Organic Light Pan

Just a quick note.  Today ended the first day of Jamaad Ath-Thaani, the 6th month in the Islamic year.  Yesterday was the 29th day of Jamaad Al-Awwal, the 5th month and the critical day for sighting the moon, but it was not seen anywhere.  This afternoon I ventured out with the team to the coast to see it at the end of the first day.  It was a lackluster sunset but with the moon setting near the Pigeon Point Lighthouse along the San Mateo Coastline it made up for it.

Jamad Ath-Thaani at Pigeon Point

Only two months until Ramadan!

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.

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.

Today was a remarkable day.  I was exhibiting the photography at my local market.  About 3 quarters the way through the show a family from either central or south america came into my booth.  It was woman, her daughter of about 7 years old and her husband.  She did not speak English very well.  They all looked at my work and then she commented to me but I did not understand her.  Her husband then translated and said, “my wife says you are a man with a deep appreciation and wonder for the Earth.  I can see it in your eyes”.  She then bent down to here daughter and spoke into her ear as she pointed up at my eyes and her daughter’s face gleamed with an incredible smile and big wide eyes.  They thanked me and went on their way.

Probably the finest compliment I have ever received in my entire photographic career not to mention in my life.   They were truly genuine people, and where ever you folks may be – Thank You, from the bottom of my heart.  You made my day and validated the importance of my work and reverence for the Earth.

Today a young visitor to my Sunday exhibit walked up to one of the photos, and while under the salvo of commands from her mother not to touch the photos, she points to where I had signed the mat and calls out to her sister and mother – “Look! The author’s name is there”.

I found that to be a very austere observation on her art. Every photographer is an author writing with light rather than ink a story of time, a statement of purpose, or a record of history that will never repeat again, ever.

Anything that you have acquired in your life up until this moment in the way of knowledge or skills or accumulated as material wealth that is not of some benefit to the Earth and those that live on it, though hard won through time and struggle, has all been in vain.

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

“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