Dandelions Close-up

Dandelions Close-up
Dandelions In Black And White

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

October 29, 2019

Taking photos allow us the feeling of superiority over mother nature and human nature. We boost our ego’s jealous nature as we select a physical space, that we will take away from the aggregate of details present a composition that exits in the external physical reality and through this capture we have a picture. It is amazing that amount of images taken each second of each day around the world. 

Nothing is hidden, all is a potential snapshot of someone or something perceived as unique. We prowl in the streets for a stolen image, an image that doesn’t represent anything now but a redundant visual expression that has no meaning. 

Pictures taken to day are selfish in the sense that they are not representative of our feelings toward the beauty of people or the beauty of nature but pictures that are all about the ego’s of the one taking the image. The subject of image creation today is not the external scene but the one taking the snap shot, our addiction to be seen at any cost, to be liked at any cost is the obsession of our selfish culture seeing ourselves as objects, material to be presented on social media.

Ego’s are the main subject of all our hedonistic self interest. We don’t see the objective necessity to respect nature and to protect our rights as citizens of this planet, equal to each other and not under the rule of the oligarchs. 

We have been disconnected from our inner purpose, separated from our true course, our true vision. We are all here on earth to enjoy the beauty of the earth not the destruction of the planet by the corporate elites, junkies for more and more wealth as if they expect to spend this money in heaven, as if savaging the earth would get them to the pearly gates before they were sent where they belong.    

Soon we will be folded nicely into nature mysterious disguise that has warned us of the catastrophic consequences of voracious greed. There is no escape from the aging body and aging mind soon to be silent without funds to buy a way out of deaths brutal clarity. 

Pictures have become selfish in the sense that they are not representative of our feelings concerning the beauty of nature but pictures that are all about the ego’s of millions taking the image.

We don’t explore our own inner intuition but copy what we see others doing, we imitate others in order feel accepted.

Great imagery accepts nothing but the individual expression of ones inner truth. A photographer in tune with himself and nature’s beauty doesn’t look for the cliché but digs deeper, looking for the outer representation of his inner feeling and insights.

The earlier great street photographers created a base of uniqueness, an awareness of the subject and an instinct of visual expression that captured visual moments with revelation and beauty.  These images revealed a new level of picture making, a new underground of subjects never seen before, that would illuminate our senses and push other photographers into a realm of the ordinary made extraordinary. These street scenes  were a new avenue of expression and changed photography forever! A new memory of a subject yanked from its mooring from a flowing, ever changing reality. A reality that is migrating, and evolving and we are blind to its nature of assimilation.

Now we are snap shooters, making images is no longer necessary, now when shooting we are not looking for a representation of our inner vision but an irrational need to be the star of picture taken, seen as just another part of the herd and not an individual with our own unique perceptions. The scene exposed in milliseconds, the surface glitter like eye candy attracts a dull eye and that eye doesn’t see beyond the reflective positioning of a growing laziness in mankind to accept the shallow facade that your intellect determined was just good enough representation to take a picture of and then move on.

We need to be ourselves without a sense of reproducing another’s surface reality but our own inner world externalized in a photograph representing our inner force of character, an expression that is coming through the scene demanding your concentration to be visually present as you realize the subject appearing on a deeper level. 

Because of this new way of seeing through focused intuitive vision you will not take a quick snapshot and then run to the next surface gleam but be still in your vision, still in your insight, still in your willingness to allow the scene to unfold, digging deeper through your inner connection with the subject that you at one time would have easily missed for an easy point and shot image without depth but now you have become more in tune with nature and it’s calling. Your inner awareness is now your driving force to create that bond with nature that had been missing.

However, the new era of photography is not about revelation of nature through a deep connection with this precious earth but it is taking from nature its pride as mankind destroys it through ravenous addiction to money and power. 

There is no loss of beauty in life for we have been broken to feel a good life is impossible as mankind takes from the earth its minerals, the earths atmosphere, warming the climate to an extreme where we will have monster storms threatening all cultures and our children all in the name of profits, these men and women of avarice and deceit, these criminals of duplicity, using their billions to deceive the people of this world through their propaganda machine as if nothing is wrong, and this marketing of a false narrative through a bait and switch swindle and their gluttony for more and more personal wealth on the backs of the innocent is just fine and dandy with no problems and the earth we live in is going a little crazy right now but look we are misleading the American people for a grand purpose, our truth is the defrauding of all peoples of the planet for profit. Look at it this way you won’t need a camera in your kids future because all this beauty on this earth will be gone, destroyed by our callous, selfish greed of the elite for the elite!

Friday, October 25, 2019

October 24, 2019

Do you feel a little iffy today that something isn’t right.  You're feeling a little down, a little nervous about life and angry toward the people that are ignorant of your conditioned beliefs and cliche responses to everything that you believe in. Don’t worry just ignore the truth of their criminality blossoming all over this dying planet as the wealthy run rampant, ravage and take all they can before the collapse of our civilization.  

Where to begin, the beginning accepts the hurdles one must jump to express your inner thoughts.  Closed minds will always reject the true preposterous nature of words. Seek your own words to define yourself, walk in your own shoes. Not someone else’s footprints spewing a mouth full of hate and arguing for others to be hurt and condemned.  

Divide and conquer is their game plan. Propaganda from the elite to sway your thinking backward in time, hating others for their differences when if you looked hard enough you would see that they are human beings just like you, afraid of the coming storm of climate change that they are experiencing now and the mass corruption of governments at the expense of the people. That is their plan, getting us to fight amongst ourselves and in these created distractions of hate while they pass laws that benefit themselves, giving them more and more profits and power. Why should they worry about families starving, that isn’t their problem it is your problem, for they live above the ugliness of life and exploit those that can’t fight back? That is just good business practice.

We seem to like being shadow people hiding from the truth. We seek words that were ingrained in our consciousness from birth and solidified in our minds as we grew up stagnated in our ability to find truth away from the structure of our lifestyle and friends that reinforced the hatred toward change and people different from our propaganda of misinformation. 

The funny thing is that they never seemed to realize that the change was going on with them or without them and the wealthy used stereotypes and word manipulations to cement in your mind racists and selfish behavior toward other human beings. While the rich made a script and you fell for it, hook, line and sinker believing in someone else’s false ideology.

Yes, the people must be accountable for their actions but also the wealthy.  Why do they get a free ride when they are the very definition of corruption? Where are the wealthy’s moral foundation? I guess if you look at the profits they keep making and the laws that give them less and less taxes to pay then they have no responsibility to the people of the United States where they made their abhorrent wealth off its citizens.


The manipulation of our psyche, we read the words internalizing their additive nature. Someone speaks the words and it triggers a subconscious reaction, an instinctive need for anger and hate at the subject of the words spoken. 

We have been conditioned in our mind since birth, then grade school, through high school, through college to think a certain way and to react like Pavlov dog to certain words that instill in us hate and fear.

These words are like matches that excite your nervous system and make you automatically project outward an attitude of contempt for people, places and things. 

We fear change in our outer existence and change in our inner world. It is easier to repeat what you have heard than to look deeper into the reason why one assumes a negative stance when certain words are spoken and read.

The world isn’t going mad!  You are being conditioned to react a certain way that has been comfortable for you because you don’t have to think about the alternative. You don’t have to look deeper into your feelings and try and understand why you feel this way toward others. 

You fear that maybe you have been wrong as your intuition is beginning to break through your facade of false truth and it is piecing together how and why you react this way toward anything that is different from your perceived world of conformity.

We all experience those moments of revelation. We can ignore them or we can embrace the truth of our racism. We can choose to break free from the influence of the puppeteers that rule over our consciousness through their racist propaganda.

On social media these charlatans of hate know the words to use that will incite in the viewer of their post an automatic reaction, a response you have given before with likes and dislikes and because of your choices on the social media site you receive more propaganda of hate speech without you even knowing the influence they are having on you behavior and your common sense.

You react to these posts in stereotypical manner, hot under the collar because of the lying words specifically written to incite in you hatred toward another human being without evidence, just lying words written by the perpetuator of falsehoods knowing they will get you aroused, angry at your life being over run by non-americans.  All this in order to have people fight amongst themselves while the true crimes are done in the daylight of laws past that infringe on the rights of everyone. 

Ultimately you are fighting a battle against others that have no intent to fight or harm anyone but just looking for a life for their family where they can be free of violence. 




Thursday, October 24, 2019

October 24, 2019

Oh, the mind bending control social media has over our individuality and our decision making. 

We all know our lives are being overrun by technology. This pervasive assimilation of our likes and dislikes, our buying patterns, our written words, our pictures, our lives are constantly under the scrutiny of social media and the corporate mindset of manipulation to gather information from our posts and then use our personal history, that they gathered from us, and then turn around and bombard us with ads to sell their products to us. But more than that to post lies by the politicians in order to get paid by the hooligans running for public office and to undermine our democracy. God damn the criminals now in power. These worldwide oligarchs have only one goal profits on the backs of human beings. If wars are necessary so be it, they are all in on the manipulation of truth and the total disregard of this world and its inhabitants. Why should they care, they are upper 1% and their values lie in making profits from the little people they exploit.


Picture taking used to be mainly for family albums, relatives, family get togethers, friends, a documentation of their faces, clothes, kids growing up, parties, birthdays, holidays and time spent enjoying each others company. These images are snap shots that become instant hits when you got back together with your family, and friends. 

These images now are no longer private moments but paraded out on social media for thousands, millions of people to look at and make comments on. 

What is it about human nature that demands we use our fixation of being seen on a small screen as some sort of people’s magazine? Where we see ourselves as a star to be noticed, heard, praised and made a fool of by uploading more and more personal information and pictures just for a few more likes.  

We have entered a new realm of reality where nothing is sacred or private and we join the throng of gullible needy humans looking for more in our own lives and we think giving info to multi billionaires is the way to get attention. It is a way of being taken advantage of, period.

What you are from birth to now has been a mirage of psychic turmoil. Social media will not help you. What will help is you backing off the wild ride of see me, hear me, be me mentality and regroup and find your inner self waiting to be discovered?

Is being someone else more important than being yourself. We live in a fairy tale of mis-information, lies and deceit and yet we still give away our personal information as if the ones collecting this info give a damn about you or your problems. All they want to do is sell, sell, sell you something by manipulating your inner personality you have offered them with your tweets. 

Seeking acknowledgement in anyway possible to justify our lives in today’s culture of the obsessive need to be seen and worshipped for being someone else and not our inner truth, we have become beings addicted to this non- stop distraction of meaningless information that is meant to bewilder, puzzle, perplex and twist the truth making us think there might be something there to believe in and to trust.  

We are being manipulated by the info we give these media giants and they use that info to spread lies and anger by tweeting misrepresentations right to your media account. Don’t be fooled this is a planned attack on the psychic of our nation, its people. Exploiting us with words that strike a cord of anger and hate. 

The only thing you need to believe in is yourself and not some outside force that dictates to you how to live your life and spew words of rage. Wake up, you are being molded into a creature without an original thought. A creature filled with constant hatred for anything you deem different from your self.

We know corporate media especially in the United States doesn’t give us any real information on all the catastrophes of war, climate, riots, murders, pollution hunger, migration of peoples, that is happening ever minute of every day. They want us kept in a selfish, needy buy, buy mentality while the rest of the world suffers under oligarchs that now rule this planet. Yes, the US has there oligarchs as well. The wealth that has accumulated in the upper echelon of power here in the US didn’t just happen without the manipulation of our government for the wealthy by the wealthy.  

This constant struggle the people of the US have to deal with everyday is deliberate and necessary for the criminals to maintain their power. Fear has always been used to quiet the crowds that gather to protest the wealthy’s greed and brutality. 

Their unwillingness to come down from their god like power and give back to the people what they have sacrificed their lives for, so their children could live a better life than they did. Is this still possible today? I don’t thing so. 

These men and women of duplicity have had only one mantra, more, more and more money without a blink of an eye as others suffer because of their monstrous addiction to greed.  

We can’t allow this erosion of our humanity, our
inner self, our inner truth knows this is not right, we need to be independent and focused in becoming our own personal truth, our own guide through the havoc of social media’s attempts at masking truth, playing to our emotions, our desire to believe in someone else’s words and not our own research, our own independent perspective. Thus becoming a dupe, ignorant of our nations truth, ignoring your first duty in your aging life and that is to be yourself as a free person, a self aware individual making his way towards his visual artistic goals and trying to raise yourself above this polluted world of hypocrites and con-men that have made it into every corporate board room and into every possible position of power in governments all around this dying planet.

We seem to like being herded cattle, addicted to  media that uses our information to send us ads to buy and buy no matter the consequences just for the excitement of a few likes. 

But one thing is for sure if you allow the distractions from truth, the lies of avarice, and the manipulations of our lives through organized crime then we will be a lost people, nomads in a life trying to survive in this world of greed and rampaging evil. 

For to be an independent individual you don’t need to demean yourself by the mindless chatter that is social media. Why distract yourself from your goals by taking a rutted side road to nowhere!

Inner perception, knowing yourself, is your only means to fulfill your dreams and feel you have accomplished your goals, not through an external force of meaningless jabber bombarding you with voices living in fear, loneliness and aggression, demanding their share of being present in your mind even if it is only a split second of your attention. 

You are worth more than just sitting wasting your time looking at a screen that demands your attention all the time and through this mental manipulation you lose sight of your goals and where you wanted to be in your life, one, two years down the road after graduation. Somehow your life’s journey got side tracked by technologies main purpose, an addictive drug, a duplicity of intent undermining your ability to think for yourself and become your true purpose. 

Belief in there lies undermines our democracy!

Social media lowers our standards of truth and respect for others and through social media we are taken from our inner journey of becoming our unique voice being forced to listen to the frenzy of fake news, fake purpose, fake lives trying to take from you your future!

Social media is an addiction, the willingness to take snap shots of our lives without being focused on our own true personal journey but it seems that that is not enough, we must have recognition by others lies and by a simple click you feel wonderful that someone liked your post, and we are off and running and will do anything to get more likes.

Like yourself first and the rest will occur naturally.



October 24, 2019

Photography is more than point and shoot. Photography is a way of life. I think what happens to most photographers is that they get overwhelmed by the infinite choices one has to make in creating great photographs. 

How do you find your image when you are in over your head with the external world and its physical details, people, landscapes and nature overwhelming your perception?

You already have some ideas that inspired you just by looking at photography books of the great masters and their original works. 

Your inspired vision will take aim and you will find subjects that you can relate to and explore in detail and through that exploration you will create great images. Personal images that only your unique intuition saw, felt and explored.




October 24, 2019

Photography

What a difference a new century makes. Now are lives are broadcast over social media, everything is exposed as if to say look at me, look at me, we are happy fun loving people, are you jealous yet of our ego’s need to project ourselves for strangers eyes to see us not as we are but as we wish to be seen. 

All these pics are snapshots of the run and gun type without depth, character and originality being present. To be involved in a scene, intimately, whether it be a person, a landscape, a street scene or a studio creation you must feel some deeper purpose in your connection to your subject. Without a feeling of inner recognition, a sense that something more is developing in your presence and this something is asking you to translate the scene with your intuitive perception is the only way which you will create a photograph worthy of being seen. Not just a snap shot of people as objects but a deeper understanding of the scene present and a willingness to dive even deeper into the subject with an original composition.

Picture taking now is random, without a set purpose. It has become a means of escape rather than a means of inner acting with the external subject being understood and accepted. It is a means of escaping your daily rituals of life for an adventure without purpose, just snapping away at anything that looks semi-interesting.

These spur of the moment clicks of the shutter and then your done and off to a new subject until you feel used and tired and nothing in the external world catches your eye anymore and you simple fold your conscious awareness away for another rainy day when you feel the urge to snap more pics of anything that doesn’t take to long and interfere with the baseball, football game or dinner!

One click and your done just like picking up pizza cooked and ready to eat. One click and you already have it on your social media site showing the advertisers that troll these sites a product you might be interested in and soon you will receive an ad with coupons for a pizza place in your area. It is ego that demands you upload it to a media site this way, your pic has been published for all eyes to see and make comments on just as if you were a world famous photographer!

Picture taking and viewing pictures is now random perceptions of a surface details without depth and an inner connection felt by you. Our intellect, the conformity of behavior, moves us onward for the hunt of a bigger better pic but in truth you just passed a subject that was calling for you to stop and look with patient eyes. Most of the images snapped to today are reflections in shallow waters.

The ability to take snap shots and have a digital record of your moments have created an addiction, a need to stop interacting with your subjects on a deeper level but now only interact with them in your physical space not with a purpose of a deeper composition you want to make but the new norm, a shallow representation of the scene present. 

You have to focus your intent in your image creations. Do you want an image that expresses your inner truth or an image that is a random snap shot that has no originality and looks like a billion other images without a purpose?

Stop living on the surface of life and begin to dig deeper into your outer reality looking for those instances of unique interaction, a unique impression, those special moments that as a photographer when you become present in your vision with the subject as it presents itself to you, allowing you the time needed for your energy and intuition to ramp up into high gear and you immerse yourself into the scene before you. And it is these special moments of insight when you are in tune with inner self and your surroundings, and your focus is only on the present moment, studying the different angles, testing different compositions looking for that unique perspective that will give you that image worth creating.  

When you immerse yourself deep into your selective vision that eliminates details that will not add to the final image creation you feel a widening awareness and a revelation of a connection with your subject and life.

In this fast paste hustle we lead, we have forgotten how to relax and allow our instinctive perceptions time enough to really see the subject hidden before us. 

We don’t need logic to interfere with our natural vision that is connecting with a unique composition that is present waiting to be discovered. 

With the stress in this world in constant hyper-overdrive we need to let go of the rat race of repetitive actions and delve deeper into our own inner awareness and develop a means of expression that reflects our inner truth. Not someone else’s inner truth but your own!

Why do we act like cattle moving in a herd repeating an action over and over again without originality hoping that what we are doing will eventually pay off in a great photograph? 

It seems that we have lost our barring, our future life has been sidetracked and replaced with a redundancy of boring reproductions of touristy images without it seems any intended purpose. Just a means to document that you were here, there and everywhere.

But you were not present in your moments of visual excitement. You ignored the moment of truth in your composition and then walked away from your image of a life time. Patience is the key to great imagery.

What is more important the image creation or the posting of a snap shot on social media? We have lost our ability to slow down and really look at something that intrigues us, that is demanding us to have a closer scrutiny of the scene. 

In order to create images worthy of your talent you must be present in your visual conception through a studied composition that takes into consideration time of day, color, lens, tripod, perspective, details in, details out… Your subject must feel your presence and give you little hints of appropriate angles to compose from, moving you past the obvious composition to a deeper connection with the scene and its natural appearance.

Photography doesn’t need more shallow pics of look alike redundancy.

Photography’s challenge is to keep it’s head above the overwhelming amount of snap shots happening billions of time a day that is undermining the integrity of photography’s true purpose. A great photograph is a means of expressing your inner vision through the details in our external reality.

By digging deeper into the scene, to find the connection that is at first hidden but through focused attention and experimenting with composition one finds the details that when framed in the view finder reveals the expressive character of the scene with deep meaning for you and the viewers insightful understanding. 

Your vision has been complete when you get back home excited to review your images, knowing that through your patience and sensitivity you have created a great image.



Saturday, October 12, 2019

October 12, 2019


Break free from this structured existence of our demanding intellect, that tries to get us to see through another’s eyes and not our own unique perspective, societies attempt to con us, to keep us herded in fear from our own truths, are own revelations of our perceptive intuition. We must never fear being ourselves. To hide under a facade, is living in fear of becoming our true nature, our true selves. 

We must fight the urge to conform without asking deeper questions. Why are my inner ideas, my inner dreams and insights never realized?  

The simple answer is economics and how our capitalistic world that sells products that narrows ones choices and hinders one abilities to express a new formula of expression, your unique vision of independent thoughts.

We live a copycat existence, our lives being reduced to living in a commercial rather than an independent journey through our own creative talents. 

We are not going to allow companies to exploit us for profit with the newest and greatest products when we have the ability in ourselves to create a new world view, free from the commercial life we now live. Where money speaks and human voices are incarcerated for speaking their minds under this new rule of the oligarchs.

Human beings are not chattel’s, they are not someone else’s inanimate property to be sold and bought like cattle.

We must always battle a society that demands us to follow rather than lead. This compulsion to follow someone else’s will and to conform to that will without seeking your own voice is fear of self revelations! Fear of hearing your own voice standing alone and facing the violent marauders of exploitation that are devastating humanity and Mother Earth. 

Being independent is our true character not a lap dog for the wealthy.  

There is no rational excuse for why politicians that have been voted into office by the people would then turn around and betray their trust by bending over backward to please the 1% so they can retrieve their bribes of silence just like a pet puppy with his bone. If I would attempt to define this behavior of evil I guess I would have to say they sold their souls to greed and avarice. 

These men and women of wealth and deceit with their criminal minds at work, not to make a better world but to make more profits off the hard work of innocent human beings just trying to survive on this planet that is being destroyed by the very ones taking more and more from all of us. 

Fright inhibits oneself from seeing the truth kept silent in your own mind full of cliches that are meaningless.  We must fight for our freedom and the freedom that comes first is our inner being introducing itself to us and us finally feeling the unification of selfhood. We are no longer depended on outside voices with their loud obnoxious words trying to tear down our freedoms through subtle laws and through their hypocritical voices of fear. The only thing we must fear are these voices spilling out putrid thoughts to excite their pawns, their yes men and yes women to strike hate against people only because they are different from us, who is us anyway? We the people, I will say it again we are all unique and we need to demand that all people are treated equally. 

We are all looking to be part of something bigger than ourselves and this is a good thing but we must never lose our unique voice and we mustn’t confuse something bigger than ourselves with any organization or any government that OK’s the perpetuation of violence against any person, place or thing.   

A society that demands our attention through violence and products of gluttony is not a society of truth. We must seek a natural force of immersion in the ourselves first that allows us to meet our interior being for the first time and then through our vision of expression create images that represent our nature and not someone else’s.

We all have a natural need to belong to something bigger than ourselves. And that can be a good thing if and only if all voices are heard and listened to with respect and a willingness to try new ideas for the benefit of all.

We are small creatures with large ego’s. And we exist to conform to the standards of our piers. Each generation starts out thinking they are independent but that is an illusion. We all get assimilated into the larger whole of societies need for control. 

We exist to accept the forces of nature that move us in a direction that our intellects determines will become our new role in the interaction with the herd and our placement in an integral intersection of regrets and backward thinking, placating the minds of those that couldn’t break free from the controlling influence of the herded mentality.

When you are creating images with purpose you are in complete control of your composition. Your perspective is unique and it is demanding a vision that will express your inner world. These created images sometimes are very simple to make. There is flow and movement of your mind that enters the scene and you quickly understand the landscape before you and in that knowing you instinctively move yourself to a point of interest that expresses the scene through your unique vision.  

Other times you come to a scene and you must stop and reflect with your inner intuition, knowing that something is present, that is visually silent but it is demanding you to work at your composition, seek your interpretation of the natural forces present but not yet visually found. 

To find a path that brings you to a place that first enhances your initial visual thought and unfolds the nature of the scene so you can enter it with a knowledge of your unique inner voice that is giving you a revelation of a landscape you could have missed if you were in a state of anxious departure.  

We all want to find the perfect expression of the scene before us. What has drawn us to this place in this moment under these lighting conditions? We could accept our initial perception, shoot the image and then move on to the next best thing or we can stand in the presence of nature’s beauty relaxed and breathing in the atmosphere of the landscape and creating a bond with the scene on a deeper level and just waiting and enjoying these moments of being present as the light explodes in a brilliance of possibilities.  

By having the patience to wait and not start blitzing the scene with frame after frame hoping for a lucky composition and exposure you will be immersed 
in the thick of a visual narrative, each one having the possibility to express your inner intuitive force, to feel
the subject beginning to be visualized as you contemplate the scene by going deeper into your inner self awareness, a communion of physical nature and your inner visual senses on high emotions of faith in your being present and the image becoming expressed from this intimate bonding you are experiencing. 

Freedom of choice is the mantra of an independent self becoming a perceptive visionary of their inner world becoming externalized. Your visual development your freedom, is to express your inner world through external details, your intellect will want to categorize and label your approach as a structured repetition of other’s thoughts and composition. That is not what a true artist does. A true artist expresses his inner world with his own truthful interpretation through the workings of his inner life. We may not fully grasp his intent but his unique perceptions are worth the trouble of studying. His unique vision expressed through image creation is a personal revelation of his uniqueness.  

We can’t express our true selves without looking deeper into the structured environment we are born into. The controlling forces of this world are moneyed interests that do not look for revelations of the spirit but a conformity of the spirit to work and slave for the few that keep a tight lid on the extravagant lifestyle that consumes them.  

Don’t narrow your visual experience to a set of images already known, explore and experiment with your perceptive nature and create a unique vision that only you can express.


October 12, 2019

The big question concerning your inner vision seen through a mechanical device is whether or not you were truly present in the image creation or just skimming the surface of your exterior reality without thoughts of a meaningful dialogue between you and the subject that presented itself. This dialogue is your inner intuition realizing the potential that is there in the scene and your willingness to search the scene for the elements that will bring forth your internal vision.

One can be casual when taking pictures and sometimes those images turn out to be quite good and this gives one hope that with a deeper sense of your relationship with the outer world can be bridged with a focused intuition that can peel back the barriers present in the scene and allow you a moment of exposure that can capture the relationship you allowed to blossom with the subject that also chose you.

The camera allows you a distraction, a buffer between you and your subject and this can lead to frustration, boredom and an abandonment of the original scene for a more easy, more pleasing duplicate, an easier snap shot many photographers have chosen standing right where you are at now.

Why didn't you stop your mind from over thinking the scene and start using your inner gift, your intuition that will keep you in the present moment as you search for that connection, that relationship that is there but yet undiscovered. Not every image taken can be a winner.  We all go through periods of frustration when the weather, the light, the crowds can all interfere with our connection to the landscape present.  But we must persevere and take notes of the scene that beat us in the first round in order to make us re-group and come back to the scene with greater determination and openness to make a connection that will lead to a photograph you can be thankful of.

We enter into the external world overwhelmed by its beauty and ugliness. We enter this world with the intention to control nature for our own purpose. We enter this world intent on destroying this beauty to reflect our own inner darkness.

Our inability to co-exist with our natural landscape is man’s instinctive nature to transform the external world, the nature of beauty, to fit his terrifying fear of being present in a physical space he has no control of.

If we are to begin to change our own perception of this external world we must let go of our selfish ego and our selfish need to control something we can never control. Our existence in todays world is ego and power. The result of this illusion, that we are the gods of industry, is that the pollution causing climate change will set in motion billions of people forced into migration to find a plot of land that might save them from starvation and dying of thirst.

As a photographer it is your responsibility to walk lightly through nature connecting with your inner purpose to create a frame of nature that you truly physically and mentally connected with, an expression of your inner vision that was present for you through nature's gift.