Organic Light Pan

In A Hole

Mother Earth ceases to amaze me with the visual allegories she serves up.  If we are in tune to seeing them we could find them everywhere.  On seeing these small pebbles trapped in these holes in Tafoni sandstone I thought how many of us feel like we are in a hole?  Overwhelmed by the state of affairs we find ourselves in, we feel trapped with no way to get out of the hole.  Unable to see over the rim of the hole that traps us we fail to realize that others are probably in a hole was well.

Navigating through life without falling into a hole or two is unheard of as the journey is riddled with them.  But like any trial that we endure in life, falling into a hole is not permanent, we will eventually climb out.

I hate to “toot my own horn” but I am featured in an online interview at Examiner.com.   Check it out and let me know what you think.

Now available from Organic Light Press – Custom Fine Art Posters.  These posters are printed to the same exacting quality as the Fine Art Photographs using archival Epson K3 pigments and printed on a high quality satin finish poster paper.  These custom posters offer quality, longevity, resolution, and cost that is unrivaled by ordinary offset printed posters.  They are 18 x 24″ or 20 x 24″ in size depending on the image format and are shipped rolled in a sturdy tube and arrive ready for framing or hanging.  The are $25 each.  Visit the Organic Light Photography website’s Press page to order your set of 4 today!

After The Rain

Another Time

Autumn Meadow

Last Light

Reflections abound in our world. No matter where we look we see reflections. The light that that reaches our eyes is merely a reflection, in and of itself, of objects that exist in the world. In fact light, pure light, is invisible to our eyes. There is light streaming between you and the monitor right now as you read this that you cannot see. Light only becomes visible to our eyes after it has interacted with creation. In pure light we are blind and in the absence of light we are blind as well. That reflected light is really nothing more than shade – a mixture of pure light and darkness, and it is only in the shade that we can see. It is in these reflections that we can see all the various shades of color and luminosity. It is in the shade that we can start to understand the world we live in.

Reflections on Pebble Beach

The sage Muhammad Ibn Al-Habib in his Diwan (a litany of poems sung to melodies) has a couplet in one of the poems that has a meaning translated as “Truly created things are meanings established as images.  Whoever understands this is among the people of discernment.”   For years I struggled with understanding why I would train my camera on a certain scene, why I found a particular arrangement of objects appealing, why sometimes things looked better than normal.  After coming across this couplet, I froze.  I finally understood that the images I captured had meaning in them, and I now had to reflect on those very ‘reflections’ to find out what they meant to me, and possibly what they might mean to anyone else who looked at them.  And while I am not sure yet as to what the photograph that graces this post means yet, I do know that the moments that occurred that evening when this photograph was made followed  a downpour that followed a clap of thunder that followed a brisk cold wind on a gray and dreary day.  And afterwards it was as calm as can be.  I have more reflecting to do.

Peace.

Ramadan Mubarak to all!  This evening August 21st, 2009 at 8:06 pm PDT the new crescent moon of Ramadan 1430, was sighted by a group of over 30 men and women, not counting the numerous children as well at Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve, just west of Palo Alto, CA in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  We had clear skies with some dark thick marine layer atmospherics close to the horizon.  It was a fine crescent that was about 3.5 degrees in altitude above the horizon and at a true azimuth of 265 degrees.

The group of sighters started out at about 20 people and over the next 15 minutes it grew to well over 35 people.  As the evening progressed everyone became quite joyful that the Blessed Month of Ramadan was upon us.  As the moon approached the horizon, we packed up and headed off into the night with the intention of commencing our Fast for the next 29 or 30 days, until we see the next new moon.  So Congratulations to all for having another opportunity to benefit from Ramadan.  May all your prayers and fasting be accepted this month.

Another month has gone by.  The new moon this time around met with the sun and blocked her out, completely for nearly 6 minutes all across Asia.  The longest total solar eclipse that the Earth will see for the next 123 years!  If you missed it, like I did, oh well, I guess we will have to figure out how to live another 123 years.

However, every month, the possibility for either a solar or lunar eclipse is there.  At each new moon, the Moon comes in between the the Sun and the Earth, that is why we lose sight of the Moon for a couple of days as it passes in front of the Sun.  At each full moon, there is a possibility of a lunar eclipse as the Earth comes in between the Sun and the Moon.  The reason we do not have two eclipses each month is that the Moon’s orbit around the Earth is not in the same plane as the orbit of the Earth around the Sun.  The graphic below should help in clarifying that.

Only when all three bodies line up perfectly on the ecliptic will an eclipse occur.  They are not hard to predict, but they also do not occur all that frequently.  However when an eclipse does occur, it is a big deal and many cultures have placed significance in its occurrence.  But what goes almost un-noticed month after month is the emergence of a new moon a day or so after conjunction.  The beauty and subtlety of the new moon is something that words fail to convey.  It needs to be experienced to really be appreciated.  What is wonderful is that we see twelve new moons every year, so your chances of seeing one are much better than that of an eclipse, and given the conditions, the display is just as impressive.

Sha'baan 1, 1430

A few days ago, a day after the big solar eclipse actually, the new crescent moon made its appearance once more.  Surely its significance was “eclipsed” by the Solar eclipse itself, but it ushered in the Islamic month Sha’baan, known as the Month of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.  It is the month that proceeds the month of mandatory fasting for the Muslims, the month of Ramadan, and it is a month preparations – both physical and spiritual.

Great anticipation builds in the Muslim world once the moon of Sha’baan is sighted, for in 30 days worldly pleasures take a back seat for an entire month. Eating, drinking and marital relations come to a screeching halt during daylight hours and at night, the hours are spent in spiritual endeavors from reciting the melodic verses of the Quran in Arabic as in the first chapter Al-Faitha ~ The Opening to standing in prayer, sometimes for up to three or more hours!  All with the intention of establishing a connection and closeness to the Creator and Lord of our world.  So as this month is whittled away by time and we approach the next new moon it will have immense significance to 1.6 Billion people around the world.  And although the heavens will not put on a show as grand as a total solar eclipse, it ushers in a month long exercise that eclipses most others.

Peace to you all.

~ Youssef

Six new photos have been released on the Organic Light Photography website. 

The website has also been updated with a new feature that allows you to see the photos super-sized!  Just click on the “details” button below each individual photo in the gallery pages to see them BIG!  The feature is not available for every photo on the website but over time more and more photos will get updated.  The detail of Large Format film is astounding and can only be appreciated in large images.  The photos are even better in person as 16 x 20 inch enlargements or bigger.  Visit an upcoming show to see them.

Enjoy.

The following link to The Empire That Was Russia website was sent to me by a friend earlier today.  It is pretty amazing to see real color photographs of Russia and its people from 110 years ago!  Check out the link on the home page on Making Color Images in particlular.  It describes the process of how the photographer Prokudin-Gorskii used to make them.  That process gave birth many years later to the Kodak Dye Transfer Process that is described by one of my mentors, Charles Cramer, on his website.  These old techniques were revolutionary in the imaging world. 

The color separation method of course is still used in the offset CMKY printing press industry that I described in the 2009 Calendar Goes to Press article.  Each of the four plates that go into the press are color separations like in the dye transfer process – Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK – CMYK.  When people today balk about a photograph being “photoshopped” I think they really need to look at the history of image making in general to understand that what the camera captures, and what gets printed to paper and what our eye originally saw are very different. 

As photographic artists we know that what the camera gives us is such a pale comparison to what we actually saw that it is at times disheartening.  Sometimes we can compensate for the shortcomings of the camera in the field.  Sometimes it is in the wet darkroom or in the digital darkroom using software like Photoshop.  And then sometimes there is nothing we can do to salvage an image to represent what we saw.  There are manipulations every step of the way.  In the end however, if we can convey to our audience even a sliver of the experience we had at the time we photographed the scene then we have been sucessful.  So go out and bring back some experiences.

These old processes make me feel like experimenting.  Now where is my old black and white filter set….

A new special workshop is being offered on how to find and photograph the Moon, and in particular, the new crescent moon.  To find out more information and to reigister check the Workshop Page on the Website and Register Today!  Only 19 days left before the next new moon!

Many Moons Ago

The 2009 – 1430/1431 Rahima Foundation Calendar will be featuring the Organic Light Photograpy photo Calm Tarn shown below.

Cam Tarn

This will be the 10th consecutive year that Rahima Foundation has chosen one of Organic Light’s photos exclusively for its calendar. Rahima Foundation is a local non-profit food bank in Santa Clara County that partners with Second Harvest Food Bank in San Jose, CA. It has been serving the the poor and needy since 1993 with food and financial aid for medical and basic utilities and other need-in-kind services. It also provides education scholarships to needy graduating high school students to help them realize their dream of going to college. It is a top rate organization and one that I am proud to be a supporter of. Visit their website and consider making a donation. They really need the help in helping the poor – now more than ever.

Peace – Youssef