is art necessary? Apart from the obvious social, political, and historical functions of art, how does it serve the maker? What benefits are available from the practice of making something? Now, please remember, all of you are artists in some way or in some fashion — or can be. Many of you carry cell phones or have laptops or writing implements and voices that can sing as wells bodies […]