November 25, 2017


We don't want to deal with real life.  So we objectify our lives through pictures to show everyone how human we are.

This physical world of material value blinds us to our spiritual, free will to choose our life through conscious awareness.  We must nurture our internal self.

But that is not the purpose of social media and it's now obvious infiltration into the lives of everyone.  We are seeing and feeling the demise of human consciousness.  The will to be open and free to choose your intent.  Our choices being limited by misdirection toward a full plate of nonsense.

We are becoming less than sacred life, we are becoming awful stewards of the gift of this planet to selfish accumulation of material stuff.  We don't look at action to help anymore but action to attain meaningless grandeur.  The surface ego has broken through the walls of exclusion and now rests on his thrown of make believe.

What can you state that isn't false, that doesn't have as its base the motivation of money? Everything we do now exploits the earth and other human beings. We insist on the glamour of deceit to become the one we wish we weren't.  We have succumbed to the awful desire to behave as crows feeding on the dead dreams of original thought.

We must let go of our conscious state of words that define us.  We are not words but actions that add up to a life of real beauty.  Inside beauty is a powerful feeling of letting go.

We need to start again not as blank slates of reflective consciousness but present in the now of life's mysteries.  To see the world as it is and not through filtered glasses of consumerism. We must allow our being to see outward not through selfish desire but through a clear demand for equality of minds.

This mental despair we are living in now, isn't acceptable. If our minds are asking for a predictive action on your accepted station in life, only movement of thoughts and movement of actions will increase the desire to change the direction of your perceptions.

I believe we have free will. The ability to curtail the omnipresent control of society by criminal engineers.  They have hijacked our openness and caring for each other and turned our thoughts into needless greed and lust. A competition of selfish anger toward oneself and others. By not looking deeper into your self and bringing your conditioned childhood up to the surface as the reasons for your de-focused action in the present moments.

You will continually meet your destiny in hostility against making a change, toward a unifying decision toward a goal of redeeming values.

We think of ourselves as free and in control of our lives.  But through technology we have become less human and are being moved toward the accumulation of things as a symbol of our status and our visual symbol. We are turning our heads away from individuality and toward conformity.  We listen to the lies on TV as if this is important for our salvation.  We ignore the blood on our useless hands as if we were Pontius Pilot.

This nonsensical explanation of their cause, our own violent overreaction to other voices is a blight on the very nature of humanity. We are the enemy.  We see but don't dig deeper into why we are seeing what we are seeing.  We cling to conditioned responses that limit our struggle with guilt and knowing.  We close our mind to something different because our built house of cards would tumble into a desperate anger at our wasted life.

Our mental conditions are measured by false comparisons.  My mental state is known only to me and if I tried to explain it to someone I would have to compare it with something else and then that something else becomes the desired measurement of my internal consciousness and has hijacked my originality.

Is all our futures destine at birth? Are we a fixed entity that exists at a predetermined weight, height, intelligence...etc?  Are we conditioned to react to stimulus or do we create our vision and our future purpose?

Through our social media reflected vision of ourselves, created by consumer ads we compete with our growing concern of who we are and who we want to be. Let go of the preconceived ideas and feeling and just be present in the now of existence and not the hell of what ifs.

October 29, 2017

Are image trends being made and exploited because of their marketability or because that is what an image creator felt and wanted to say? Or are we being commercially exploited by social engineering that is imitated on millions of web sites world wide ad nauseam.  What is privacy now?

We live in such a fast paced information driven age and it has caused us to think quickly without reflection and then move on to the next tid-bit of information as quickly as we can.

Each word we speak, each vision we accept, each moment controlled, each second lessened, all these things condition us from birth to reject our uniqueness and individuality.

You must write with your right hand, that is the way of the world.  You must accept authority to survive in these social classes.

Our individuality has been taken from us and demanded that our surface consciousness be in tune to the piper of this created reality we all live in, to exploit the masses.

But underneath our material mind, I call the commercialized mind, our consciousness awaits its discovery.  

When do you feel that you are connected to someone or some eternal subject? This is not a passing fad or a selfi, or a shopping spree.  You feel something more than the surface ruble, the exploitation of simple minds.  In order to see you must come to grips with the surface reality we live in. shell we live in controls our minds eye to look outward and not inward.  What do we see when we look out at the planet earth.  Pieces of a puzzle which we have no true relationship with. The only relationship accepted is glossy and material goods.  The reflection you see in the mirror is a presentation of your lost self. This shallow and confining representation loses sight of his original goal.

You have cemented in your mind a particular rationality for the the things you do. For your thoughts and actions are there that shape your perceptions with no break through to see life in a different lighted way.  We assume that the structures of our lives are normal and that we belong to the class of the unseen. That your talent lies in accepted behavioral action and not turning your perceptions toward a more personal adventure a true purpose that directs you deeper consciousness to become.  

A journey that allows you to breath in the complex changes of time and your free will.  You become independent minded and not part of the herded cattle.  Oblivion awaits those that keep their heads down eating stale grass.

If you don't break free you won't accomplish anything. You are a receptacle for information that has no bearing on your life's goals and your image creations. Social media dulls your independence and will to be yourself and not a replica of another's mindful purpose of control for money. When you let go of the forced action of being part of, you gain intuitive sight of your feelings and purpose, your acknowledgement that you are more than a corralled animal.

In photography you are not settling for the fast paced gun and shoot mentality.  You are exploring your inner vision, getting to know yourself anew, releasing the burden on your shoulders of someone else's domination.

What we bring to a scene creates the right atmosphere for creating great images.  If you ignore the attraction to the scene, what made you stop and look deeper into the unfolding landscape in front of you, then you will not be able to understand your unique composition that will express your inner sight.

There becomes a locked in rigid mentality to image making, a wanting to imitate a proven method of getting your smiling faces and background in the frame. 

Photography is personal content, it should enlighten the viewer to look deeper into the scene created and to be observed in the perspective and composition taken. The viewer should experience a new way of seeing this shallow reflection we call standard life. 

A photograph is a painting, a poem, a symphony, a dance, and it is not just a pretty picture, or an exercise in technique and print quality.

The image made is a penetrating statement, a selectivity of subject made by the image creator to express what he/she was feeling that drew her to the subject in the first place. The image taken without motive or feeling is a reflection on the new behavior of instant gratification in photography.  

The photograph is content that should enlighten the viewer with a subject uncovered through new eyes that see the world differently than a standard, conformed replication of what was done in the past.

A powerful emotion impels you to action looking for a strong and stirring understanding of the present subject by taking your time creating a matchless image that can impart to the viewer a unification of perspective his and yours.

Each word we speak, every thought we have acted on is a reflection of a need in society for order and complacent behavior. When we take images we are accepting what others deem as good images.  But these images are a drag on the ability of an artist to break though the clutter of cloned responses that one must struggle with in order to open his mind to new possibilities.

Earnst Haas, "The artist must express the summation of his feeling, knowing, and believing through the unity of his life and work. One cannot photograph art. One can only live it in the unity of his vision, as well as in the breadth of his humanity, vitality, and understanding.

There is no formula—only man with his conscience speaking, writing, and singing in the new hieroglyphic language of light and time."

September 4, 2017

It becomes a comfort, a necessary stopping of feelings and intuitions to accept a perception as fruitful and allow your automatic response become written in fear.

Photography is not just a camera taking images without a mind clicking the shutter. Photography is a means to your subject that reveals itself when you are intuitive enough to connect with its mysteries.

Is there such a thing as a real deal in creating images and image that states emphatically what the photographer was trying to express with settling for second hand information?

You are not accepting the gifts made possible by your awareness and intuition.

Mind's listen for the sound of the hunt.  They anticipate the death of compliance.  But like the age of old the kings and queens have the authority to devour your world in a blaze of greed.

A photograph separates us from the real world.  It exposes our inner intentions and thus is a replica, a past replica of our experience. Who we are is lessened if we believe that picture taking is reality.  It is our inner landscape made objective but it only represents a small portion of the reality you endured to get the photograph.  Once an image is made it takes that scene that you connected with and produces a similarity of vision with your own inner landscape.  But that image is not real and now you have moved on and forgotten your real purpose of shooting the scene.

We try and create a realistic representation of our vision and try to explain with your own thoughts why life is judgmental, when it comes to stealing little pieces of a so called reality and not seeing the wholeness waiting to be shown.  Creation is but an awareness of self in relations to stimulus that isn't real but always changing and moving as one tries to capture the truth of your inner existence in relation to the outer world.


Why do we take images?  One could claim that by taking pictures one is absorbing the external world and making it succumb to the human representation.  Since all of us are constantly changing why do we think we are any different than nature being taken by digital means.  Once we take a snap shot of something without thinking through the process of empathy and intuition about the subject then we have just taken an infinitival detail and claim that that snap is the truth.  But it is not the truth to others or yourself.  You have a nagging belief that there is something there more worthy than an artificial picture of food.  Something deeper and more vast in your tightening emotions and environment.  That beckons you to listen to your intuition, your compass of compassion for the innocent earth.

Once an image is taken you have removed the live version, the true subject away from itself, a detail of the whole picture, a substitute that fills the anxious gap between your ego and your immersion into your created world.  You only see from one perspective and that is through your own stereotypes-eyes.  When you remove that unique moment of your truth and relationship with your outer subject by inner acceptance you see a social media copycatting the easiest banal subjects that really didn't have to worked for.  Simplicity is not in the capture, simplicity is in the hunt for more than trivial outburst of selfish exaggeration.

We have been taking snap shots of subjects that have a resemblance to something we can't identify, strictly by its look.  The unique original was just inches away from your vision but you accepted the easy slide down to your own strict response.  Who wants to think, while enjoying the moments of angry despair.

We now have that snap shot taken from its origin into a mechanical device to exploit for your own satisfaction and not the believers in more than surface reflections.

Authentic is a word used constantly by ad men and women. There is nothing authentic about putting yourself behind a camera which is interfering with your relation with the subject and then having the nerve to claim authentic by wearing street clothes and interacting, acting with others to make it look like your cool and have the money to buy the ad's product.

Authenticity is connecting with your subject first with an interest and a working mind that is seeing the possibilities of composition and exposure that will bring to life your vision of the subject or scene. And then through experiencing the subject intimately you bring the camera up to your eye and make an image that expresses your inner intuition.  You have connected the scene to an experience of your being.  We are not children now running around snapping shots of anything that moves.  We must concentrate on our relationship with our subject in order to get to the roots of that relationship which allows us to press the shutter at the moment of revelation.

Abstract Graffiti

August 27, 2017


Minor White, "It is hardly surprising that I have concluded, after 5 years research, that camera is both a way of life and not enough to live by... Glass between me and the world is both a channel and a barrier."

Minor White continues, "To live through a lens, to live out my inner conflicts and brambles through a camera, to turn to the camera to help me return to the world was an experiment I set out to explore five years ago.  I knew it was headed for failure in some way, but I persevered because little else was left open.  Camera as a way of life, and this included teaching, especially teaching, is still the least impossible way for me to develop and to maintain a state that I call mine."

The growing separation between self and nature breaks the tether that anchors us in a willing connection with something other than our own self interest.  And on our own inability to reflect on who we are and what is becoming of our inner purpose.

We are in a world where greed and power exist for only one purpose, to take all there is from the few lower income Americans and shift the the tax payers hard paid taxes to the wealthy who are recklessly destroying the earth for their own personal pleasures.   While the rest of us live in fear and desperation succumbing to the numbing discovery that our lives are wasted on energy directed in the wrong direction.

We seem to think that if we accumulate things this will give us the foundation of self pride and a means to be seen in the commercial world of ads.

How often do we exploit camera phones not to document an inner relationship with something external to your mind but to expose ourselves with the latest and greatest.

Like herded cattle we follow the tidbits of coins (information) to make ourselves believe we are something better than who we have become. Originality is a process whereby through your experiences you begin to see relationships with external subjects that you missed when your ego dominated your vision.

Consciousness is naturally selfish and suspicious of outside forces. It cannot understand the forces of nature are very dangerous and we assume an ethical quality of the mind so we can deliberate on these unknown sources without feeling guilty of their destruction.

We are alienating ourselves from the very purpose we are here for.  Loss of self destroys your ability to have for forethought in exploring nature and your realizing a subject staring you in the face.  Intuition is necessary to create images that have a deeper meaning than surface gloss.  Your purpose is not to photograph something in a fast paste hurry to move on but with empathy and depth that allows you a connection with something bigger than yourself.  We are becoming a selfish, 'look at me' ego controlled by a consumerism that only asks for more, more and more.  Unwilling to release our prideful ego we destroy the very thing that could teach us humility and gods will.

Losing sight of self, we lessen our resolve to stop drinking or using drugs.  This separates us further from exploring the magical impressions of nature.  The external is our playground to find our reflections in still water.  We create our own world.

If your intention is to deny your self expression then you have already taken a path of a stranger even to you.

July 23, 2017

Susan Sontag, "We acquire memories as we acquire things. Picture taking demands no skill or expert knowledge, that the machine is all knowing and responds to the slightest pressure of the will.  It is as simple as turning the ignition key or pulling the trigger."

That is a little over the top in describing all image creators.  Yes, with snap shots the above statement is certainly accurate.

I agree that images are things we value.  The snap shots allow us to remember without thinking through our experience.

When asked what have you done with your life, will you hand over an album filled with images and show the person asking the question a series of abstractions that resemble your experience but it wasn't your live experience but a substitute.  What you ended up doing is replacing the authentic personal experience for a cheap copy of your experience.

This constant taking images of something instead of responding to the subject on a personal level will be the downfall of human relations.

Minor White, " Be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence."

To approach a subject in a loud obnoxious voice is to become a bad actor in your own play.  You are focusing not on the subject but on yourself, your voice and appearance.  The real images are made by tuning into the stillness of nature.  Every exterior presence needs to be seen as is, not as you demand it to be. Direct your attention inward and mark your first awareness of duration an feel time slip by in its shallow presence.

Without understanding times illusions our ability to see in the present is hindered. Your inability to control automatic judgment and false knowledge of exterior motives, when you no nothing of the created external world you were born into is the legacy of a consumer driven culture.  

Will it be ego that gets you closer to the subject you have an interest in? Or will you build a relationship with the subject that will be confirmed by the subject allowing you access to the inner meaning of its existence.  The foundation of great photographs is trust in each other, subject and photographer.

To open your inner landscape you must allow yourself to calm down from the barrage of daily information that is a distraction rather than a knowledgeable critique.

We assume information from media is truthful but there is no truth in giving the viewer a police blotter of human suffering with a smiling face and in their next breath asking the weatherman about the coming forecast for the weekend, will it be sunny and warm or rainy.  This is insanity.

If everything is bad  then is life worth living.  The wealth of the world instills in us at an early age to bow to money and live a separate life than what we were meant to live.

What we see is what we must control that is the mantra of wealth and greed.

The external world is a facade.  You can mold it to express your inner voice or allow it to control your attitudes, perceptions,  knowledge,  and vision of your limited future.  Change is scary but necessary to connect with your image creating duration.  Without obsessing on time one frees oneself from the shackles of of mental brainwashing.

Time is an illusion and makes us rush by the important details of our subject that we didn't recognize.

Words are at play when we listen and view the ads on every device we own.  Isn't it amazing that the created reality we now live in has the ability to send us ads we never would of seen in our calmer past. Why is that?  The money men create things to instill in us an unnatural desire to shop.  This obsession is the function of control they have over us.  All things in medicine, business, food, clothing, products etc.. are just a theater of greed that we will have to buy with our sweat and blood with no possibility of calm respect and sharing.

We are never going to get around the constant noise of materialism without a struggle to free oneself from the tyranny of more and more things.

How about more visual connection to your inner path everyone must take.  Without a purpose of freedom of mind we are slaves to commercial media.

Intuition is a key ingredient in creating visual art of your inner consciousness.  When we go beyond our auto response to stimulus we can really look at the subject of interest in a new light, in a new relationship. This new relationship is empathetic to the subject and confirms a growing relationship you are building toward, a mutual respect based on trust.

Teru Kuwayama, " Connection and compassion are the basis of good work."

The key is to relax your mind away from the created hectic pace of worker ants.  Loosen your anger toward yourself and others. Your knotted wounds will only get in the way of successful image creation.  Take a step back and review your history and then let go with clinched teeth by trusting in your abilities to find your own path and subjects of profound interest.  The simplest subject could be the one image your most proud of.  But if you don't move forward away from the heartless media you will be consumed with negativity and your photographic work will suffer for it.

Our landscape we live in now is acres of promoted violence without any immediate path out of the maze of disturbing images that only get our adrenaline going higher and makes us return to stereotypes that create a cage of blindness toward others.

We all need a jolt of radical intelligence and imagination to power our growing insight into the nature of things we once distrusted. Do not settle for an inferior you.  Break free from shallow images and words.  Follow your intuitions and put your faith in an opening up of your heart and mind to a fresh and wonderful new look at stale subjects.

Minor White, "No matter what role we are in- photographer, beholder, critic- inducing silence for seeing in ourselves, we are given to see from a sacred place. From that place the sacredness of everything may be seen."

July 11, 2017

When do you feel at your best?  When do you wish photography wasn't an obsession?  When you create images are you mad to be present?  Do you wish you were somewhere else?

I feel at my best when creating images when everything seems to jell, my exposures are true to the subject, I am only thinking of my interaction with the subject and I am at peace knowing I am where I should be.

Connecting with your subject is the key to success.  You must have an open mind and an intuition of what makes you happy and what do you like to create images of.  I am a generalist and I am drawn to an infinite assortments of subjects.  Sometimes when something catches my eye I will pause and decide if I want to make an image of the scene.  I believe you must try even if you are a little bored.  Once your in making photographs mode I usually find my interest warming up and I begin to really study perspective, focus and composition.

Allowing yourself to be present and making a connection with your subject is all you can ask of yourself and nature. A purpose created in your mind concerning the subject begins the hunt for the image that is waiting to be found.

Life is about connecting on a personal level with your subject.  Not haphazard blitz of a subject expecting to create an image interesting to other people by numbers instead of a two way street of intense seeing.

Intuition is the foundation for great photography.

Victor Hugo, "Form is the bee brought to the surface."

Connection to your family, friends, your work mates gives you a feeling of invincibility.  With their support you can accomplish anything.

But we are becoming disconnected from each other.  No longer a friend in front of us but an image of him on a handheld device.  This removes you from personal relationships.  Everybody knows, what everybody knows.  But this is a show now to be heard.  A game we play to become liked.  It is not real.

Photography gives you the means to get more personal.  By camera use you connect more with people and nature.

It is not a quick snap shot from your cell phone.  That is once again a surface relationship, without understanding your subject.  You must be intuitive to find the core purpose of your subject.  We live in durations of time.  This duration can be used to create images you are proud of or quick snaps of a subject that moves on in your mind without contact. Having to many durations confuses the sense and we retreat into a standard emotional response and we lose the beauty of being present.

In disconnection we move in waves of consciousness without being aware of our place in this world.  We form judgments so we don't have to think.  When we see an interesting subject we blitz it with motor drive noise and then lose contact with a beginning relationship.  We move on and take another dinner meal and post it online.

Formal judging before knowledge is an indication we are not interested in making photographs but instead, we shoot to create memories of our past moments so we can discuss them with everybody.

Judging your subject loosens the tethered presence to a outer interpretation of your subject and this notifies the subject that you are only interested in a quick mark and then blow this joint.

But if you examine your abilities and your perspective on your close reality you will find yourself driving at speeds necessary for success.  Sometimes your have to act quickly as opportunities present themselves other times it is the slow knowing of a composition that expresses your deepest concerns.

But what usually happens is a break in your framework your concentration flutters as your ego leaves it's perch and moves onto more shallow affairs.  And you find yourself doubting your skills and abilities.

waters edge
the light building
alone, the waves
ripple across
dark sands
illuminating them
with sparkling eyes,
seeing for the first
time a perspective
that is yours and
no one else's

Henri Cartier-Bresson, "For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which--in visual terms-- questions and decides simultaneously.  In order to "give a meaning" to the world, one has to feel oneself involved in what he frames through the viewfinder.  This attitude requires concentration, a discipline of mind, sensitivity, and s sense of geometry. It is by great economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression. One must always take photos with the greatest respect of the subject and oneself."

June 18, 2017

The Tao of Zen, " Fancy words and profound thoughts, after all the sidling rhetoric and transcendent experience engendered by the spell of words there remains the certain bounds set by the natural absolutes of physical existence."

We have lost that connection with ourselves under layers of daily trivia. 

What is left over after the wealth has altered equal rights we look for distractions to take are minds away from thinking about the lessening of our personal goals.

A feeling of anxiety as monopolies squeeze the independent thoughts and we begin to feel doubt creeping into our consciousness. We begin to realize that there is not enough time to do what we need to be doing with our own thoughts that give us strength.  We assume we are not good enough to take the next step, so we live in regrets.

Memory acts as consciousness and what we remember connects us to our past.  But we have substituted our personal memories of living with someone else's.

So when we reflect we don't see or hear our own unique voice.  We are no longer the center point of our living perspective but now see another presence using us as their vehicle for expression and this becomes our only perspective as we ignore our own path toward our created essence.

We now doubt our memories as we view external images rushing over us as a violent river and overwhelming our ability to understand a coherent string of time.  Herd instinct, innovation now is the eye candy to create an impulse to act not from your own needs but by someone else's propaganda for more and more unnatural things that only address image clutter and inner confusion.

The family unit, the intimacy of an inner life, now exposed to the world. We begin to feel disconnected from our lives and our private moments.  When we share now we don't write a letter or talk to the friend or family member face to face we now broadcast it so everyone knows our personal information. 

Through growing ego, a selfish need to be exposed without a real purposeful perspective or authentic sense of yourself, you are not present in the now. Your inner life is now becoming unbearable, your concentration on any topic, a strain to focus on the facts, the image becoming your words without contemplation.  Your vocabulary reduced to tweets, short and copied from other posts in the messy illusion of independence.

This short nest of speech substituting it with less and less words become a necessary drug to dissolve your inner lack of confidence.  Your inner turmoil now only a shallow denial of who is controlling your voice.

The new outer acceptance, the acceptance of your life as an object to be exploited for financial gain, nothing more nothing less.  

You don't have to think, the computer does it for you.  As your brain cells slowly leave a barren mind you give less and less of your true self until what is left is a mouth piece for repetitious tweets that are posted for seconds and then released to the infinite details that should be embarrassing to us.

Ask any question and a mechanical voice answers without emotion or nuance to her voice, just facts that bend the truth toward more and more control of your thought process and your ability to separate a con from the truth. The facts loaded by minds that only give rote memorized data to be repeated to the masses.

The outside images you see focus on canned responses without emotion.

Understood even before action takes place, memorized steps cemented in memories of illusions you will die defending.  Obstructs your vision of your sense of self or distracts from your  life adventure.

Information warfare against the independent minds of youthful skeptics.

Social media is entertainment, corporate media is entertainment, addicts you to the horrors of someone else's pain, making them a spectacle of created choice on how will this effect our viewers as a possible reflection of us on camera.


Spin your mind, twirl yourself with excuses and land deep under the precious gold of greed. Politics of created memory.  Social media creates illusions of yourself in a market scheme your being taught to participate in.  To think only of closing the sale.  The selling of yourself, an ad for a surface reflection outward, not a reflection inward to who you truly are.  We put on the Ritz and are not honest with ourselves in becoming our true nature.  

Social media is a runaway circus of visual stimulus and a redundancy of words that don't add up to a complete idea, or understanding by illumination a context that is true but we ignore this because of the adrenaline rush of images we are bombarded with every second.  Where has the value of words gone.

Your connection is to an animal hungry to get at your behavior no matter what the costs.  It wants to know all your secrets and exploit those secrets to make cash.  Disconnected from live bodies we are more and more showing a willingness to be alone, thinking we are connected.  We are moving quickly into a collective media, consumer consciousness whose only purpose is buy and buy until it we are broken with nothing to show for our effort but material things that consume the planets resources.

Belief in stereotypes ruins fluidity and self awareness.  Closing a give and take relationship.

Our social consciousness changing becoming addicted to the dopamine adrenalin rush of images and texting that stimulate your behavior to retreat from life and assume a static stance of an empty vessel.  Being filled with meaningless, superficial and shallow facts that ultimately mean nothing in the advancement of your independence from the claws of consumer capitalism.

If you don't respect yourself you lose your inner value. We should seek our world through original eyes. Social media destroys consciousness of mother culture.  We cease to be part of but only a fragment in a big puzzle that controls our hours and our days. With these soundbites of shallow meaning we accept the voices as real.But they are not us, we are an individual with our own mind and need for unique personal expression.

Sorry for the digressions lets talk about photography. One of my favorite photographers was 
Eugene Smith. His words still resonate with me as I was taking photojournalism classes in college.

He was meticulous in creating his imagery.  He had to control the environment to make an image worth its weight in meaning.

His insights to grasp the person and create a scene worthy of publication is legendary.

He was a photographer that held to his purpose and didn't allow distraction to interfere with his ability to get the vision the way he new would become meaningful to a wide audience.

He would listen to his editor but never allow an outside force to interfere with his vision for the subject.  No preconceived ideas in this man.

What is the creative self?  Is it a person with an agenda to complete a list of images to be taken in a certain order? Hardly, a creative person takes the ordinary and transforms it into an expression of his inner landscape.  He is not concerned about like and dislikes he could care less about that.  For the creative person a great image is one that he deeply felt and wasn't afraid to take.  It is knowing your subject and allowing the subject to unfold its personal nature. Whether that is a landscape, a person, an object it doesn't matter, if you have vision anything can become a work of art. 

June 9, 2017

What is the goal of ever human being? Is to express themselves and to be understood. But in today's climate of instant gratification we have lost that need to be ourselves and to express our own view on this suffocating reality.

When do you feel separate from others?  Is it when you are connecting with a subject and this subject has your complete interest.  At these moments the facade of life doesn't matter you are alone with your unique perceptions and it is your vision, your personal perspective that is driving you to see deeper into the subject and yourself.

Separateness, that feeling of being on your own, alone in this world could cause a sense of being isolated with a melancholy.  An overwhelming feeling of betrayal, no one will ever understand you fully or care about you like you do yourself. Early understanding of your separateness gives you the ability to be part of something and yet able to analyze the situation and determine your values and your response.

Experience to proceed naturally, not through a consumer ad fest but alone through self-awareness and then letting go of your desires for more and accept life as it is, a necessary vehicle for you to rule and believe in your self, belief where by the world forms around your talents, your drive, your thinking not someone else's. Spontaneity is a gift to take advantage of.  If you don't respect yourself, you lose your inner value.  We must think and be proactive to perceive this world through original eyes.

Silence seems to demand more in this 21 century.  Lazy minds look for stimulation and don't realize that breathing is a good start.  We need excess in order to feel alive, visual movement with oppressive colors and sounds of people screaming.  We find the ugliness of life a stimulus to revel in and this ugliness focuses our attention away from self and puts others as the problem. All focusing your attention away from self to an outside force, making your behavior acceptable in this universe of many tongues (this tower of Babel) and the minutiae of details you look at continuously, which solves nothing, does nothing but sells ads.  What is your life in your constant addiction to a small screen that doesn't inform but is tool to sell you something you don't need.

We give away our personal information, we give away our images and thoughts just to be
liked by strangers. Nothing is sacred now, all is ready to be exposed at the drop of a hat.

John Berger in his book "Ways of Seeing" dissects the historical influence paintings had on our subconsciousness and how this effects are present day manipulations to get us to buy, buy and buy some more.

Freedom now is envy of the wealthy.  We are discouraged that we can not afford the commercials we see everyday on the tv, cell phones and our computer.  This is our democracy now, not real freedom but freedom of choice on what to buy. That is what our democracy has become. In order to be happy we must shop and buy.

John Berger, "Publicity to each of us is that we transform ourselves, or our lives by buying something more.  This more will in some ways make us richer, even though we will be poorer by spending our money."

With everything for sale, we become the ones for sale, we are the ones that will get the barrage of ads, products to buy even though we can't afford them.

Look at the commercial and you will see (as Berger explains) actors that seem to be transformed by buying a product, a product that changes their lives.  As a result we are envious of them and we want the same, to be transformed into something new and better than who we really. Publicity and a good face allows us to dream that we to can become one of the glamorous people.

John Berger, "Pleasure of benefits is what to be enjoyed from the things it advertises.  Publicity is effective because it feeds upon the real.  Publicity is never a celebration of a pleasure in itself.  Publicity is always about the future buyer."

We are at a critical stage in our democracy.  Why are the ads overwhelming the senses? The ads are for the ones that have money not the ones that are struggling to survive. This is the last gasp of the ad men to squeeze as much money out of us as possible before they move their ads overseas to say China, or the collapse of the economy.

How can the ordinary be ignored as we push ourselves to see more, travel and be more than who we are, yet when all is said and done when we come home from the adrenalin distractions of fear of death, we return to ourselves and still have to live with us. We return to our shallow frame without a core belief or an answer to what to do to fulfill our lives, where is our goals, who do I want to be?   These questions are never asked.

The ordinary becomes a focus of image creation just because the ordinary is not seen, it loses its value but not to a photographer that goes under the obsession with status and power to create images with purpose and with the hope to shake awake the populace to begin to see their lives for what it is unique and beautiful.

May 15, 2017

Social Media is a trap, a time consumer of your life leaving you hollow looking for more little spikes of excitement. What does social media stand for? Ultimately it means objective nothingness.  A comma in your abandoned life.  I goal eater.  An obsession to be seen by strangers that have no meaning in your life exempt as a post on a computer that gives you a futile feeling of pleasure.  Social Media thrives on spectacle and entertainment.  There is little information that becomes legitimate when you blindly assume the written words/images on a screen are true.

You post others ideas as your own just to get likes from like minded strangers. Since when does likes equal original creative images and stories.  What you are basically doing is exposing yourself to a shallow depth a surface reflection of your own thoughts and moods manifested for all to see.  Where is the internal privacy we all need to percolate our creative intelligence to be original and not copy cat others dull sequences.

We all find our common denominator.  Social media doesn't inform, it calculates your inner needs and presents you with ads to match.  It homogenized your brain to think not for yourself but what others think. It repeats and repeats until the soft brain gets in line and follows the bouncing screen.

What is social media?  Social Media is a fraud of community.  It is taking community and their thoughts and broadcasting them to everyone.  What ever happened to privacy and close relationships of one on one communication.  Social media is transferring that closeness and putting it out for greedy eyes to see.  It is a scam to make billions of dollars on nonsense without real value. Your life and how you live it is the most important goal. Why would you want to keep your head down looking at a screen when the world is right in front of you in spectacular clothes.  Think for yourself don't be misled to feel you belong to social media.  All you are is a customer to send ads to.

What is the purpose of any company enterprise, of course to sell you something.  Their ads becoming more and more intrusive, more aggressive.  You give social media all the content that they need for free. Now Social Media has the ability to track each click you do on the web and sell that information to companies that will in turn send you more ads to buy, buy, buy.

What kind of life are we living when our lives have become commercialized.  Our lives are being taken from us and put on display and then we are sold products we don't need.

With everything for sale, we become products to sell.  We might as well be loaves of bread on a shelf.  And today there is a discount sale.

Once you lose your bearing it is hard to get back on track, life gives us many twists and turns but we must go with the flow knowing we are getting closer to our own goals.

How can the ordinary be ignored as we push ourselves to see, travel and be more than who we are, yet when all is said and done when we come home from the adrenalin rush we are still faced with the ultimate ending.  These social media distractions only prolong the final ending.  Why not find your source of creativity and explore it rather than distracting yourself with frivolous fears of death.

We return to our shallow frame without a core belief or an answer to what do I want to be.

Our minds have become numb to the personal life we were meant to live for a substitute life that is eroding your ability to become independent with your own ideas.  We see ads that change peoples lives but the only thing that can change your life is you.

With no need to take action or make something happen we sit on the couch or at your desk joining millions of other herded cattle to let your days get away from you with missed opportunities. All the while you are looking at a make believe reality of exposing oneself to the endless torrents of a rushing river that you travel on a daily basis.  Let go of your growing addiction to social media and create your world, generate your own will to become and not a spectator to someone else's dreams.

Reality now is blinded sight where everything we need is transmitted to our little device and we don't have to do anything with our own purpose but look and see the craziness of others.  Is this what you want?  How about creating your own purpose and use your time wisely not frivolously by starring at a screen for hours.  This screen is becoming your best friend and you are hypnotized to stare blankly at the desperation of wanting to be noticed at any cost.  Everything you need is circulated, throughout your narrow vision.  Instead of creating something yourself an expression of your inner landscape you choose through the power of social media to distort and to bring you nothing but sound bites and little trickles of sanity.

We are being trained to accept this new world of lower standards by the constant, infinite obstructions to yourself by habit forming voyeurism whereby you are not a live breathing human being but a mark, a fool having to hold your phone in your hand waiting for a sign that someone heard your plea to be noticed and like Pavlovas dog you wait and wait for that social media fix.

We are being trained like circus animals to react to each post that gives the social media company more information on your likes and dislikes so they can send you ads directed at your wants.  Our sensorimotor system organizes our lives by habit and we narrow our vision of who we are and become a commodity to be harnest by content,with a bombardment of ads.  But this new frontier brings the movie of the week and a false impression of activity, a removed reality to sequester your view from your living room and not a real experience.

Social media brings a world to you like a god with super powers.  Our silence seems to be not good enough for the powers that be.  Silence to think through your experiences, to begin to understand your predicament and to begin to solve this dilemma by exerting your strength to move outside that little device and experience the world first hand.

If you would change your effort, of the you spending hours looking into a little screen at others, and use that same will to immerse yourself in a subject that you have connected with by an honest relationship, a truth about yourself and your goals you can break the strangle hold social media has on you and its continued controlled alienation that is becoming the norm.

Now take that immersion in your subject that you have generated by making a connection of truth and now immerse yourself in humanity, instead of controlled alienation.

May 28, 2017

Direct expression connected to a subject that has your interest but is not oppressed by your touchy feely control, will lead you to better created images and a better understanding of your subject.

Allowing the flow of perception to give you time to be spontaneous and at the same time connected with your subject on a deeper level is a gift and no one can ask for more when making images with purpose.

When you are being yourself there will be a natural flow of your truth without bias and favoritism toward a particular subject and you will not allow a preconception of what should be photographed or left alone be your inner guide.  You will be open to all possibilities, your guide will be your intuitive bonding with your developing sense of attraction that will lead to a natural reaction that gives your perspective on your subject a uniqueness all your own.

My present is what interests me.  It summons my being to be willing to participate amongst the stone structures made by other lives.

The present is always becoming the past.  And because of this we lose our footing in the now and begin to get nostalgic about out present without living it with intensity and a will to perceive deeper into the images that are their to make.

We are attracted to our own voice, feelings and experiences we have had and these become a life we live.  This knowledge excludes others. They are not part of our instinctive knowledge of our role in the universe.  This creates a separateness not a unification. This is not a bad thing if you respect others but seek your role in creating great imagery.

No matter how hard Social Media makes it sound like your are participating with others of like mind, your not.  Social media delivers us in the past.  Each post is past memory of someone or something.  It only exists because someone needed to feel welcome in their own skin and to remember the old days when life was acceptable.    

You must always be looking toward your future, your goals and your life.  This doesn't mean you lose touch with your past but use your past as a means to forge ahead with your creations and not be influenced by likes or dislikes.  What do you want to accomplish.


Social Media is a loud obnoxious noise, not calmness, but an extreme distraction away from self realization. Instead social media is an outward vacuum of wants, by separating ourselves from each other. We become obsessed with ego with glamour, fame and greed.

Social Media's selfish intent toward others, hoping to see a folly of cascading stupidity.  We become jealous of our own inability to break free from the controlling necessity to post on a handheld device our inner being.  Social media is not your friend but a barrier to becoming yourself.

Lessened information without knowledge, just words written without depth, we glide along surface details that have no real value to help you begin your life away from the constant chatter and visual dumming down of our perceptions and our thoughts.  We fail to think unless we react to a post we like or dislike.  Where is the originality of your personality.  Where are your special insights into image creation.  Believe me it has nothing to do with social media's copycat daily show.

The screen never is static, still, it is a constant bombardment of images colors and words that you are already tired of as you roam through endless apparitions of success and failure, decease, sacrifice, fears and mayhem.

You are witness to the tower being built under the babbling infinite dark space of our divided lives.

We are a speck in the eye of a performance, concentration reduced with quick views of banal propaganda and make believe importance.

Unless you are involved already with a willful purpose when you climb aboard the Social Media train of boring repetitions, you will view and mark like or dislike on posts as if you are giving the final say for everyone to agree or disagree.

And then you move on to the next post usually a photo that is easy to read and ignore or stimulates some kind of feeling good or bad in a past memory you never experienced first hand but wanted to.

Everything posted is interchangeable except your unwillingness to change views that could free you from being undermined by times constant duration.

Each thing you see, you like and absorb it into your fracturing mind.

Social media is an abstraction from living a life in your own skin, in your self with your own purpose and rightful deliverance from the controlling expectations we must break, the bonding you have with  social media is overwhelming your senses and deleting your ability to think for yourself.

Corporate media's message is to control the thought process, both political and social. The political we can protest but changing the social addiction we seem to have with social media's feeding our brains with nonsense, could be to late.

They have the control and have moved us further down the path of thoughtless beings, that assume pleasure only when viewing a hand held device.

Our years as independent minded human beings is eroding quickly as wave upon wave of useless information feeds our brains and erodes our own thought process to be independent.  We must fight against complacency and struggle to get out of the grip of social media.  We have our own thoughts and experiences and we must use that as a means to create work that is important to us.

You don't need someone else to like your work as long as you gave it your best shot and didn't copycat someone else's work but your own original feeling that led you to create an image worthy of your deeper self.

May 25, 2017

For all the men and women who gave their lives to protect America we honor them on Memorial Day.

April 23, 2017

Ray Grigg in his book The Tao of Zen, "A clarity of insight occurs when perception is unconstrained and unregulated by the controlling character of culture.  Suchness is awareness without sanctions, without restraint, without interpretation or organization.  It is pure awareness, pure experience dancing lightly in the whole freedom of absolute emptiness."

Social Media creates distrust, confusion, obstructs any spontaneity with its power of absorption.
Social Media lowers your belief in your ability to create and confuses the senses with repetitive dribble.

It creates a barrier between you and your subjects by limiting your horizon to a set amount of other people to follow.  Why follow anyone?  Create your own images and discuss their relevance in today's commercialized for market theater of the greedy eyes of look at me!

Social media moves you away from not toward your subject, your purpose.  As you look at social media sites your time becomes flashes of banal subjects usually making fools of themselves.  This creates a disillusment toward the human race.  Gives us the necessary ego power to think we are better than them.

Your time wasted without moving forward toward your goals.  Your life is now tangled with an excess of distant friends and tweets that don't really constitute a relationship because you are not there in person talking but using an intermediary that conquers your voice with sound byte formula's of less speech.

Ultimately you end up taking the shortcut to your goal which leads to a rushing forward from the scene and measuring success by the number of images taken. The new mantra in today's got to know now revelations is run and gun image taking without the personal unique touch each of us brings to the scene.

The most common subjects are the hardest to see and respect.  We have been conditioned to see beauty through the eye of conformity.

The hardest to understand and to create purposeful images are those you begin to feel on a deeper level, those images you have to make, because they absorb your thoughts with openness and clarity that you must explore in your own new direction.

We see the common, the over populated image uploads of the same subjects under the same lights copy cat examples of lazy thinking.

Our memories of past moments flow into our conscious moments of actuality pushing out the desire to explore the ordinary objects that are waiting for you to actually take the time and see them.  To move on to something more deeper to reveal in this ordinary moment.

Our inner selves must absorb and open up to the outer natural world in order to project your inner vision.

Your personal history is your vision when creating worthwhile images.

When you connect with your past you can let go of the clutter of foggy words and move beyond the static voices that hinder your exploration of a new path.

You must connect with new currents from a foundation of where you have been and move with excitement, fear, anger toward new visions of image freedom.

Take this freedom of accepting the world as it is and express yourself through you new voice in your own words and images.

Strength of will pushes you forward toward your truth.  It moves you to get up early on those cold mornings and pack your camera gear and drive miles to seek your destination.

Social Media is quick and shallow. It seems now that surface reflections determine depth of character.  Just by reposting a comment you get more likes and seem to be the golden eye of envy from others.

The only deception is loss of yourself in social media.  The only way to survive is seeing your own self worth and your own character and your own willful purpose and by exploring these you will create images that mean foremost something to you.

March 12, 2017

Waiting a condition of purposeless resolutions to not participate but allow life to move further away from your inner will.  

You can’t control the world through your actions alone.  But you can move with the flow and open yourself up to the visions of your youth when all was new and exciting and you immersed yourself in your chosen subjects with an intense detachment of a novice.  Enjoying the moments of touch and sight as the newness of nature was revealed to your growing knowledge.

As we jump forward in our lives disconnecting with our inner purpose we begin to lose our empathy for others.  We had to give up our dreams so others must give up theirs as well, to fit into nice little cubicles of anxiety and doubt. As tensions mount past the point of opposition we instinctively revert to our base animal instincts of survival and accept our lives fated to us through our own inability to seek detachment from someone else's will.

Now we have a so called knowledge of experience.  A training system of do's and dont's.  A learning of a history that is all facade with no inner core.  An America that creates a system of beliefs, a religion and demands the sinners to accept the written word.  These words condition us to explore in a narrow way our vision of the world we inhabit.  These words define our likes and dislikes.  These words are created to control the substance and direction of your life. As we age the future paths we began narrow and end in dead end streets because of our addiction to word structures.  We assimilate our family,  school and friends behaviors and in this acceptance we begin to limit our dreams as we face that overwhelming structure of our societies needs.  The ones in power will not allow a new direction with purpose unless they can capitalize on it and milk it for profits.

Words can define our vision of our future goals.  Acceptance of someone else's thoughts as your goals doesn’t make since. Diverting your inner creations, bending them to fit a mold of conformity negates your efforts to create your own unique vision.

Where are your own insights that can propel you past your conforming fears?  Where are your intense insights that immerse you in your subjects world and gives you the strength to resist your conforming fears and create your own vision.

When was the last time you surprised yourself with a true unselfish voice that was yours alone.  And not a repeated tweet or a reblog of someone else's words or images.

Without a will to express your life through art you confine your inner being to a limited expression of existence and makes your future naive to think that by not following your inner landscape you will somehow miraculously succeed in creating your own perspective.

It takes years of work, trial and error to let go of the stereotypes and flow with the natural flow of life's gifts.

Taking images now is a status symbol. Not a willful pursuit of a connection with an outer interest.  A connection with your subject is the goal of all good image creation.

It takes time, intense immersion into your scene to create a dialogue not a monologue with yourself and your subject.

Status imagery adds a shallow surface glitter to the photograph which doesn't reveal something new about the subject but gives the viewer a sense of your ego bragging about a space and time you were in. A quick click and it failed to connect to the surrounding details that were calling but instead you refused to let go of your ego glamour and just express a deep connection you felt. Lethargic and easy compositions copied from infinite horizons of other snap shooters trained by the mind of easy answers.

These images lose their authentic character in as much as they are not for you a necessary expression of your inner emotional drive. These are snap shots you grew into through social media that express only a surface pose not a deeper understanding of you place and time.

Details of nervous lives looking for attention and escape any way possible. Then one always posts the food tray as if to say look at my full plate of unnecessary details that don’t tell you anything about my real inner life. But it does express a substitute life lead by its nose to repeat the ugly truth of our growing homogenized egos of greed.  More this, more that has  become a necessary foundation for an overburdening force of image exclusions. What is reality but a means to reflect on who you are through creating meaningful art that includes not excludes people of all colors.

What is necessary is purpose of letting people really see you not as a glamour junkie but as another human being.

When you create images from your inner core you are giving others a sense of who you are not a product exposing infant choices of boredom.  But a person willing to express himself in such a way that expresses his life’s compass.

My inner being is not a cup of coffee sitting by a window in some tropical palace over looking a blue ocean with the sun setting with street lights and moving cars and people roaming looking at themselves through others eyes.

Life is intriguing and meant to frustrate,demand,unravel and inspire you to do more than just look and take.