This is one of my current favorite images, because I was recently able to “fix” an unsettling bluriness (that turned out to be chromatic aberration) and maybe, finally, be able to share what I saw when I shot the image. When I made the shot I could acutely feel the Spirit of the place. What do I mean by that? My belief system (via Plato, Socrates, Lao-Tzu,et al) informs me that, first of all, underlying everything, is Spirit (or Soul, or Essence, or Idea, or Tao, or whatever your name for it is). Spirit animates Matter. Our senses don’t pick up on intangible, non-physical Spirit, but our awareness sometimes does. We DO see things manifest into existence through the door that it provides. (We see the evidence of a things’s spirit by the qualities it reveals to us here in the “physical” or “real” world.) So, the trick is to see through the physical trappings–the outer appearance– to the core of the thing….. …..and try to find the angle, or view, or way of seeing that best reveals the essence–the wholeness– of the thing you’re photographing–to show it in it’s “best light”. When I shot this I was experiencing that state of heightened, temporary, fleeting awareness that we sometimes attain when we can feel the depth and breadth of the unseen world that runs around and through us. I can only pray a small part of that awareness conveys to you, the viewer. That’s why, after all,….. that’s why I shoot.
