August 1, 2019

How does one keep up the pace creating imagery as you get closer to the end of your visual sensitivity?  

Will your closing moments become your last unique focused attempt to create an image worthy of your visual talent? 

Or will your ending be one of what if's and excuses for not allowing your intuitive self to guide you through your photographic compositions when you were younger, allowing you the freedom to practice your inner vision by an external realization, rearranging the scene to fit your visual intuition with a subject accepting of your presence.

This constant battle with inhibition, the relunctance to step out of ourselves and begin living a full life, bursting with ideas and subjects that are calling to us to open ourselves to them and join them with our inner compositions which enhance our ability to see details, others can't see, through our focused, heightened awareness of our inner connection with outer details that gives a special unique touch to the composition. And that is the basis for creating a great image that give and take between subject and photographer. 

You must lose your fear of our images being shown to the outside world. The more we inhibit our lives, the less we will accomplish. Live in your beautiful awareness, bursting outward with your inner talent. You can always find negativity surrounding you and your artistic talents. Perseverance to continue your inner quest for artistic expression, giving you strength in your abilities to fight for your individuality.

Fears enhance our feelings of inadequacy, allowing the intellect to restrict our mental outlook, which then tries to dictate to you, your visual future and your place in this framework of a structured reality. This concrete reality insists on the conformity of your mind and body to follow the orders of someone or something (social media) you think is superior to you when in fact we are all equal and live under the same sun until we get conditioned to ignore our inner feeling and our fresh perspectives, whereby we retreat to the herd instincts of society, by keeping our head down and with fear in our hearts we do what they tell us to do. What kind of existence is this?  

We need to become free of our mental chains and we must express our inner passions, our photographic perceptions openly with confidence in order to feel alive and part of something bigger than just us. 

We see through our photography the beauty in nature and the wonderful atmosphere of creating a meaningful, unique image.

Physical space is overwhelming our senses. It hampers our ability to be ourselves in a world of look alike minds of conformity and the inability to think for themselves, which creates a dependency on another that could determine who you don't want to become. 

Each day that passes moves us further away from your intuitive self. Changes do not happen overnight it will be a struggle to explore your inner world and bring those insights into the

external expressions in your life.

We all must realize that we are being monitored on social media by trolls working for advertisers and they are not really interested in what you post because that isn't where their money making interest lie, you are being monitored for what you click on and what interests you appear to have. Nothing you do and say on social media goes unnoticed and eventually it will get partnered with an advertiser that will begin posting ads on your sight to get you to buy their product. 

Social media monitors your clicks and through this spies on your so called personal life, now exposed to the world, and is able to generalize your personality traits and find products that might tempt you to purchase. If you want to know the truth, none of these sites care that much about your personal life or your artistic skills. All they want to do is sell you something!   

Everything on social media is money driven. Everything on social media is a distraction from living your life as an individual. The herd moves to the corral to be texted, by the new and greatest products that you don't need! 

You need to be living your life through your own insights not by the constant bombardment of ads demanding you shop until your broke. What kind of a life are we trying to live? In truth we aren't living unless we are free to be our unique selves by creating our inner perceptions and then externalizing them through our art. The feeling of being connected to something bigger than ourselves, which will take a lifetime to understand, is what living for your unique perspective is all about.

Look deeper into your conscious mine and begin to sort out what influenced you to be on the path you now walk. If you are not sure just begin the process of looking at the world differently. Put alittle joy in your presence here on earth and enjoy your future journeys without overthinking every little step.  

We know that to stick to one path all your life is foolish. There will be many side paths that will excite and demand your full artistic skills but that is what living freely is all about. Multiple opportunities and your ability to adapt to new circumstances will challenge you to become more than who you once were. Be proud of your accomplishments.

Find that spark of imagination and the will power that can focus your attention on your individual feelings and your unique inner visual expressions.

You need to pursue with concentration and stamina your visual individuality and unique perspective as you begin to develop your own unique style in your image creation.

Coalescence, uniting mind and physical space, this interaction through inner perception understood as an intuitive insight whereby the mind and body unite in seeing the landscape present before you as an expression of your inner feeling in that moment, which intensifies the need for the unique composition that you are moving toward.

In today's hyper escalation of image taking we are bombarded with the bad and the ugly on a constant basis. If you look at imagery enough you could become jaded because you think everything has already been captured, so why should I try and create my own images, won't that just be adding to the trillions of images already circulating that have a clone like look to them? 

But you are not a run and gun snap shooter! You have an intense need, an intense vision that needs to be expressed. You are an individual that doesn't feel the need to take pics of his or her life exposing the minutia of details without purpose. Your image creation is focused through understanding your unique perspective and these images give the viewer a visual revelation taking place.

   

This is why you need to get started now with developing your own original, personal vision. And that is the main point to remember, you have the talent waiting to be explored and your photographic eye is beginning to see an innovative, self realized composition in the scene and you will be able to use your imagination more frequently to go beyond the stereotypes of commonality that is portrayed over and over in this world of selfies, without depth of character, to making an image interesting enough to be studied. 

Open up your mind to the infinite possibilities surrounding you as you begin your journey creating personal images with unique characteristics that only you can express. And don't forget to have fun creating your individual expressions.

  

  

  

July 3, 2019 

Picture taking feeds the ego and any image no matter the content brings to the image taker a since of power over the external world. We are trapped physically in this reality but a photograph takes from the scene a conduit to self praise and awareness.  A photograph conquers the infinite details overwhelming the person behind the camera, by reducing your visual sense to a fragment of the scene that caught your eye and the hunt is on for you to capture it not with your own intuitive abilities but with the ability to reproduce a duplicate of the scene that caught your eye through the technology of the camera. 

This gives one a sense of power and control over his selective nature and allows him an excuse, by over studying a scene he could become intimidated, this would tie up to much time to untangle his desire for an image that actually reflected his inner being. 

But because the majority of people take pictures as a means of enhancing memories they are not immersing themselves in the scene looking for that detail, that composition that reflects their inner artistic vision. 

What is it that demands we take pictures of our lives, is it a means to document ourselves, our family, our friends, our lifestyle, our reflections, our ego and its since of demanding exterior attention, we are full of self importance, by manipulations of our outer facade that we become addicted to promote, by taking pictures of everything we do, no matter how trivial, just to showboat and promote ourselves on social media. 

If you really new yourself and the gifts present in your private world you wouldn't need to exploit your physical body to the greedy eyes of the masses.

This addiction of becoming anything and everything is undermining your ability to think for yourself, to be present in your mind and not a fashion show that ends abruptly with the next best and greatest ever promotions of a new fad.

Where is your uniqueness if you are creating a facade, a personality that isn't you? This persona is an imitation, an excuse, a deflection because of self doubt, not trusting your inner being. You are afraid to be just you, so you try and create movement away from your fears of self discovery and swim in shallow water's surface glitter. 

When you go out in public are you present in your moments.  Are you aware of yourself and not the movement of time, as you begin to construct an inner perception that is worth exploring. You are not in the external world to entertain your ego with flighty poses and smiling teeth. You are there to create an image from your inner being that will be a revelation to you once you have studied the scene beginning to unfold through your concentrated effort and unique perspective.  

You are not there to get your picture taken. You are there to express an intuition through a visual artistic skill that is unique only to you.

You were there but were you present in your inner unique perspective? Or did you lose interest in the external world's possibilities because the intellect that has trained us to be aware of the importance of time and to be aware of our duties to conform to the world's repetitive moments of our herded instincts made you feel overwhelmed and self conscious with the worlds external facades, so you packed up your inner talent and followed the cattle with their heads down marching in step into societies corral.

Don't allow fear of self revelations in the public arena stop you from being yourself, expressing your inner talents.

You must open yourself up visually, listening to your inner instincts, that is drawing you toward your subject.  You must be patient and observant taking in every detail that intrigues you and stimulates your intuitive force to pursue the image just beginning to form in your mind.

I sometimes feel like a trained animal going to all the same city views that I have photographed for decades.

I still have to demand my intuitive force to direct me to new subjects and new perspectives of the same old themes.  

We have been trained to ignore the infinite possibilities present for image creation and focus only on the mundane, the ordinary. This physical space that we move through doesn't care about your art, or your unique perspective.  

You need to have your awareness heightened and your vision looking past the facades of our external structured existence by seeing deeper into the subject that is present and allow your visual interaction with the scene begin to reveal a connecting force between you and details that are beginning to form in your mind's image.

The call to the narrow myth of conformity is created by the powers that control our lives. They want a uniformed approach to controlling the public view and a person's inner talents. 

We seek to become the stereotypical reflection in the cameras eye rather than becoming our inner truth through a unique inner vision of the reality we think is always stable. It is anything but stable and is always changing and creates in the photographer a vital significance that needs exploring without prejudices, for if we want to create great images we must be open in our minds eye and in our hearts emotional source, to seek all the subjects that instill in us a universal acceptance of human beings and nature.

A photograph is a message to ourselves that we were present in the photograph even though we weren't seen.  But our presence is insinuated by the image that we created.  We can describe the image through the lens that framed the picture. Proof is our recollection of the events that led up to scene being captured.  

Can we really state we were there just by a picture that doesn't expose your presence? Photography is more than just being present behind the viewer. Photography is interacting with your subject, it is immersing yourself in the scene looking for artifacts in this physical space that you are connecting with, that will bond your instinctive understanding of the scene with the subject and the creation of an image that is a reflection of your inner being. 

A good photograph has a deep connection with the subject presented and with the internal eye looking through the view finder. We must be present in the scene through our ability to identify with the contours and imaginative visual elements that will eventually make up the foundation for an image we will make.

Your inner world presented through external expression.

                       

June 17, 2019

Photographs created with purpose becoming your truth, your visual relation with the outside world, our external playground where one finds a growing distance between himself and the subject, something breaking apart the intuitive vision and demanding one bend a knee to a reality someone else formed but not yours to know with certainty, the props already present at birth and corridors of the mind blocked from entering doors of your future reality.

Changing surfaces, a transition of light within boundaries. A natural flow of your imagination. 

With a true understanding of your personal, revealing vision you begin to understand not the external world but your own relationship with it. 

How does one translate light into an image? Does one seek the mood of the subject before the image is created? Will, willing something to happen begin ones journey of your independent visual journey? 

Who decides the right moment to interrelate with the subject you have chosen? Do you care, is your inner sight focused enough to look deeper into the details that begin to form a possible image, trying to understand or know on a more personal, a deeper level the scene before you?   

We seek the surface reflections that don’t cost us any time, that limits our addiction to self gratification and this brings to your soul a nagging suspicion that you are missing an important truth by pushing forward without a direction, addicted to the pleasures of being someone else rather than our true nature.

We think human beings are above the natural law.  We are superior to all creatures big and small and we control nature to bend to our egos and our lust for extravagant material gains, we think owning things brings us closer to the godlike idols, spoken of in myths and stories of great deeds done for humankind that gave one a feeling of absolute control over the earth and its people. 

We all know this is just a mental illusion of people scared of their environment and in order to relate and adapt to the impossible world present before them, created myths to counteract their terror of death.

We have no control over ourselves or mother nature. We limit our actions by controlling our emotions. We have learned through generation of redundant behavioral patterns which one works best and which ones work even better. To break the behavioral foundation of repetitive, dutiful actions we seek wealth to break free from our caste system. For as you move higher on the ladder of greed you find that your behavior becomes less about control but more about pleasure and gluttony. 

One thing is missing from this egocentric need to be more than anyone else and that is love of self and the ability to seek within yourself your visual connection with the outside world and in this connection you will be able to create your artistic expression. Being a human doesn’t mean avarice, being human is being present in your moments, taking a ride with those moments and express your image creation through your inner perspective, your unique vision that is yours only.

Your inner vision is the path you must follow.  All else is hallow doing someone else’s thoughts. You must be independent and listen to you inner motives before you can compose a scene that is worthy of your intuitive vision.

Changing surfaces, like changing imagery creates a desire to move beyond you're limiting age and societal control. Life is constantly evolving and changing but is it really changing or is that the illusion the wealthy want you to believe. For all the moneyed interests want is a buying public with a new toy to admire and purchase.

Have we really changed that much over the centuries? I don’t think so! We are still dependent on something we perceive outside ourselves something we have been conditioned to believe is higher than us on the evolutionary scale of deceit.  An outer force that demands we worship it. Call it a god or call it capitalism it means the same thing. You pay to go  church and you pay to live in a controlled conformity entangled in dull status quo like herded cattle being corralled waiting for the prepackaged emotions and thoughts being instilled in you making you conforming to the menial job of hiding behind a facade of someone else created. Your inner mind is your visual journey you must travel alone. 

There is no solid representation of our reality to make. It is in constant flux, changing not for our good but for the powers that be. In order to break free of redundant illusions you respect and acknowledge you must become an independent self capable of creating your own perceptions and your inner art externalized through image creation.

In knowing yourself as a separate being from the masses is your first step toward your inner freedom and external control.  Through image creation you express through your visual senses a concept, a word, a presence visually seen through your independent perspective, your inner self reflected in the chosen landscape. You are no longer isolated from your freedom of choice but you are becoming this freedom to choose a subject that is calling to you whereby in the past you ignored the calling, out of fear and conditioning to be obedient servants of the ones in power.  

The mindful representations of your inner perceptions, your inner world anticipates the calling of your truth that is present all around you in nature if you are strong enough to focus your intuitive insight into the external realm of falsity, seeking your own true unique vision.

You uniquely see how controlled you were previously, your vision succumbed to the prevailing redundant stereotypes until you began to express an independent voice and a sharp visual sense of your newly acquired inner freedom to choose your own subjects.  Not only choose your subjects but to relate to them, empathize with them gaining a deeper understanding of the lost years you spent in a narrow vision of this preposterous reality that we call real.

The herd will roam together for their narrow truths, lies ingrained in them from birth but until they break free from the crowded holding pen there is no hope for independence but rather a redundant vision that is sold to them repeatedly, shamefully, in order to control their inner spirit, caged and afraid to break away from the manipulative forces of pervasive ideas that don't free someone but instills in a person fear of change. For change is a natural propensity to evolve and develop new perceptions without the herd, just being yourself with a visionary plan. 

Images of lasting value must be made by your full participation in the act of creating them. This process of visual understanding doesn’t happen overnight but evolves through related visual emotions until you have found yourself being present in your moments and seeing for the first time the external worlds beauty and immaculate grace. And once a visual sense is understood than you will be on an evolutionary trajectory to become your inner voice through image creation.

An example of surface pictures is of course the Family Album. These albums are filled with snap shots that do not dig deeper under the surface of family relationships but only gives the viewer a shallow representation of the families relatives, not allowing them to be themselves but must be posed in order to depict the family in such away that a viewer will come away from the image not knowing anything about the personalities photographed.

This family album syndrome is alive and well in today’s fast paste lifestyles where no one it seems has time to slow time down and focus their visual intentions on the scene but instead looks for a surface facade that gives a minor feeling of what the image creator's intent was.

In order to touch someone visually you must go beneath the fabric of appearances and dive deeper into the undercurrents of the scene that are present, if you have the courage to create your visual study.

To have depth in your image creation you must have that deeper understanding of light and subject, which creates its own relationship as an exterior potentiality and all you need is patience, be visually alive in your moments, understanding that the real momentum is about to happen in your caring connection with the developing scene through your intuitive insight.

Expressing your inner sight through image creation gives one an understanding of the connection between the inner world and the outer world. Each subject has a potential to be a great image revealing your inner being but you must be diligent in finding the correct subject to photograph.  I have always made images of subjects that caught my eye and I have forced myself to look deeper into some subjects that didn't until the image was present in me. 

As always we must be on guard not to shoot randomly, hoping one of the image you took represents the subject in its originality.

  

Even though luck sometimes plays a role in image creation it rarely can take the place of a concentrated visual effort to look deeper into the landscape and through intuitive intensity begin to separate the formal structure of the scene from the main subject you are beginning to discover.

The goal of all great photographs is to find the image present in your reflection, present in the scene, your truth of vision mastered in a personal image revealed.

June 5, 2019

Control

What is the future plan for stock imagery?  What will the future look like for the photographers trying to make a good living creating images for the stock mega companies?

The photographer is a relic of the past. His importance has been wiped clean with the new age of see something, anything and click without a personal vision in the new era of everything needs to be photographed because everything in the modern age has an importance, a newness to the eyes of the young photographers doing their best to copy each other without a unique vision for themselves.

The new photographic vision is contained.  For who wants to think and perceive an image when in this fast paced life we live, who has the time to think, compose and reflect before entering the stage of making an image, a powerful external vision of your thoughts at the moment of exposure.

The run and gun model of image taking and then moving on as quickly as you can without understanding your present moments undermines the connectivity to the elements that are being seen and diminishes your ability to create a unique expression.

Without reaching a connection with the scene exposes the inherent detachment of the new generation of photographers with their external vision on high alert and denying their unique perspective their intuitive vision. 

If you missed the exceptional image tough cookies the next quickly composed image will be worth it. This rushing around with our sight blinded by misconceptions of visual selection imposes on the shooter a time limit on how he will approach the subject and in thinking about how to approach the subject the person gets bored and assumes that nothing is worthy of his presence here in this landscape and waiting is not an option and it is not what a photographer does, for he is a new breed of photographer attacking his subject, creating a scene without content. 

His method of seeing, being anonymous to himself and the scene in front of him climaxes the existential experience of seeing the world as a physical presence only and not a means of your personal expression. 

Surface reflections will do just fine for he doesn't even identify with the subject present and why should he spend time looking for a subject within the subject when he can grasp the entire field with one click of the shutter and then move on to the next straggling moments without understanding his infinite physical world and the means to overcome the external props that distract and ultimately through perseverance find in the reality you live in an image with purpose that expresses something that you find meaningful through your inner senses.

Instead of a connection of just a cold surface taken with narrow eyes unwilling to explore the external world through your inner visual intuition.

Snap shots have the ability to present themselves as authentic when in fact the photographer never even reflected on his subject but instead used a mechanical devise to exploit the burgeoning scene before him by creating a shallow performance of himself dulled by thoughts without focus in the scene that had potential if studied in depth by the photographer instead the photographer decided to take a few images casual anyhow and his only motivation was to hurry up and get them posted on social media. 

We are not living our lives we are running through our lives without grasping the corner stone of living in our unique present moments in the now of life. 

Image creation is a personal expression of your inner intuitive consciousness and when respecting your inner vision you want to be present in the scene, connecting with the changing light and interpreting the scene and it's details to become more than just a picture, it becomes your individual expression of this present moment.

What a gift photography can be to you as a means to express yourself without having to follow anothers vision but your own.

 

If you are at first not feeling a connection with a scene, why stop exploring it, look deeper into yourself, and find what is visually attracting your attention.  Look for new compositions that create a unique perspective, that might have the potential you were seeking to express. Don't leave a scene until you have at least explored its potential and captured some of what made you stop and look in the first place.

Stop ignoring your presence in the world. Stop just living without a purpose, just living as you passerby those unique moments of revelation.

The explosiveness of the snapshot, the ability to take images of anything has undermined and created a vast wasteland of surface perceptions that deceive the populace into thinking they are creating art when in fact they are creating a reflection of their shallow connection of exploitation. For without understanding the external world and its illusive character we are imprisoned into believing that this world is a unique expression of everybody when in fact it is the expression determined by a few to control the populace into believing they are free and are perceiving the world in their truth.  When in  fact they are experiencing an others world and their own inner uniqueness is imprisoned in someone eleses con-game.

There is too much activity for the mind to focus on and that is the intended purpose of social media.  We are being taken from our internal lives and being forced to play in the fast paste deception of a reality controlled by corporate media as a means to pull a bait and switch scam on people by keeping them distracted by an overwhelming amount of details that aren't worth anything but a means of misdirecting people from their truth and the truth of their exploitation by the hands of the accumulated wealth of a few, distracting people from the con game they are pulling each hour of each day.

The image world, a monopoly game controlled by the hands of a few major business, controlling the pricing of our image creation to suit their profit margins for their investors. We are the low man on the totem pole and will never be able to explore our abilities to create great images under the pressure of lessened value and without a means to make a living at what we must do in order to feel complete and that is create images from our inner being and express these images in an openness to willingly share our inner world with others.

The photo industry has lost its integrity and purpose.  The explosive accumulations of image creation has exploded and been detrimental for photographers thinking they can make a good living out of shooting stock photography.

The con-game guarantees that you will see a diminishing return from your unique efforts not just your image creation but also your written words. I remember decades ago when the photo agencies started to dabble in Royalty Free and tried to sell it to their photographers on its potential as a great way to sell their hard earned work. The truth is that RF is cheap and it destroys income for the full time photographers and the winners of this rat race are the buyers and the photo agencies that can automate their buying systems and cut more jobs and leave the photographers with pennies on the dollar!

The photo agencies I worked for in the 80's and into the 1990's had their priorities correct, protect their photographers making sure they were paid fairly for the effort they had to go through in order create a beautiful expression of their inner landscape.

May 15, 2019

In image creation there is a mysterious force brewing as one finds that documenting his/her life and where they have travelled is more important than just experiencing those moments by just being present in the scene. The camera between you and your subject is a great hindrance in creating great images. Your obsession with taking pictures of everything before you, without a since of your latent visual organizing power, creates a haphazard journey of images without a theme, images without character, images taken as random footprints of where you were but never showing what you really saw of importance to your inner self, that can move you and excite you to create an image by using your unique perspective.

What most people seem to believe is that taking photos is being present in their moments, but it really distances them, with a camera in front of their face, creating a barrier to the experience present in that moment, ignored by an addiction to present oneself in snap shots on social media rather than becoming immersed in the scene with your visual unique sensitivity.

One image created with intuitive force and with feeling can express everything you felt deeply and experienced in that one frame, one timeless exposure that you became intimately connected with.  And there was nothing else you needed except your visual awareness of what the scene was revealing to your inner presence.

In creating images you must be present in your unique moments, allowing time to experience and appreciate the scene that is beginning to develop, as you connect on an intuitive level with the physical space before you. If you don't have a concentrated focus to be present in the developing scene why are you there in the first place. 

To allow yourself the confusion of continuous distractions brings your level of creativity to a complete halt. We are so caught up in social media it is becoming a true detriment to a healthy perceptive mind, an individual seeing. If we believe that the external world is set in a rigid normality, a universal perception of conformity, and this is all we have to look forward to in this endless distracting minutia of inconsequential personalities and backyard images of food, then we are doomed to live lives of mediocrity and we will never reach our own unique individual point of view, with our own defiance of the standard composition, of a controlled life, a life whose present and future is determined by someone else, whose future is anger and frustration at what we should have become, our own unique point of view. To become you, you first must know yourself.

We take in each second of the day, an easily digestive series of images and surface words that never give us a deeper understanding of the lives we are forced to become. 

 

Why are we so blatantly opposite of our own personalities. Our own inner core of purpose and observation of these shallow moments that are constantly bombarding our visual senses. 

This redundant, repetitive sleep walking in our physical presence is a learned conditioning we received through our early years and made us afraid to think for ourselves. To have faith in our own unique perceptions.

If we open ourselves, our minds to this world, the only world we will ever know, you can begin to immerse yourself in the nature of being present and aware of the infinite choices you have in creating an image from your inner unique perspective. You must look deeply into the black void of your mindful necessity of adaption and begin to free your genuine universal presence, an independent thought. That can reach deep into the depths of your uniqueness that has been chained to a known formula of obedient actions instilled in you, the fear of choice. 

One must perceive himself in his own unique actions. If he doesn't see and feel his own complexity of information then he is unaware of societies deliberate means to control all behavior.  This fast paste life we live is a construct of known origin. It is the business mind, the hypocrisy of social justice, making you feel that you are behind and you must work faster and harder in order to reap the benefits of your actions. All along your actions are limited and determined by the industrial pollution of this planet for profit. 

The exhaustion we feel at the end of our work day, slaving to make enough to feed our children and maybe just, maybe a little more to celebrate a dinner out.

Think about your choices that lead you to this present moment. Did you seek this path with excitement and vigor, soaking in all the books and all the seminars that you could attend in order to gain a better perspective on the decisions you will have to make. Or did you accept your future, allowing others to dictate to you who you would become. 

 

Were you defeated in your quest for individuality by fearing your responsibility to become more than just words repeated by parents and friends, a surface reflection of your repetitive inability to challenge the status quo, your journey to hide from your uniqueness and follow anothers rules without questioning their validity. Allowing someone elses perspective to become  your truth and you assumed your defeated acceptance of a road you thought was unique, that you would never have taken if you were aware of your unique inner being.

Your insightfulness into your own inner explorations becoming aware through intuitive discoveries of an external facade that is illusive and domineering is the beginning journey you will have to make as you delve deeper into the earthly formations, the facades of untruth, that will guide you to your inner revelations present only to those that can see beyond the structured deceptive limiting manipulations.

When you are creating images 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 and quickly understand the landscape before you and moves you to a point of interest that summarizes the scene in your unique perspective. Other times you come to a scene and you must stop and reflect deeply with your inner intuition 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 knowing of your unique intuitive voice 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 could stand in the presence of nature’s beauty and relax and breath in the atmosphere of the landscape and bond with the scene on a deeper level.  

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 your subject, a communion of body and soul and the image expressed from this intimate bonding will be your inner world externalized for all to see.

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 with 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 truthful interpretation 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 their extravagant nature 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.
When creating personal images we need to research where we are going. What is there to stimulate us into creating our unique vision.  We never want to copy the image brochure that can guide us to reinvent the images shown through your own creative nature.

May 6, 2019

The image present in the environment is not real, your interest in this particular field of sensory data is your inner vision eliminating the contraband of the landscape that are not part of your unique perception.  You are becoming selective in your photographic expression, listening to your intuition, seeing deeper into the external reality realizing this outer realm is not your reality for you see through your own inner sight, realizing you are now able to see in a unique visual sensation, by being present in this moment and not taking images because of a memory or a visual copy of something you saw before. Your unique vision is becoming a revelation in the external world of your inner being.

Your visual sensations are only a reflection, these visions have the making of a unique personality but it is a copy of your internal self projected outward that provides the authenticity of your inner expressions.

And even then your transition from your inner perspective to outer form is still not a representation of self but only details arranged that were perceived and made valuable by the composition of the outer reality that surrounds you. No one can really see your inner world without a visual artist projecting herself/himself beyond the tethers of personal confinement. 

You must fight through the conformity of beings herded together, labeled and accepting of their unrelenting conformity to dull ideas and perceptions that claim them and not vise-versa. Their perceptions are dull mimicking of someone elses vision. They are afraid to step beyond their neatly settled intellect that has them on a short rope of confining thoughts and simple repetitions.

To express your inner self takes courage and the ability to see past the nay sayers and to evolve through your inner core feelings and ideas, to experiment with and try all avenues that will lead you closer to your own individual style.

You must shed your ego and its ability to deceive you into believing your talent is rich with individuality when you haven't yet experienced the full impact of intuitive perceptions.

The intellect likes unity in perceptions not a unique view of the world. The intellect likes redundancy and repetition for it hates to have to think for itself and become something more than just a recording but an actual individual self.

Don't be fooled by your first learning impressions, in youth and later in work, of the structured reality we live in today. 

Fear reins supreme in the greed fest we live in today. The insatiable appetite to control the worlds viewpoint by wealth for the wealthy. Our lives not our own. We are told what to feel and what to become. Not our own uniqueness but instead a pawn in someone elses game of take and control.  Confusion is a hallmark of the intellect's manipulation and it affects ones perception of the world and how you perceive yourself in it.

We lie on the surface of our expressions, limiting us to repeat what has already been deemed worthy and has been copied billions of times each day, each second.  Don't believe in yourself but an outside force of corruption and greed.

You must strengthen your inner being to fight the powerful forces of imitation. Seeking your unique perspective takes a deep seeded need to be yourself and a deep faith that what you are creating in your visual art is unique, it is you uniting your inner world with the outer world. And in that unity you will find balance.

For to be your own person you must claim yourself and your own unique artistic expression.

You must fight off the controlling voices trying to over analyze each work of art as if it was on an operating room table being dissected for no other purpose than for the ego of the critics. Ignore those that want everything to conform to a simple equation of follow the leader.

You must work hard to have a unique vision where others appreciate it or not. You create because you have an inner drive to see yourself externalized and not for the purpose of approval. When you make a photograph with substantial uniqueness then you have found a focus that slows down the flow of time and makes you aware of the myriad of possibilities present but you see with determination, of insight and you begin focusing your attention on the details of the scene that represented your internal intuition, that made a connection with your subject, that allowed you to perceive the important details in the scene that expressed your visual purpose.

We seek our reflections in society, the in-crowd, a popularity contest being scene but not represented.  We imitate what we desire, what we think will become our true existence, our true personality, our truth.

The snap shot becoming art. A moment of reflection in a scene we passed without any thought of becoming deeply connected with the external influence of a mobile reality constantly in flux. We don’t see beyond the created structure that determines our factual existence. 

We adapt our senses to conform to the existing formula's of living in someone elses present moments, forced to anticipate our actions in a ritual of repeating motions, feelings and dull inner values and we call this movement in time our reality in a constant quagmire but we try and tame it, control it and thus become a pawn in a bad play with our words dictated to us without the freedom of a unique thought and an original expression of our truthful presence.

We are fearful of our potential. Afraid of what we will create. Our potential never realized because we accepted our physical presence as a means of success. We lost contact with our intuitive-self that demanded a strong voice from our inner being to overcome the demanding voice of the herds mentality. Living in fear of our uniqueness we stumbled and accepted the unimportance of our individual life so we buried our faith in ourselves for the meaningless dribble of medias hideous distractions. 

April 23, 2019

Gordon Parks, “The camera revealed them as they were, human beings imprisoned inside themselves.”

Images have emotions, it is how you create your images that can instill in the viewer a deeper understanding of the world without trying to manipulate them in to buy products he doesn't need or want.

A great photograph lays bare your inner approach to your subject. There are no formula's to copy if you are trying to express your inner vision through creating a photograph of the truth objectified. 

This need to become cattle herded by corporations to believe in their ways and not your own is a demeaning representation of your inner truth. If you act without an inner voice asking why, what is the purpose of your inner gifts? what is the underlying assertion being made for me and not by me? then you are truly under the thumb of mass media and the trolls that live by the code of misrepresentation. The underlying current of social media is profit. Using your information to exploit your posted thoughts for material gain.

To achieve greatness in living a life free from the evil stereotypes that shackle our mind toward hatred you must let go of the fear the pundits words express, deliberately seeking an attempt to stifle your inner intuitive recognition of the perpetual history of lies told endlessly to distract us from the obvious greed these voices share amongst themselves. They seek to complicate the truth and put truth under many hats to confuse the issues that they don't want reconciled.

Our gift to them is our financial collapse. And the incarceration of our freedoms deemed radical when all we are asking for is to be seen and heard. The wealthy demand silence from the masses and we are to be grateful accepting pennies on the dollar as they abuse the power they stole by taking everything they can before our world collapses in wars and climate aggression.

It is their will that creates the perfect intersection of wealth and poverty.  Here at the intersection, the wealthy pass with smiles and promises of a better a future.  All the time knowing that these people waiting to cross the street will never reach the other side.  For as they begin to cross there will always be an obstruction in their way, this obstruction is called stealing their lives away financially and by taking their truth and submerging it in fear and anxiety to work jobs that will kill them before their time.

Photography is no longer an art form.  It has become a commodity. A photograph is now used as a prop to sell products using the words authentic, real and powerful while the ad places in convenient location products that express a manly or womanly lifestyle.

The image seen becomes an awareness of the photographer's role in its creation. His assignment was dictated to him for a specific ad and his intellect used the words in the rough draft as a golden light to copy as best he could in the field the idea the product represented in a casual, open feeling of liberation. When in truth the image was a culprit in the exploitation of the viewers senses, targeted to directly to him as a response he made on social Media to his friends and family. 

There is no relationship built around dogma and specifics of image creation.  Photography is a freedom to become more than your image creation.  It is a chance to broaden your intuition and your connection to the external world demanding attention, if your eyes and heart are ready to enter your own internal universe.

The photographic image use to reveal the impossible. It was a window into another world of beauty, realness, terror, anger, insight... It revealed a world we didn't know existed and it made us aware of the power of documenting this world with honesty and integrity. 

This documentation whether it was wartime, (how many image do you see today of the wars raging in the middle east), migrant workers, race riots, war protests, pollution, sports, the migration of peoples due to climate change, etc... all this was done by photographers willing to sacrifice themselves to get images to bring light on the subjects people were ignorant of. The camera was the eye into a world it seemed forsaken by god. It was a sacred commitment by the photographer to seek out images that revealed the poverty, racism and despair of the people without a voice. And these men and woman photographers changed our world with their intuitive force of compassion to fight the overwhelming reality of greed that still exists and is exemplified by the beauty of this planet being destroyed by the self indulgent power of the wealthy for profit.

These moments captured for what? Why take an image that you don't feel to the very marrow of your soul? Why look through a viewfinder if all you shoot is a shallow reflection of who you might become?

It seems we treat photography as a copy machine an impersonation of our world that we didn’t create but fear changing our role in it. We feel tied to the complexity of earning a living, doing the opposite of our inner instincts because we are afraid of the forces of greed that has exploded in this new century beyond any sense of honor or caring for the people of this earth.

We now document our lives with images to parade our facade before others. To show others our journey in the self indulgent look at me world of shallow truth and understanding.

Our behavioral vision is one of simplicity of character. Remain in your present state without growing more intimate with your own unique visions of your world. 

Your truth never revealed in your shallow expressions of your own glossy picture perfect existence in a photograph that limits the viewer to a surface reflection of your shallow depth and easily ignored as just another player skating on the surface of intuitive knowing, the deeper existence present but ignored.

Image creation, your vision, should be open and honest, a living presence in your journey through your unique existence and your images expressing a truth that you visualize each time you put your eye to the view finder.

The herd instincts are strong, behavioral forces enticing mankind to conform to the powerful structures that have risen to control ones outer shell and to indoctrinate his intellect into the understanding that the world is controlled by the elite power of money.

Photography today has become a one view perspective on a world that must demand openness. The photographer that begins to build a relationship with the external visual stimulus by looking deeper under the hood by allowing his intuition to direct himself to those moments of pure singularity, a possession of passion that embraces all humanity and nature as one and creates an image expressing his, only his unique perspective without props that undermine the honesty of photography in this media frenzy of material domination.

By changing ourselves we could begin to control the external appearance of this realities solidity and mold it into a form of beauty through our image creations that could empower others to shed their facades of physical prisons and begin to explore their unique insights into their personal inner world.

Listen to your inner voice, your destination is further away than you think and closer too when you find your path of commitment to your photographic vision.  

We all struggled earlier in our careers as we began to explore our own inner voice allowing us time to become our visionary future through the creation of photographic moments that caught the subject and we hoped its essence.  But a photograph is not the essence of the subject but the external representation of a piece of our very essence.

We can’t hide from what we take pictures of. We intellectually know what we like and what we don’t like (in our structured existence). Partly from our parents and partly from our friends as we grew up. We have been led to our likes not by our own discoveries but by an external force of needing to be accepted as a part of a larger whole. We are basically animal instincts and as such we want to be part of something. We want to be herded and liked for our conformity, to the norm, the structure of our external reality never changing. This reality is not a stone tablet but in constant flux and malleability if one looks deep into his own unique inner form. We assume sameness but that is because of fear and loss of our position in the community whether good or bad.

But our herd instincts are strong and we want to follow leaders instead of being one.  

We must begin to tear down the walls we have assimilated, barriers to our inner intuition, as we grew up and begin to see the world through our own unique eyesight.

Images have become ubiquitous, they have lost meaning. We are over saturated with similarities of image taking because the majority of people look for sameness of patterns in their lives. We seek a need to be accepted. To be plain and ordinary without faults just a person living day by day. What ever happened to individuality and desire to be your own being present in your unique moments?

We have been given a toy, a toy that distracts us by conditioning us to participate in ads aimed at soliciting viewers to buy products from companies that know more about you than you know yourself.

Tyranny oppression, cruelty, reign of terror, despot, welcome to the 21st Century of organized global criminality. 

The value of photography is becoming lessened by the proliferation of snap shots and an underlying sense that photographs are nothing more than digital files without any deeper necessity than promoting oneself on social media. Images used to be a means to communicate a message of importance.

We must fight the urge to move on, ignoring our existential physical nature. As herded animals we like to roam and see new things. We are part of something bigger and this something bigger controls our lives. But when does this need to belong infiltrate your consciousness and your intellect measures your worth and assumes that where you belong is not of your making but of earning a wage to become a boredom of false facades. A character acting in someone elses plot and your inner intuition melts into pools of sorrow and regret.

Open you mind to your unique vision. Look deeper into nature and your subjects that draw you to them. Explore beyond your inner fears, reach out into the world and see with open eyes those images demanding to be made. That is, if you can open your mind to new possibilities and see these subjects without conditioned stereotypes interfering with your inner perceptions.