Fractured

Fractured is a theme I can relate to, having experienced much personal trauma and fissure in life. That's ok, I believe what my darling daughter Naomi said before she died, "Hardships can make us stronger. Every situation in life has some good in it."

When I learned that an important photography gallery in Santa Fe made a call to submit work with "fracture" as theme, I knew I had enough images of merit to enter. 

The show syllabus is as follows

“Today, our world can seem divided in a multitude of ways. Between debates over the climate emergency, corporations literally breaking our earth with fracking, families split at national borders and our divided political systems, concepts like societal unity and harmony feel like a distant hope. Even on a personal level, humans have the capacity to feel fissured, split, and incomplete in our thoughts and emotions. Shifts in perspective, breaks from tradition, and experiencing loss can all encompass the idea of the fracture. This concept can have both positive and negative connotations. However, acknowledging that something is broken is the first step in working toward healing. How can art be a platform for expressing, and ultimately bridging these personal and social divides? What role does the photographer play in observing, documenting, and healing the fractured landscapes around and within us all? “

I entered five images, gathered from extensive travels and street photography, as well as studio work. Camera photos I take are simply starting places because they go into my “digital studio”. Then I manipulate them to bring out a story poignantly. 

Sometimes I combine images into collages, and transform them with tools available in photoshop. 

I can't show the pictures included in my entry.

The one above is from Andalusia, Spain, in ruins of a home with my friend Pepa dressed in flamenco attire holding flowers.

Looking Into A Face

What is more magical than looking into a face? A sunrise has its charms, as does the flaming spectacle at the end of day. Changing clouds, dark forests, mossy rock and gurgling brook all entice. Microscopic life viewed under microscopes and galaxies seen through telescopes put us in awe. But none of these express as much as a human face.

A face is a poem, a book, a treatise. It speaks every language and conveys in every language. It dances, groans, howls, cries, kisses, laughs . . . it is sympathetic or remote, suspicious or loving.

We can tell the passage of time in a face. Yet eyes do not age . . . they retain their features.

In my photographic pursuits I am attracted to making images that capture faces. Wherever I am in the world I look for the human face to tell its story.

The desert or mountain is splendid, as are the cities and villages, but it is a face that goes with the location that is most expressive.

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.  —William Shakespeare

Kaleidoscope of Sensual Surprises

Life is a kaleidoscope of sensual surprises.  During travel, I leave familiar surroundings to engage in the unknown and see with fresh eyes, hear with new ears, and think new thoughts. All the while being mesmerized and awed by little revelations. Yet even without going anywhere, the kaleidoscope of patterns, sights, sounds, tastes and smells is always turning; a bite of cold wind across the face, coming indoors to fragrant aromas of cooking foods, hearing the song of a strange bird for the first time, a fabulous sunset or sunrise.

A surprise can be simple and appear like a gift from an unseen hand. I have deep windowsills at home. In my bedroom I placed a model of a sailing ship on a window ledge. Recently, before taking a nap after lunch, I pulled the curtains closed. After rising, I went to the curtains and saw the ships shadows cast upon the fabric. It captured my imagination and I went and got my camera. The rippling folds of cloth were like ocean waves that took my vessel into an etheric sea. Why did I notice it? The winter light and angle of the sun made the picture come to life. Also, I was willing to see . . . because if my emotions and thoughts had been obscuring my perceptions, the little shadow theater would have had no attraction. I had seen it before. Now the elements lined up to capture my senses and I was ready.
 

I like happy accidents and am open to experiencing them during my creative process. Recently, during my month sojourn in Venice, Italy, I fell into a hobby of making photographs of people taking “selfies.” World famous Rialto Bridge was just minutes from my flat. Everyday, thousands of selfies are made there. So whenever I was passing over the bridge, 2 or 3 times a day, I would linger to photograph. Once, I spotted two fellows making a portrait, and surreptitiously became involved with my camera. Just as they were composing, I shot my picture from behind, capturing the subject’s face through the triangle of arm, shoulder and head of the picture taker.

Because I am creative, poems arise from what is garbage to others. One day I was walking on the stone sidewalks of Cuenca, Ecuador. I often look down at the patterns and crevices of the walkways as I sojourn. Something stopped me. A picture had fallen face up onto the grimy patterned  stonework. It was a family portrait of a boy. I noticed how the smiling, lovely face was vulnerable on the dirty sidewalk where it would be stepped on. Why did the scene attract me to take a photograph? Most people would ignore it. I found the incongruity evoked pathos in me. I reflected upon what happens to people in life. The purity of their beginnings fall to earth. At early stages innocence suffers degradation, injury, abandonment, death. Yet the smile and light is in the picture.