Organic Light Pan

Each month my team and I go out to look for the new crescent moon.  We never know what we will find.  Some days the sky is very bland, the moon appears, we make a photo and go home.  Other times we go out to be met with clouds.  The clouds might be thick and dense carpeting the sky with no hope expecting them to let the sky come through.  Sometimes the clouds are broken up teasing the eyes with glimpses of sky and raising the hope of seeing the new crescent.  The reward of seeing the moon with skies like that becomes greater.  Then there are days when the sky is hazy.  When it is filled with what you can tell are a light veil of clouds high up in the atmosphere.  You know the sky will put up a great show, but with that show comes the possibility that the atmospherics will obliterate seeing the moon.  It has happened many times to me.  The sky of May 29th, was just such a sky.

Wispy Sky

Shortly after sunset, the western sky came to life with an abundance of cirrus clouds that just danced in the expanding color.  Faint crescent moons are difficult to see on their own without the help of little wisps of condensed water shimmering in the evening light adding confusion and deception to the mix.  After the sun set, my team starts to ask for the particulars about where generally the moon should be in the sky, its orientation and how long before it sets.  They impressed me by asking all the right questions.  Given that the moon was not to set until nearly an hour after sunset they continued to goof around until the searching became serious.

As the evening unfolded, the colors in the sky began to change and intensify. The thin veil of clouds began to stratify the color as they tend to do and a soft gradient of pastel colors lit the sky on fire.  Watching it unfold, its hard not to be impressed by the colors, and it mystifies good judgement as to why one would and would not make a photo of it.  In the end I made the photo anyway and I am glad I did.

The Color Of Light

The color soon started to fade away with the sinking sun as it continued moving away from the horizon.  As the sky darkened we all became more intent on looking for the moon.  We searched across the sky and then suddenly my phone chimes. A text message flashed across it with a note that the moon was seen in southern California or Arizona.  I quickly reply asking for details and then continued to search.  Suddenly a cry goes out, “I think I see it!”  We all thought we did.  Hiding there amidst the clouds we all thought the lower limb of the moon was poking through.  Yet it did not seem to move as it should have been.  We dismiss it and continued to look.  I started to get worried that we were just to far north this month to see it on this evening.  How was it seen in the south?  I needed more details.  My phone rang.  I did not answer it and chose to continue looking when all of a sudden, my younger son calls out – I see it! Allahu Akbar!

We all came to him and within moments we all had seen the delicate thread of curved light in the sky!  Even my youngest team member, the 8 year old, who always needed help seeing it, saw it as quickly as the rest of us, very impressive given the faintness of this month’s moon.

First Sighting – Shabaan 1435

As the evening waned on the variations in the colors were subtle but certainly there for those willing to stay and enjoy the show.  The clouds start to change in both appearance and color as well.  The entire sky takes on a completely different feel.  Placing the moon in these photos is sometimes a chore.  How many different places can the moon be placed in a frame and not have the photos become completely repetitive?  Rarely do I place the moon in the lower portion of the frame, but for this one I did.  It gave the impression of the moon feeling from a darkness chasing after it.

Fleeing From Darkness

With the complaints now mounting as my intrepid team members lost patience now that the deal was sealed, I continued to track the moon and photograph it as it approached the horizon and mingled with trees that now were merely silhouettes against the now dark crimson sky.  I finally called it quits when the moon settled in between this V-shaped notch between some pine trees.

In The Notch

The monthly appearance of the crescent moon has occurred far before we have ever been here on Earth and will continue until the end of time.  It has been my endeavor for the last 23 years.  It ceases to bring me great joy each month, and each time it is like I am seeing it for the first time.  Its vision expands my chest and lifts the weight of my world off my shoulders.  Knowing that we have a divinely ordained celestial clock as our guide in time is a great succor in my life and my hope is that it can be for you as well.

Ramadan is just on the horizon.  May we all reach it in good health and host it in our lives once more.  Peace to all.

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.

The Earth is sick. It has a fever. And like us, we develop a fever when our bodies have been invaded by a pathogen. The fever helps accelerate our antibodies to exterminate the pathogens.

Only now with the Earth, we are the pathogen making her sick. The Earth is doing what it must to survive. Guess who won’t?

I suppose its true…you get what you pay for.

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.

In response to a question I received earlier this evening. Even though the moon appeared to be full this evening it was still a Waxing Gibbous with only 95.4% of the moon’s disk illuminated. The full moon will occur Monday July 22nd at 11:15 am PDT. It will rise tomorrow as a “full moon” but ever so slightly past full as the sun is setting, as every true full moon does, in fact it will rise 8 minutes before the sun sets. On Tuesday July 23rd it will rise after sunset by more than 30 minutes at 99.9% illuminated as a Waning Gibbous.

For those concerned about starting Ramadan incorrectly because you started fasting on Wednesday rather than Tuesday based on the Full Moon, a mistake was not made. The month is started on the sighting of the new crescent and not retroactively after the full moon is observed. In fact on July 22nd, here on the west coast of North America and throughout North America, the moon cannot be seen when it is reaches full as it will be day time and the moon will not have risen yet. As of the close of July 21st, we have fasted 12 days. The traditional white nights of the Full moon occur on the 13, 14 and 15th days which will occur on July 22nd, 23rd and 24th, just as they should be.

For your viewing pleasure, here is the full moon as it appeared in the sky above my home near midnight on July 21st. A thin layer of clouds in the sky glowed as the bright moon light filtered through them.

Full Moon and Cloud Glow

Peace.

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.

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

“There is a morsel of flesh in the body that if it is sound the whole body will be sound and if it is corrupt the whole body will be corrupt and it is the heart” ~ Prophet Muhammad

I interact with many people on a regular basis, whether it is through teaching or at my photo exhibits.  At times it seems to me that what I try to communicate to others, either through my photographs or through the lessons I teach or with what I write, goes unnoticed or not cared about at all.  Grant it, I am not a person of great influence, but I think my insights are unique and the knowledge that I have and am willing to pass on does have value.

I am at times perplexed why what I have to offer is not sought after.  It has forced me to become quite introspective about the state of my own heart.  Years ago, when I was a graduate student, I was asked by the community of Muslim students on campus to give the sermon at the Friday congregational prayer.  I gave the talk hesitantly as it was at the time a daunting task.  But I spoke from the heart and it went fine.  Afterwards another graduate student who was studying at the law school on campus, who by the way was already a practicing judge in Egypt, came up to me and thanked me for my talk and said he could tell that what I was saying came from my heart.  He continued to say to me that when the heart speaks the ears do not hear it, but it goes straight to the heart of the listener.

Communication is formed of three distinct parts.  The first is the communicator, second the receiver, and third the message communicated.  If any are eliminated then communication fails.  The message communicated is incidental and it could be anything.  Crucial to communication are the communicator and the receiver.   Both must be present, the communicator willing to broadcast and the receiver open to reception.  To begin, a channel needs to be opened that both the communicator and receiver can mutually access.   It seems to me that the most direct channel would be heart to heart, as this would eliminate any possible barriers to delivering the message delivered.

I was left wondering where the breakdown was happening for me.  Was I failing as a communicator?  Was I not broadcasting on the right channel?  Were the intended receivers not there or possibly not listening or listening with the wrong receptor?

Then I found myself wandering the Eastern Sierra landscape in early October bedazzled by the rich autumn color and enlivened by the crispness of the chilled air.  I was open to whatever I found and I listened carefully to what my eyes saw and what my heart echoed in return.  One morning I came upon a most unusual and almost lurid landscape at the foot of the youngest mountain range of North America, the Mono Craters.  There, on the pumice fields, was an expanse of sage that had been burned to the point where all that remained were the twisted charred skeletons of the main branches of each individual plant.  Most were burned completely to ash, while others still had the substance to stand, yet frozen forever in time and waiting only for erosion to eat away at what was left.  It was as if I had walked upon a holocaust and what remained were only the dead.

As I stood there among the dead I pondered was my stumbling upon this graveyard of sage an indication that I was one among them? Was my heart was so engulfed with material worries and wants that its ability to communicate had been prevented?  Or was I wandering among the dead hearts of my intended receivers of my broadcasts unable to hear what I am saying?  This question still burns inside of me and I do not know the answer.

What I do know is that the heart is the most important channel of communication. Protecting it and keeping it sound so that it can hear the lessons taught by Mother Earth, so that I can hear the calls of my fellow brothers and sisters when they need help, so that I can respond in kind is always on my mind.  What I also know is that I am listening and I am doing my best to keep the channel to and from my heart open.  I hope yours is open too.  Can you hear me?  Are you among the dead?

Among The Dead

Sometimes I think that if it was not for the moon and its cyclic nature keeping me engaged in photography that I might drop off the photographic map.  Photography has grown to be something of a second nature to me.  Its not something that I do anymore as much as it is something that almost defines who I am.

When I leave the house on any venture the first thought that comes to mind is whether or not the camera needs to be with me.  Early on, a serious sense of insecurity would wash over me if I left anywhere without my camera.  I was afraid to come upon a scene and not have the means to capture it.  I could not fathom what I would do coming back without being able to share what I had seen.  What I failed to understand back then was that the camera was not the only way to convey what was experienced out ‘in the field’.  Today, using the large format camera capturing those fleeting moments that you happen upon slip by so quickly that I would not be able to capture them before they slip away while setting up the camera.  So by virtue of the camera I use today, it has forced me to relax and just take things as they come.

If I happen to out specifically to photograph with the large format camera, then things tend to be more serious and I work with seriousness in mind.  If I go out now not specifically looking to photograph then I tend to relax and enjoy the scenery without the worry of missing anything, because I can still enjoy the scene myself.  Save for the monthly moon photos, it  would seem to you, my readers, that I have not shown anything but that.  The reality is that I have been regularly engaged in photographing in Reality.  Further the realities of life have reared there ugly head as well consuming my time as try to sustain myself and family.  So while I have continued to engage in what has become second nature to me those of you who only interact with me through this virtual world might think I have dropped off the map, but in reality I have just been missing in action.  There are only so many hours in a day and unfortunately after everyone and everything is done taking its time from me, you my virtual friends receive the short end, or in some cases no end, of the stick.

I know I have said before that I would try to be more regular in posting and releasing new work, and while that still is the decision I would love to take, my and is sometimes forced otherwise.  None the less, I do have much to share with you in the next few weeks as 2012 comes to a close.  I will be updating both the web journal as well as the website with my ‘best of 2012’ images.  So please stay tuned.  For now, enjoy this photo titled ‘Indecision’ that was made along the Big Sur coastline along the central California coast.

Indecision

Peace.