Organic Light Pan

Of course I am.  Still wandering, still wondering, still marveling and chasing the light.  Still looking for that moment that strikes awe in my heart and reminds me of my place in this vast universe.  Sometimes its not anywhere to be found.  Then at other times it just sneaks up behind you and smacks you across the head and says ‘Wake Up Dummy!’.  And then there are those times when it can be seen coming from far off giving you the time to prepare to be wowed!

Such is the case when an eclipse of either the sun or the moon is pending.  A few millennia ago seeing such an event struck fear in the hearts of the onlookers as they took such things as bad omens of pending tribulation.  However, such phenomena are not causes but circumstances of the obedience of Divine law. The “laws of nature” that govern how our universe works, stated as such, makes it appear as if nature is in and of itself an independent and self regulating.  That statement makes it appear as if nature controls itself.  What we so casually call a law of nature should be called a Law of the Divine.

I find it amusingly interesting that we refer to the creation of the universe as creation without attributing to it a creator.  Creation is an act, thus there must be an actor, who is that?  That act of creation, bringing something into existence that was previously not in existence, is an awesome act.  Seeing it is not enough to make one believe it, especially in today’s world.  It has to be experienced wholly.

In addition, the act of creation is taking place at every instance in time.  As I move my fingers across the keyboard typing, each minute movement comes into existence, a movement that a moment ago did not exist.  The attribute of motion being attributed to my fingers is created and then as suddenly as it comes into existence, it becomes annihilated out of existence as well.  Objects that are described using attributes that are created and destroyed are themselves as their attributes, namely created and destroyed likewise.  Since we did not create ourselves nor, in most cases, annihilate ourselves, there must be something outside of us that does that.  Dare I call that ‘The Creator’?

It was not all that long ago that most every person on our little planet believed in the Divine.  An entity, spirit or power greater than ourselves that governed the known universe, brought it into existence and brings about its annihilation.  We were reverently awed by the Divine such that we followed a path that would be pleasing to the Divine and beneficial to all of us.   However, given who we are as humans, that seed of illness that sprouts into a myriad of destructive ills known as arrogance found a seat in the heart of one of us and took hold.  It quickly spread infecting the hearts of those around and we began to see ourselves as better than others.  Unable to see past our own hubris we slowly ascended to the illusionary throne of greatness crowning ourselves the masters of our own destiny, and the Divine died in our hearts.  Lost and cutoff from the sustenance of our souls we wander in a make-believe world where things happen just because they do without any rhyme or reason.  We do as we please as if our actions bear no consequences concerned with only our selfish gains.  And when we are done destroying everything that crosses our path we will invent new virtual things to destroy so that our now covetous capricious self can revel in as being its master. Oh what we have become.

Then suddenly an act that we cannot control driven by forces we do not understand occurs that, if we have any semblance of life left in us, would put us back in our rightful humble place, the onset of an eclipse. Even though we can calculate the occurrence of an eclipse with our mathematical models the majority of us have no understanding of the models let alone the motions of these heavenly bodies.  They occur in silence and, for the most part in today’s world, they go unnoticed because who looks up at the sky anymore?  Furthermore, who has the time to watch a silent event that can take up to several hours from its beginning to its end?  In a world where we have become accustomed to  moving at megabits per second and if we have to wait a few seconds for some gratification, the eclipse is just too long and super-boring.

Here is the grabber.  Whether we notice the natural world or not and whether we care for the natural world or not it is still out there adhering to the laws set in place by the Divine.

Still Out There – Eclipse of April 14th, 2014

This photograph of the eclipse of April 14th, 2014 was made at near its peak at 12:53:20 PDT.  The sky had a light veil of clouds that dimmed the vibrancy of the moon for most of the duration of the eclipse.  There was s brief period of time when a break in the clouds occurred and this photo was the result.  It could not have been captured as such if I was not willing to stand there in the dark for the entire duration of the eclipse.  A minute or two later the clouds diminished the brightness of the moon and stars and remained that way until its end.

Again, just like with the eclipse photo made on the solstice of 2010, this photo is a combination of two exposures.  Even though I could see the stars with my eyes, the camera needed a little help.  Exposing for just the moon, produced a sufficiently dark sky where only Spica, the very bright star on the right side of the frame could be seen.  When exposing for the stars, the moon was over exposed. Two exposures were made in rapid succession so as to minimize any variation in the positions of the heavenly bodies when they were combined in a single frame. Each bright “bit” in the dark sky can be identified using an ephemeris.  Starting from the upper left and working clockwise the stars pictured are the following.

TYC 5545-1356-1: 367 light years (ly)

76 Virgins: 265 ly

TYC 5548-516-1: 682 ly

TYC 5548-294-1: 977 ly

TYC 5548-138-1: 370 ly

TYC 5547-392-1: 418 ly

Spica: 264 ly

TYC 5548-374-1: 187 ly

TYC 5548-1547-1: 213 ly

TYC 5548-392-1: 1212 ly

TYC 5548-193-1: ???? ly

and finally

TYC 5548-1468-1: 1320 ly!

Oh and the moon’s distance…well it only takes 1.2 seconds for light reflected from the moon to reach the earth. A light year is the distance that light can travel in one year’s time as measured here on earth.  Light travels at a speed of 186,000 miles/sec and so in one year’s time a photon of light can travel 5.86 trillion miles! The moon’s distance from the earth in light years is 0.000000038.  Looking at the moon is seeing 1.2 seconds into the past.  Looking at one of those stars is seeing deep into the past.

The creation is vast!  The Creator, well, immeasurable! We are small, very small.

Till next time, Peace.

Each month this lone natural satellite of ours cycles through its phases always returning to the waxing crescent and appears in its performance after the sun has gone down. Each month, it seems, that its performance falls increasingly on an ever growing number of deaf ears.

Speaking In Silence

Now you might be asking, how can we hear the moon when it is a visual experience? And to that I would reply, do we really hear with our ears? I had a teacher once who gave me advice. Be careful about what you do, people are listening to you with their eyes. In an age that is filled with imagery, actions speak much louder than words. And in an age where truth has been tipped on its head such that lies are believed to be truths and truth taken as lies, it is becoming harder to ascertain the truth. Nothing man touches anymore is free from the corruption of lies.

Twenty years ago I ventured out with a camera in my hand determined to vindicate the veracity of my tongue by photographing the new crescent moon as solid proof that I was seeing it. Along the way I became enamored by the natural world and have pointed my lens at much of. The world is vast and it has kept me occupied in preserving the moments it presented to me. In all that time, however, I never stopped photographing the moon. I rarely, if ever, shared the photos of the moon with many as I thought they would be of little interest; to simple for the sophistication of the modern mind, to boring for the eyes vexed by the virtual chicanery of our time. Yet in the past couple of years I have started sharing the photos of the new crescent moon and to my surprise they have been welcomed with a refreshing enthusiasm. Perhaps simple is best. After all was it not Albert Einstein who said “Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler”?

These photos of the moon cannot be any simpler with regards to the subject and still call them photos of something. A sliver of reflected light set against a colorful post sunset sky. As simple as they may seem, they are a far cry from having nothing to say.

At times the color of the sky is vibrant while at other times quiet and tame. The color moves the eye up and down the frame touching upon all the emotions associated with the spectrum from passion to power to peace and sadness, stopping only for the pearly-white glow of the small sliver of light that interrupts the flow. The subject is always the same but placed in the specific context the photos take on many levels of complexity. At times I am treated with a varied sky mixed with silhouetted clouds giving the photo a sense of mystery or a dastardly ominous presence and the crescent provides a glimmer of hope that balances the image.

I also see the moon as a marker of time.  Each day it waxes larger until it becomes full and rises as the sun is setting and then wanes away into a crescent once more before it vanishes for  day or two as it interludes with the sun hidden to our naked eyes.  Its mansions in the sky remind me of the passing of time, or more starkly the running out of time.  I only have a fixed amount to time in this life as do each of you.  Once my time, and your time for that matter, runs out, we cease to exist here.  Our ability to do something to effect change for the better comes to an end.  So it reminds me each month to get busy and not waste the precious amount I have left.

The Trio

Rarer still, are those times when the moon is hanging in the sky next to other celestial travelers, such as Venus or Mars or other orbs of light that reach out from deep in the galaxy or from other galaxies that are light years away. These little sparks of light not only grace the image with another point of light to aid in giving the eye a place to rest but also giving us a glimpse into the past. For many of the stars that do show up, are so far away that their light reaching us now left those stars long before we ever existed and in some cases their light is as old as the universe itself. For us, looking up at the sky, these celestial beacons all appear the same distance away. Light reflected from the moon however, reaches us in a little over 1 second. From Venus, a regular companion of the Moon in the sunset sky, its reflected light reaches us in as little as 2 minutes or as long as 14 minutes depending on where it is in its orbit around the sun relative to where we are in our orbit. Light from the sun, which on average is 93 million miles away, reaches us in just over 8 minutes.  The next closest star to us is Proxmia Cantauri which is 4.3 light years away, meaning light from that start reaching us tonight left that star 4.3 years ago.  The additional star that showed up on the evening that “Trio” was made, Spica in the constellation Virgo, is the 15th brightest star in the sky and the light that left that star did so 250 years ago!  That was before anyone of us reading this article right now was even born!  And the faintest object that we can see by the naked eye under a sufficiently dark sky is the Triangulum Galaxy M33 which is 3 million light years away from Earth.  Its light seen tonight left it 3 million years ago!  When we look up at sky we are seeing the ancient past.

Then there are those times when I decide to not only include the moon’s neighbors in the sky, but also Terra Firma.  I will place it as an anchor at the bottom of the frame, silhouetted against the colorful sky.  Most times I will wait until the moon is close to the horizon allowing the diffraction effects of the atmosphere to play its magic in making the moon appear bigger than it really is.  And yet, by doing so I emphasize the size of the moon to indicate that it is much more important than we esteem it to be.  Without the moon, the tides on the oceans would not exist as they do.  The variation of high tide and low tide would not be present.  And although the sun and wind would still send waves onto our shores they would be tame compared to what we now see, and coastlines for the most part would remain static, much like those of any lake.  By virtue of the orbiting moon, we have dynamic oceanic coastlines that team with a variety of unique life accustomed to the cyclic nature of the rising and dropping tides.

Further yet, the moon was the first means of marking time beyond a day, ushering in calendars into the human civilization that were used to mark sacred days as well as the counting of years.  Through the discovery and understanding of the cyclic nature of the moon, the cyclic nature of the rising and setting locations of the sun and stars soon followed allowing our ancestors to learn about the changing and cyclic seasons – giving rise to the understanding of agriculture of knowing when and when not to plant.  The relationship of the Moon and Mother Earth is one that runs very deep and the two are intimately connected through an invisible force now known as gravity.  It was the sight of the moon up in the sky and simultaneously seeing an apple fall from a tree that prompted Sir Isaac Newton to question – if an apple falls from a tree to the ground, why does the moon up in the sky not fall to earth as well?  It led him to the rationalization of what we now call Newton’s Laws of Motion which describe the very nature of the motion of our world and those objects in it as well as the motion of heavenly bodies. Through Newtonian mechanics, the motion of objects described by Newton’s Laws of Motion, humans have walked on the surface of the very moon that prompted Sir Isaac Newton to formulate those laws some half a millennium ago.  And yet, to this day, we still do not know what gravity really is.

Yes these photos of the new crescent moon are simple, but by no means are they empty.  The prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, spoke succinctly with few words but with much meaning.  His blessed face was described to shine more than the full moon on a dark night.  He changed the world for the better and left for us in the moon a tradition of going out each month in search of it.  Each month the moon appears is a reminder of the character building lessons that the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, came to teach us.  I see the moon as his final lesson.  If he spoke succinctly in his lifetime he is now speaking to us in silence – through the silence of the moon.  These photos of the moon as simple as they may be, speak volumes, without even saying a word.

More Than Words

Till next time, peace.

Near The End

This was the moon early this morning as dawn was breaking.  Still waning in its last few days of its continual cycle before it vanishes for its monthly interlude as it meets up with the sun.  Some time mid-late next week it will reappear in the sky invigorated to start waxing once more.

I don’t pay much attention to the waning crescent in other months and rarely do I photograph it.  Not because I can’t but usually because it does not hold much significance to me.  Ramadan on the other hand is all together different.   Ramadan has a special place in my heart, as it does for most Muslims.  Its a month of reflection, a month of exercising our will in abstinence, a month of foregoing the urges of our caprice, and a month of tightening our belts and getting busy in remembering our Creator.  Its a month of becoming intimate with who we are and what we are capable of.  Its a month of returning to the recognition of the relationship we have with the Lord of the heavens and Earth and all that is between those two.  Its a month of recalling the word of God as revealed in the Qur’an and yearning to be better so that we can follow in the footsteps of the prophets and saints who proceeded us.

For Muslims, Ramadan is met with great anticipation as it approaches and is left with deep melancholy as it departs.  Decades ago I wrote a short Ode to Ramadan titled “The Guest”.  I sent it out in those early days of the internet in an email message to my close friends on an email board through which we communicated. Somehow it managed to escape that circle and make its way out into cyberspace in what we could call today going viral.  Its still floating around out there, you just have to “google” that title along with my name and it will come up, if you are so inclined.

In it I referred to Ramadan as a guest that comes to us bringing blessings with it. It was written near the same time as I am writing today, near the end of Ramadan, in a reflective mood as to what we have earned during this month.  I saw us as stationary and that Ramadan was coming and going.  I bid it a farewell in that ode as it was leaving.

This morning a different thought occurred to me.  As I said to myself, referring to Ramadan, “fare well my friend”, I became confused as to who the friend was.  Did I mean Ramadan or did I mean my self as well as my other friends honoring Ramadan?  My new perspective saw Ramadan being stationary and that we were the ones coming to visit it and then departing with the gifts it gave us.  In fact, we are the ones that are moving through time.  We tend to think of time passing by, but in reality, time is static and we move through it.  I suppose it is all relative, just as if you are sitting in a moving car, is the car moving past the objects outside of it or are the objects moving past the car you are in?  Its relative, and in a sense it does not matter.

However in the case of time, it is a created thing just like everything else.  To the Creator, it is static and known because it has existed since Creation started.  God knows everything at every moment because every moment in time is already there from its beginning to its end all laid out and God sees everything from what was, to what is and to what will be.  Rather than time passing us by like water flowing past a rock in a river, we are like that car moving down the road.  We encounter moments in a static time line much like a car encounters bumps in a static existing roadway.  Our choices and decisions result in different turns we take along our journey to the end of time.  When the end of time occurs is of course unknown to us, especially if we are driving along wearing blinders and refuse to look out the window for the warning signs along the road.

And so as we speed along in time we approach the end of Ramadan.  If we feel that it has come to its end very quickly, maybe it was us who were moving to fast, that we did not slow down from our daily rigor and relish the month long portion of time we were moving through.  Its kind of like when you encounter a designated “scenic highway”, its beautiful.  If we don’t care we will just speed on by and never garner the gifts of that beauty.  But if we slow down, and maybe even stop and get out of the car to breath if only for a moment, we come away with so much more.

So as we see the time-signs of the impending end of Ramadan, (hint: the waning crescent moon) rather than thinking about doubling our efforts to get as much out of Ramadan as we can, think, rather, that we should slow down our pace and possibly stop doing so much of our distracting activities.  By doing so, we can relish and “see” the beauty that Ramadan is, treasure what it has to offer us and once we have gotten out of our time-travel machine, we might actually get to take a breath of Ramadan.  Only then will we have garnered what is contained in Ramadan.

So, my friends, I say to all of you Fare Well on your journey  through time.  I hope you have stopped in Ramadan long enough to gather the provisions you need, for the next “time” you encounter Ramadan again, if at all, will be a long ways down the road.

Peace to you All.

Good evening all!  Although it was not required or critical to sight the moon this evening, it has become a habit that I just cannot leave.  I did not travel far to find this moon.  Nor did I have to, and neither do you if you are a crescent chaser as well.

Like every other month I go out to see this tiny sliver of light in the sky, when I see it great joy fills my heart and I wear a grin from ear to ear.  It is one of the most remarkable sights in all the world to me.  The moon has been my monthly companion for the last 20 years and it still brings me as much awe and wonder as the first time I ever saw it.

This month the moon ushers in a blessed month of patience, vigilance, fortitude, faith, and spirituality – the month of Ramadan.  It is the Muslim month of fasting in which observant Muslims abstain from food, drink and marital relations from dawn until sunset for the entirety of the month, solely out of obedience to our Loving and Merciful Creator.

So without further a due, here is the harkener of blessings upon blessings.

Ramadan 1434, July 9th, 2013 at 8:43 pm PDT from San Jose, CA

To all my Muslim readers…Ramadan Mubarak!

And Peace to all!

I recently lead a private photography workshop.  During that workshop my client and I discussed many things photographic.  We touched briefly on the topic of creating HDR (high dynamic range) photographs and how they leaned, for the most part, towards not looking real.  A simple Google search on the terms “HDR Photos” will bring up excellent examples of unrealistic photos resulting from HDR techniques.  However I did mention to him that simply extending the limits of the camera itself does not have to take the resulting photos outside the realm of reality.  If you would like to see HDR photos done “right”, then just take a look HERE and HERE.

The work involved in extending the dynamic range of a digital camera or even that of film photos is extensive and requires special techniques and/or software to do the job.  However that is not the topic of this post today.  What I have been chewing on is, in today’s photographic world, where do we draw the line that delineates what is real and what is not?  I do my best to produce photographs that look as close to how I remember experiencing the scene that was before me.

Most of the photos I exhibit look, to my eye, even years later after I have made them, real.  However, there are times when I have crossed over into what could only be described as surreal.  The subject matter is real, the light is real, the colors are real, the colors were really there in the image captured by the camera, but the essence of the scene captured by the camera was not, and my cajoling of that base image produced what I was seeking to express.  In most cases what these photos elucidate are the subtleties that are almost always glossed over or never noticed at all.

For years I have been struggling in capturing photos from a particular beach along the San Mateo coastline in California.  This one little place still holds my imagination hostage with the possibilities that it provides.

One Little Place

On the afternoon of that workshop we found ourselves there and we worked on composition and creativity.  The light was changing quickly as the sun moved in between the remnant clouds of a passing storm and the way it played among the stone there was fascinating.  I made several photos that afternoon that portray the uniqueness of the stone on that small beach.  All of them are just on this side of reality.

As I wandered these little belly buttons just appeared.  The soft directional light added to accentuate the swollen nature of the stone, which I used to my advantage to bring out their three-dimensional nature.

Stone Bellies

‘Stone Bellies’ opened up a rush of seeking more of the hidden subtleties in the stone.  I started to look for more forms and colors in the rock and saw this curving line and how it played with the texture and color to finally produce ‘Stone Wave’.

Stone Wave

Things started getting strange after that.  Shape, texture and color (subtle color) that was barely evident took hold of my imagination and ‘This Side of Reality’ was captured.  Processed a little heavier than I normally would, brought out great texture and subtle colors that really make the stone attractively alluring.

This Side Of Reality

Locked within the stone were colors, hues and striations that begged to come out and impress the onlooker.  They were washed out, pale and bleached from the salt and sun, but looking closely their gorgeousness was clearly evident.

Folds In Stone

The striations in the stones continued to capture my imagination, especially how uniform the stone could be and how violently and abruptly it changes as exhibited here in ‘Stone Rift’.

Stone Rift

What drives us to make the images that we do?  As I have stated before, art is an expression of what is contained in the heart of the artist.  Art is the resulting outward manifestation of the environment and circumstances that we experience in our day to day lives.  Some of us have the ability to express these experiences more vividly than others, but deep down we all have the means to express.

What makes a photograph real or not is very subjective.  Photographs can be made to look cartoonish, as some HDR photos are, taking them out of the realm of reality, but so can conscience composition and processing that takes an image in the other direction and into surrealism.  Where do we draw the line?

Pigeon Point

We finished out the day hoping for a vivid sunset sky, one that would be a fitting backdrop to an iconic lighthouse along this stretch of the California coast.  My workshop client can argue, and rightly so, that we did not see such a vivid sky that evening.  It was most definitely quiet in terms of color, but as the last vestiges of light filled the sky, the water took on an eerie metallic blue and hints of yellow and orange tickled the sky.  I composed several vertical images in the camera as I panned across this scene hoping to make a panoramic image of this place.  Each exposure was in the area of 10 seconds long, blurring the water and giving it a surreal look.  The processing was simple, Photoshop did most of the hard work blending the frames together.  I made one sly adjustment by darkening the tones in the sky, the faint yellow and orange suddenly came out vividly to play and complemented the icy blue water perfectly.

Is it real?  Is it surreal?  Is it cartoon?

It is photography and its my expression of how I felt at the end of that day.  Lucid, vivid and very eager to share what our world has to offer.  Go out and experience it for yourselves.  Capture it with a camera if you can and share the experience with the rest of us and if you can’t, then learn how.  Experience can only be multiplied when it is expressed to others artfully.

Till next time, Peace.

This evening I ventured out as I do each month to photograph the new crescent moon. As far as moons go it was not as spectacular as I have seen. And to make make matters worse, I forgot to bring along my tripod! How did that happen, I don’t know but now I had to either hand hold my heavy Nikon D2x with a 400mm lens or just resign to the idea that today we are just going to sight it and that’s all. Well…the photobug that bit me 20 years ago and still has a hold on me gnawed at me some more and I did hand hold the camera and if I did not surprise myself I still came away with an acceptably sharp photo.

Jamad Al-Awwal, 1434

What made tonight interesting was not just the moon. As we drove along Skyline Highway atop the northern stretches of the Santa Cruz Mountains, we passed by a couple of women at my closest emergency go-to location when I am running late to sight the moon with a telescope set up and pointed out towards the setting sun. I pulled over a few hundred feet from where they were set up and consulted with my team of moon sighters, aka my photo-assistants, aka my kids if we should stop there or continue on our way to our normal location on Russian Ridge. The consensus was to stop there and we could possibly get a chance to look through their scope at whatever they came out to see.

So we made a u-turn and pulled in close to where they had parked. Come to my surprise there were others there as well waiting for something. I walkd up to the two women and asked what they were there to see only to find out that on this evening, about 30 minutes after sunset a comet was to appear just to the left of and above the moon! Wow! I asked if they would mind if I set up my camera next to them since I was there to sight the new moon and we could possibly sight it together. They welcomed it and we parked it there, and it was at this time that I discovered I had no tripod.

As the sun made its way down more and more people started appearing to see this comet. Discussion took place and I began to inform people about the moon and its location. I was the first to see the moon at 7:17 pm PDT, just three minutes after sunset. It was a fairly old moon about 30.5 hours old so it was fairly easy to see for me and my team of moon sighters. My team and I all saw it within about 5 minutes of my initial sighting. I then started to point it out to the others there and making my photos. The photo of the moon posted was taken at 7:34 pm PDT.

I started to ask about the name of the comet and discovered that it was called PAN-STARR. I opened my starmap application on my phone and started to look for that comet. It took me a while as most comets are named after the equipment used when it was first spotted. After some searching and comparing locations in the sky with those on the star map, I discovered that our comet in question is PAN-STARRS 2012 T2 and that it would be easily visible on this evening and the following evening March 12th.

At about 7:50 pm PDT, my youngest son, age 11, cries out – “I see it! Its just a dot just to the left of the moon”. Sure enough about three fingers width to the left of the moon there was a small star. Through my camera lens the comet’s tail was visible but the light had dimmed so much that the exposures were now pushing 1 to 2 seconds long. There just happened to be another photographer there and he came up to me in the dark and asked what kind of a camera mount I needed. He asked if I could mount to a Really Right Stuff plate and whoa I could! He offered up his tripod and I accepted. I made several photos of the comet, from about 8:00 pm to 8:10 pm before some clouds obscured the comet.

The following photo was my favorite of the bunch. It was a wonderfully serendipitous evening. Going out for the moon and coming back with not only that, but a comet as well! The company was great and all who were there were glad that I was able to capture the comet in a photo. I handed out my contact information to many who were there and most were interested in seeing the photo on the website. So if you happened to be there this evening the following photo is for you. Thanks for making it a great evening!

Comet Pan-STARRS 2012 T2

After The Rain

Ten years ago this coming spring I photographed After The Rain.  It was a superlative year for flowers on the Gorman Hills in southern California.  It has yet to repeat the density, the variety and the magnitude of flowers blooming that year and I have returned each year since hoping to see it once again and try to photograph something even close to what After The Rain portrays.

In the past ten years, After The Rain has attracted much attention.  It stops almost everyone who passes by my photography exhibit.  It illicits some amazing responses from viewers as well.  Some have stood before it and just cried, and much to their embarrassment, they look to me and just tell me such a thing has never happened to them before.

From the very first time I displayed this photo as just a small 6×9 inch proof print, it has garnered attention and was purchased readily.  In years past, it was difficult keeping my photo bins filled with this photograph.  Whatever number of prints I came to any given show with of After The Rain, I could very well assure myself that I would leave for home with all of them sold.  It has out sold all other photographs I have ever made and on average over the time since the photo was made is still ahead of any other photo in my portfolio.

Two weeks ago I sold a framed Museum Series sized piece of After The Rain, allowing me to print the 300th print of After The Rain.  Print 300 of After The Rain is also a Museum Series sized piece measuring 20×30 inches and matted and framed to 28×38 inches.  Even though I do not produce my photographs as limited editions, I do number them and reaching 300 for any photograph is a milestone.  After The Rain #300 is my first photograph to reach that milestone and I am quite pleased.

To commemorate this milestone all the photographs on the Organic Light Photography website will be discounted by 25% for the entire month of March 2013.  If you already own a print of After The Rain, congratulations.  If not and you would like one, then there is no better time to purchase one.  Just click on any of the links attached to the name After The Rain and you will be directed to its gallery page on the website where you can make a purchase.

Thank you to all my patrons, collectors and friends who have helped bring After The Rain to its 300th print.

Peace.

In wrapping up the year many photographers try to pick their best photos from the year.  I am not sure what makes a ‘Best Photo’.  Is it the photo that was the most technically challenging?  Is it the the photo that is artistic in either its composition or color or lack of color?  Is it the photo that sold well or was the most popular with an audience?  Some photographers ask other photographers to pick for them.  Some photographers ask their audience to pick for them.

For me, its about what the photograph means, why I made the photo, how it makes me and others who look at it feel.  Did the photo bring a sense of wonder, or awe or delight?  Did it make me think or my audience think?  Did it help me to form a bond with Mother Earth or with those that are dear to me?  Those are the photos that would qualify as best.  So what follows are my favorites from the past year and why.

At the start of the year the full moon was rising over Half Dome in Yosemite and the high country was still accessible due to a lack of snow fall.  The crew and I made the trek and it was a moving experience for all.  Its the experience that makes a photo what it is sometimes and this one carries a lot with it.

Another Day In The Park

Later in the year, in early autumn, the crew and I ventured out to the coast at a low negative tide and discovered what lives under the water.  We spent the afternoon gathering sea stars and made this fabulous arrangement.  the interactions that occurred that afternoon and on the evening ride home showed me something that I knew was inside of my crew but hardly had the chance to make an appearance.  I saw stars, real stars and it was in the making of this photo that brought them out to shine.

Seaing Stars

I also struggled this year with photography.  Trendy photos, trendy ways of displaying them and trendy marketing all designed to persuade the viewing public to think mediocrity is something special.  It was troubling me greatly and then by a strange twist of fate I found myself standing over a raging torrent of water at a location that attracts many tourists.  Those who stop marvel at the water but I was looking in the opposite direction.  What impressed upon me was that standing firm on what has a real foundation is the only thing that lasts.  When all the madness has passed, what has remained is morality, character and tradition.  That is what my photography rests on and hopefully others will see that as well.

Standing Firm

The heavens in 2012 were also produced events of amazement and wonder.  Most memorable was the annular eclipse of the sun.  I planned a trip, determined a location prepared all the equipment both for the trip and the photography only to it all vaporize and morph into something entirely different. On the one hand it seemed like the endeavor was all in vain, but what resulted were some photographs that were as unique as the event itself.  Many photographers produced interesting renditions, but I saw nothing like what I was given.

Broken Light

It was amazing to see the moon and sun married in the sky together like that for several minutes.  Intellectually I know that the moon passes in between the Earth and Sun each month. I know this because each month I am out trying to find and photograph the new crescent moon once it has passed conjunction and starts to reflect the faintest amount light back to the Earth.  But seeing conjunction happen during a solar ecplipse brings seeing the new moon to a whole new level.  A day later, after ‘Broken Light’ was made, it was the moon’s stage and the moon’s alone.  I ventured out again to capture this elegant crescent that was only 26.3 hours old from the moment I saw it pass in front of the sun.  Needless to say it was quite awe inspiring.

Rajab 1433

The moons last year did not disappoint.  However the debates that revolved around the most certainly did.  The Islamic calendar is a pure lunar calendar.  It is based on sighting the new crescent moon each and every month.  In our modern world this seems to have become an inconvenience.  It is unfortunate because it is a most cherished tradition.  It is a tradition that helps us ground ourselves in reality rather than further immersing ourselves deeper into abstractions. The unadulterated mind sees things as they are not as they are conceived. Marking time by physically seeing an event occur is real, while marking time by a contrivance of the mind is not.  The moon is real and when one looks to the sky and sees nothing one moment and then suddenly in the next moment sees the moon appears it has to leave that person’s heart in awe of the creative power that brought all of the universe into existence.  At least it does for me.  And so, these moons are a affirmation of the existence of a Creator and the photos of these thin ribbons of light hold great weight with me.

Shabaan1433

Guarding Mercy

Hearing The Call

There was one other heavenly event that was of worthy note, the transit of Venus. A transit of a heavenly body is when that body passes between the Earth and Sun.  The transit of the moon could completely eclipse the sun due to its size and distance from the Earth.  Venus on the other hand, is so much further away from the Earth and when it passes in front of the Sun it looks like a small dot. Nonetheless, the transit of Venus only occurs once every 105 years.  Due to this rarity, the 2012 transit of Venus was an event that most of us alive on Earth today will never see again.  Making sure I photographed it was imperative and was a pleasure to witness.

Second Contact

As summer waned my thoughts started to focus on autumn.  I made it a point to make a trip to the Eastern Sierra imperative.  As October rolled around I dusted off the camping equipment and gathered up the crew and headed off.  We spent three days exploring and photographing that awe inspiring landscape.  At the time I was feeling somewhat flummoxed about how my photography was perceived. Among the questions the raced in my mind was one that continues to bother me. Do people understand my photography, do they see what I see, does my photography move people the way it moves me?  Then one morning while standing at the foot of the youngest mountains in North America, ‘Among The Dead’ was made as that very thought came to mind.  I wondered if me heart was dead and I was among the dead, or if the hearts of others were dead and I was among them.  Either I could not express my message, or it was not being received due to dead hearts.

Among The Dead

Later that same morning as the sun started to hit the Sierra Nevada range, they acted like giant reflectors bouncing this warm light onto the pumice field I was standing on and the burned sage started to take on an incredible appearance. These burned twisted sangs were all that remained giving the feeling that I was looking at relics from an ancient time.  When light, subject, color, and texture all come together as they did when ‘Relic’ was made, it is hard to come away with anything but a winner.

Relic

It was not long on the first autumn trip for my heart to find its winds and soar to great heights of  joy with the glowing colors of the Aspens.  As I was wandering I came upon this stand of young Aspens in the warm afternoon light.  They seemed to be dancing, in fact with the subtle breeze coming and going, the leaves would begin to shiver and almost twinkle in the sun.  I wanted to dance in the light with them.  I could not pass up the scene, and ‘Dancing In Light’ was made.  One of my all time favorite autumn images I think I ever made.

Dancing In Light

Autumn has to be my favorite season of the year and there is no place that I like in autumn better than in Yosemite Valley.  I make the trek there every year and this year I made it alone.  The crew, despite their pleading were left them behind.  I love having them along, but the dynamic of making photos with them and without them is like night and day.  Being alone allows me to wander and take my time without interruption.  I can focus on the light and how it plays with the trees, the grass, water and rocks.  My first morning in Yosemite Valley was strange.  I needed to wander for sometime allowing my heart to unfetter itself from the virtual reality of the manufactured world with all its worries and demands to the true reality of the natural world with all it awe and wonder.  Once that happened I came upon this stoic Ponderosa Pine and I came away with ‘Anchored’, probably my favorite photo of the year.

Anchored

I spent three days in Yosemite this past autumn and it was quite productive.  I exposed 60 sheets of film.  Of those 60 about a third made to the scanner and were developed for print.  Of course ‘Anchored’ has already been printed as well as ‘Among The Dead’ and ‘Dancing In Light’.  This next photo was also made on the first morning of my Yosemite trip.  It was a photo that I have always wanted to do, and have always suggested to workshop clients, but for some reason it never was made.  Well this year I did.  I walked into this small grove of Black Oaks in El Capitan Meadow known as the Cathedral Oaks and looked up.  The light was perfect as the sun had just crested the tops of the peaks that surround the Valley and lit the tops of these trees.  It was as if I was standing in a great cathedral looking through a stained glass window, only this cathedral was made, not by the hands of men for the sake of the glory of the Shaper of Beauty, but made by Shaper of Beauty so that our eyes may see and marvel at its glory.

In The Cathedral

On the last night of my trip the campground I was staying in was empty.  It was a Sunday night and I guess everyone that was there for the weekend had left.  It was dark, somewhat cold and very lonely.  As I was making my way back to camp earlier that evening, I decided I would try another photo that I had in mind for years.  I always wanted to photograph star trails while looking up through trees. When I returned to camp it was already dark.  By head light I started my campfire and then set up my camera pointed straight up again.  It is difficult working with film in the dark as the exposure times needed usually run into the time frame of hours and film starts to lose its ability to record light faithfully after about a few minutes of exposure.  This is called reciprocity failure.  But I wanted to try it out.  I focused as best as I could in the dark, removed the dark slide and opened the shutter.  I let the camera sit there for three hours as I burned off the remaining wood I had while I ate my dinner and read a book.  Around midnight the fire started to die.  I closed the shutter on the lens and called it a night.  Of all the photos I made in 2012, it was ‘Star Fire’ that I was most anxious to see when my films returned.  The light from the campfire produced an eerie glow among all the trees in my camp, and the long shutter worked well capturing the streaking stars in the sky.  A photo that I am very happy with and one that I will try again in spite of reciprocity failure.

Star Fire

The very last photo I made on my Yosemite trip was also the last photo I made for 2012.  I photograph this stretch of the Merced River almost every time I am in the Valley, and it is a location that I visit each time without fail.  I call this spot Happy Place. Everything that I love about the forest is found there along this small stretch of the the river.  In the past the photos that I have made there concentrated more closely on either one or two trees and with or without the water of the Merced.  This year I decided to try to capture the whole thing in one epic photo.  This photo, ‘To Be Happy’, was made from two separate sheets of 4×5 film and stitched together in software and then developed.  The resulting image has so much detail and resolution that a 40 x 90 inch photograph could be printed without any loss in quality.  It has captured both the stoic grandeur of the pines and cedars that line the river as well as the delicate qualities of the dogwoods and maples that give Yosemite its autumn blush in some very soft and flattering light.  I wish I could show you all the fine detail in this image online, but alas if you wold like to see that detail, it must be done in person.  ‘To Be Happy’ will certainly have a spot in my exhibit shortly.  Stay tuned for more information about that.

To Be Happy

Well, there they are.  My favorite photos of 2012. I would love to hear your thoughts about these photos and leaving me a comment here on the web journal would be most appreciated.

I hope you all have a wonderful and prosperous year in 2013, and maybe our paths will cross.

Til next time, Peace.

Last July, that would be in 2011, I came home from a long day of teaching a summer camp in the midst of heat wave in the San Francisco Bay Area to find my intrepid 4 photo assistants flailed about the home studio sweltering in the heat.  It was still hours before sunset and so I suggested a trip to the coast for a little heat relief and possibly for some photography.  With that intent we headed out.  The result of that outing, if you are a regular reader here, you might recall was narrated in The Gathering. That photo turned out to be one of the most popular photos at my exhibit in the last year and a half.  It prompted me to think up of other similarly gathered items from locales that I photograph.

One year after ‘The Gathering’ was made, I found myself with my 4 assistants again trampling around on Pescadero beach on a day that not only had a low tide, but a substantial negative tide.  I stood on portions of the beach that I have never been on, seen creatures in tide pools that you normally could not see, and touched rocks that for most of the year remained constantly under water.  About an hour before sunset, I started noticing the number of starfish that were clinging to the exposed rocks.  Too close to the surf for me to set up and operate the large format camera without getting completely soaked and ruining the camera my mind suddenly flashed to the ‘The Gathering’ once more. I rallied my assistants and instructed them that we were going to make another collaborative photo but this time the subject was to be sea stars!  They were gung-ho and off they went.

We managed to gather about 10 sea stars and arranged them further up on the beach away from the surf and made a photo.  We felt that the number of sea stars seemed sparse and we needed more but unfortunately the sun was setting, the surf was rising and we needed to call it a day.  After putting the sea stars back on the rocks at the water line, we headed back to the car and I consulted a phone application I have on my phone called Tide Graph and found that 10 days later another negative low tide would occur that was even lower than what we had just experienced. So we set the date and made a plan to return.

On our second trip I gave clear instructions to my assistants that we had one goal – gather as many sea stars as we could possibly find.  We gave ourselves three hours of gathering time and I further instructed them that they should stay as dry as they could, it was after all mid September and the Pacific Ocean along the Northern California coast is not exactly heated to a comfortable swimming temperature, and I let them loose. I set up my camera further up on the beach away from the water and started to look for sea stars myself.  I found a few but my team started to bring even more.  With each new batch my assistants returned with more and more of their bodies soaked in seawater.  I reminded them about staying dry but the response was that they needed to reach the starfish!

At one point I looked around the beach and did not see the team anywhere.  Suddenly a small head pops up out of the water followed by two others!  Mind you they are fully dressed wearing waterproof rain jackets that are now water soaked.  Moments later I had three assistants running up to me completely soaked from head to toe, each toting several sea stars. The youngest of my assistants offers up the excuse that the pool she was in did not seem so deep, but then slipped and fell face first into water and it was so FUN!  My youngest son, rushes up and says with emphatic curiosity “Baba, Baba, it does not hurt when you open your eyes under the ocean! Why?!”  I explain to him that the salinity of the ocean is the same as that of our blood and our tears and so it is as if you opened your eyes in a big ocean of tears.  He continues, “its amazing down there, you can see so many different plants and animals all over the place on the rocks, it is the coolest thing I have ever done!” I then ask him “are you not cold?”  He replies “Yes I am but its so fun swimming in the ocean and I can hardly feel my giblets anymore.  They feel like ball-cicles!” and off he went back to the water and searching for more sea stars.  At one point a couple walking along the beach saw my intrepid team neck deep in a large tide pool and also asked them if they were cold.  My team replies gleefully “it used to be, but now we we can’t feel it anymore”.

Soon the number of sea stars became significant and the arrangement started to look very full.  My oldest son comes up the beach with his small pouch filled with not only sea stars but two live purple shore crabs and suggested we include them as well.  His reasoning was that they too were exposed by this low tide and that is what this photo is really about.  He had a great idea.  So we placed them in the arrangement and remarkably they did not run off, at least not right away.  His suggestion about what was found at low tide was exactly what this photo needed to make it interesting.  So as the team continued with finding sea stars I started to comb the beach for detritus either washed up or left behind by the receding surf.  I collected interesting stones like those in the ‘The Gathering’, muscle shells, other shore crab shells, some complete and some partial, black turban sea snails, Dungeness crab claws, and I even found one complete half of a Dungeness crab shell with a claw and four legs.  When they all finally came up the beach with their last haul of sea stars they noticed all the other items and were both shocked and impressed.  To finish it off they insisted on including a feather, a single feather that they found rolling around on the beach pushed by the breeze.  We debated its inclusion for a bit, but in the end, as it was found on the beach below the normal tide line and we included it.

The whole day had been overcast so the light was flat, perfect for this kind of photo.  However it was also somewhat bland as well.  Then about 20 minutes before sunset, the fog above us started to glow with a faint reddish-pink tone that warmed the arrangement just perfectly.  It was then that I made the photo.  We then began taking the sea stars back to the water line and placed them back on the rocks and in the surf where they could reattach themselves and continue on with their patient existence.

We walked back to the car exhilarated with the experience.  Suddenly I realized that my car seats were about to become as soaked as my assistants.  They were all shivering now, with sea water dripping from their chins and fingertips, feet covered up to their ankles in sand.  My car was about to become an extension of the beach.  They climbed in as I started the car and tuned on the heater to help warm them up.  The windows quickly fogged up and so I started to alternate between the heater and the air conditioner to defrost the windshield so that I could see where I was driving.

Normally the return drive from the beach with my assistants usually devolved into an argument about who is going to shower first when we arrived at home.  On this occasion however, something magical happened.  Because the experience they had of ‘swimming’ in the ocean was so powerful, all they could do was recount their intrepidness to each other.  Each trying to out do the others’ stories.  I heard things from them like I had never heard before.  Snippets about how they all would charge into the water to save their youngest compatriot when they saw the her fall down, how they would sit at the edge of a pool and reach out to grab a star only to get washed over by a wave, and then giving up to the water and just going headlong into it.  Recounts of how the water was so cold that they could not feel fingers and toes; but that it was so fun they were certainly not going to come out.  My oldest daughter summarized it best; “this was the most fun I have ever had in my entire life!”

Once we came upon the town of Davenport, I pulled over and decided to stop at the Davenport Roadhouse to surprise my team with some hot chocolates to help them warm up.  I had them stay in the heated car as I went into the restaurant; all the while they had no idea why I had stopped.  What I had seen from them and what I would continue to see on the remainder of our return home were the stars that they are when they can get beyond themselves and their self-interests.  When I walked back with the hot chocolates, I heard a cheer from the car.  Now with warm fluids flowing through them, my oldest son finally exclaims “I can finally feel my middle toe again!”  The rest of the ride home they worked out who would shower first when they got home, started ranking themselves with titles for the various actions they took at the beach; things like most wet, most coldest, biggest splash falling, most sea stars collected, most sand in pockets, coldest toes, and so on.  It was the most enjoyable ride home that I can ever remember.

When it came to naming the photo, I only had to think back to that ride home and the four stars that I saw shining in that car.  ‘Seaing Stars’, the photo below was, once more, the result of a collaborative effort of five souls whose love for the natural world brought them to that beach and through their individual and unique efforts gathered all these amazing creatures that are normally hidden from view.

Go out and find some magic for yourselves and your loved ones.  The natural world has much to offer and the stories you come back with will be priceless.

Seaing Stars

Peace

Sadness washes over me this evening like something I am not sure I have felt before.  I am flabbergasted at how we treat each other.  Our teachers, those great stalwarts of truth, compassion, mercy and justice commissioned by the One in whose hands all our souls reside, would…no…must be crying at how we act towards each other.  None of them ever taught that we should act in such a degenerate manner.

Our Creator revealed in the Last Revelation:

By the Fig and the Olive

By Mount Sinai

And by this Sacred City

Truly We have created man in the most noble mould

Then We reduced him to the lowest of the low

Except those who believe and do good works; for they will have an unfailing reward

What can, after this, contradict you as to the Judgement?

Is not God the wisest of all Judges?

What the world needs more than ever now is Love.

Love is one of the greatest mercies endowed among humans. It binds us together and is the impetus that fuels our ever growing population and what makes us hold on to those who have passed away. Love is that emotion, that emotive force that drives the lover to do anything for the sake of the beloved willingly without hesitation even if it is not in the best interest of the lover. The lover not only loves the beloved, but loves everything that the beloved does, or makes, or says. When this love is directed towards the Creator, the lover’s love becomes unlimited and extends to everything that the Creator has ever touched, done or will do as everything is in the fold the Creator’s Will. In fact one of the 99 beautiful names of God happens to be The Loving as our Creator is indeed One that Loves His creation so much so that even in spite of our transgressions we still enjoy every blessing we could think of. But to love the creation like that, for the sake of the our Beloved, The Loving, would move us to a high station indeed. What mercy could extend to others if we loved them the way God loves them? How many wars would cease? How few there would be that were hungry, or thirsty, or homeless or orphaned? What a world this would be if our hearts popped with the Mercy of Love!

My Heart Pops

And the great man, Muhammad, Peace Be Upon Him, who is decried in our times taught:

“The merciful will have mercy shown to them by the Most Merciful.  So have mercy to those who are on the earth and the One who is in Heaven will have mercy on you.”

Please for your own sake, be excellent to each other.

Peace.