We've come a long way, baby!
This portrait of Dred Scott, painted by Louis Schultze, was commissioned by "a
group of Negro citizens" and presented to the Missouri Historical Society in 1882.
The Dred Scott Decision
Source: The History Place™. All rights reserved.
“Dred Scott was the name of an African-American slave. He was taken by his master, an officer in the U.S. Army, from the slave state of Missouri to the free state of Illinois and then to the free territory of Wisconsin. He lived on free soil for a long period of time.
“When the Army ordered his master to go back to Missouri, he took Scott with him back to that slave state, where his master died. In 1846, Scott was helped by Abolitionist (anti-slavery) lawyers to sue for his freedom in court, claiming he should be free since he had lived on free soil for a long time. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger B. Taney, was a former slave owner from Maryland.
“In March of 1857, Scott lost the decision as seven out of nine Justices on the Supreme Court declared no slave or descendant of a slave could be a U.S. citizen, or ever had been a U.S. citizen. As a non-citizen, the court stated, Scott had no rights and could not sue in a Federal Court and must remain a slave.
“At that time there were nearly 4 million slaves in America. The court's ruling affected the status of every enslaved and free African-American in the United States. The ruling served to turn back the clock concerning the rights of African-Americans, ignoring the fact that black men in five of the original States had been full voting citizens dating back to the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
“The Supreme Court also ruled that Congress could not stop slavery in the newly emerging territories and declared the Missouri Compromise of 1820 to be unconstitutional. The Missouri Compromise prohibited slavery north of the parallel 36°30´ in the Louisiana Purchase. The Court declared it violated the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution which prohibits Congress from depriving persons of their property without due process of law.
“Anti-slavery leaders in the North cited the controversial Supreme Court decision as evidence that Southerners wanted to extend slavery throughout the nation and ultimately rule the nation itself. Southerners approved the Dred Scott decision believing Congress had no right to prohibit slavery in the territories. Abraham Lincoln reacted with disgust to the ruling and was spurred into political action, publicly speaking out against it.
“Overall, the Dred Scott decision had the effect of widening the political and social gap between North and South and took the nation closer to the brink of Civil War.”
Yes, we've come a long way indeed. Godspeed Barack Obama!
Personal Homage to Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States.
Wait for music to start streaming.
“We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path.”
~ Paulo Coelho
Silent Moments!
When the sea is calm it reflects the sun.
When we become calm, God is reflected in us.
Look at the pictures,
where the light overcomes the darkness
in spite of suffering and death.
Try to surrender to the thought
that there is something bigger than you
that sustains your life.
“Light glorifies everything. It transforms and ennobles the most commonplace and ordinary subjects. The object is nothing; light is everything.”
~ Leonard Misonne
Photography is LIGHT. Photographs are pictures painted by the sun without any instruction in art. The subject matter is so much more important than the photographer. My true program is summed up in one word: LIFE. I expect to photograph anything suggested by that word which appeals to me. Life is a journey, not a destination.
I used to believe that "the big picture" is more important than the details -- until I began looking at the world through a viewfinder. Looking at the world as a collection of small and still fragments is probably not the best way to get a sense of reality, but it does help me connect to things that otherwise would be easy to ignore. I try to rediscover the reality I thought I knew, and look at it from a different angle -- one shot at a time.
Many of my photos could have been taken anywhere in the world in the sense that location plays merely a minor role. I tend to think of them as fragments of the reality I come across, which I then use as raw material for telling a story, communicating a thought, or trying to express a feeling. In that sense, one could say that each and every one of my photos takes things out of context. I believe this to be the very essence of photography.
The process of taking the actual shot with my camera is what gives me the greatest satisfaction and what I enjoy the most. Therefore, all images in my Flickr photostream are strictly SOOC (Straight Out Of Camera). None of them was staged or digitally composed. No post-processing whatsoever -- from conviction.
Photoshop®? Thank you, but NO, thank you! Each image in my photostream is exactly as shot: No cropping, no spotting, no color correction, no burning, no dodging, no wire removal, no exposure correction, no filtering; in other words, nothing other than what came straight out of camera.
Post-processing (Photoshop®, Lightroom®, etc.) is image manipulation and has nothing to do with photography. If one creates an image by means of photoshopping/ post-processing techniques, one is a digital pixel manipulator, a digital artist, but certainly not a photographer. It may look nice, it may sell, but it is NOT photography.
The essence of photography comes down to one word: Vision.
Call it vision, imagination, or seeing; it all comes down to the same one thing: The ability to envision a final result in your mind's eye, and then to make it so with your tools at hand.
It has never been about the gear. It has always been about seeing something, knowing how you want it to look, and making it so. Making it so is the easy part; seeing it in the first place is what makes a photographer. Powers of observation are everything. Snapping a camera is trivial.
Painting and photography are extremely similar by nature. Each renders imagination in tangible form. The difference is that painters can work completely from imagination, while most photographers work from life as a starting point. Both types of visual artists can take a lifetime to master the tools in order to render their imaginations exactly as they intend.
The confusion is that photography is much easier for a layman to use and create what looks like a technically passable, sharp and well-exposed image. Most beginners discover almost instantly: Simply having the best tools and technically sharp images does not get the glorious, passion-inspiring results they intended.
Painters and visual artists in general often pick up any crappy camera and make excellent images fast because they know seeing, visualization, composition and lighting, and immediately apply basic adjustments to change brightness and optimize colors.
Visual artists know they have to drive the camera and make significant changes to basic controls to get their look. Beginning photographers are usually afraid to do anything other than exactly what we thought were the rules. Fact is: There are no rules other than to make our pictures as we want them. I frequently shoot at deliberately "wrong" white balance settings and/or exposure compensations.
Non-artists who want to be photographers in most cases take much longer, if ever, to create decent images because they have been misled into worrying too much about trivial issues like noise and lens sharpness instead of the real issues of light, color, composition and gesture. Want to learn photography? Study the art of painting!
Unskilled attempts at painting and photography are equally nasty; it's just that it is less obvious to laymen what's wrong with a bad photo.
Painters and photographers both work from their imaginations. Painters can be a little freer with their imaginations, but with the wide availability of post-processing software such as Photoshop®, Lightroom®, etc., photographers now also can render directly from their imaginations into tangible form.
Art collectors and photo contest promoters (but not artists!) freak out if they cannot define a work by its medium, but the truth is: Art is the message, not the medium!
It is all about capturing one's emotional response. As long as one does not understand the significant role of emotional response, one is completely missing the whole point of photography. Capturing emotional responses is photography.
Photography has never been about documenting what is before the camera. It has never been about sharpness or color accuracy. It -- just like the art which it is -- has always been about capturing what one is feeling at the time, and making sure that, when another person sees one's work, it arouses similar feelings in the viewer.
It has always been about capturing what it is about a person, place or activity that turns you on.
Primitive man is correct: Photography really does capture the soul of another. The good part is that it does not diminish the soul of the person photographed; photography magnifies it and spreads it.
This is why true photographic artists can use any, even the cheapest, sort of camera, like the Fujifilm QuickSnap Flash 400 Disposable 35mm Camera for $8.99, to make far better images than a gear hog is capable of making with even the most expensive cameras such as the Canon 1Ds Mk III ($6,649.95) or the Nikon D3X ($7,999.95).
Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. The hardest part isn't finding what we need to be, it's being content with who we are. I'm not looking to receive comments for the sake of a hoped "Explore." I prefer genuine feedback and I'd rather people comment on why they enjoy/or why they don't enjoy looking at my pics.
When you visit these Web pages to peruse my photostream, do keep in mind that “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours. Everything exists as a projection from inside the human being. The problem isn't with our external reality, it is with ourselves. To change our reality, we have to change ourselves. The past and the future do not exist. They are abstractions. Only the moment that lies within us exists.
Live in this very moment, my friend.
To all Flickrites and visitors, happy viewing!
P.S.: Ninety percent of photography, and life, is about showing up. It doesn't matter what kind of camera you have if you're not there. That hits home even hard this very day -- a Monday in spring -- as I write this.
I'm in Canyon de Chelly, about to head out for a day of shooting, and Mondays is also known to be the busiest day for people reading on the Internet. Millions of people will be visiting Flickr.com today, but only a few people are away from their computers and out shooting.
Who is going to get better pictures? You, stuck in your office while your expensive gear is sitting at home without you? Or my grandma with a disposable camera out here?
The colors of spring are great, so ditch work and get out here. There was a time when getting fired was the best thing that ever happened to me; try it!
Taking more time off from work and earning thousands of dollars less each year, but getting out and shooting an extra week or two, will get you photos far better than wasting that same few thousand dollars on the camera gear you probably came online for to research.
Besides, the true measure of your wealth is how much you would be worth if you lost all your money and tangible assets yesterday. So, shut off your computer, get in your car, and go shoot today. If the boss notices, invite him/her too. This is ditch-work week!
“If you are out there shooting, things will happen for you. If you're not out there, you'll only hear about it.”
~ Jay Maisel
May the sun
bring you new energy by day.
May the moon
softly restore you by night.
May the rain
wash away your worries.
May the breeze
blow new strength into your being.
May you walk
gently through the world and know
its beauty all the days of your life.
~ Apache Blessing
Reading recommendations:
1. "Galen Rowell's Inner Game of Outdoor Photography" by the outdoor photo-grapher Galen Rowell, which is one of the best photo books I've ever read. Even in the very first page he lays bare why so many photography hobbyists make so few images they really like. After reading the first thirty pages, you will have gotten from this book more than most books ever seem to cover.
The money spent for this hardcover book ought to go miles further than spending thousands and thousands of dollars more for a Nikon D3X than what you'd pay for a D40. As I recall, Rowell shot tons of photos for National Geographic Magazine and usually ran around locally with a plastic Nikon N65, so he could carry less weight and get more places.
2. "Light & Lens: Photography in the Digital Age" by Robert Hirsch, a groundbreaking introduction to the art of photography that clearly and concisely provides the instruction and building blocks necessary to create thought-provoking photographs. It is an adventurous idea book that encourages the reader and would-be photographer to critically explore the wide spectrum of photographic options and make images from an aesthetic point of view.
3. "Tao of Photography: Seeing Beyond Seeking" by Philippe L. Gross and
S. I. Shapiro. This provocative, visually stunning volume draws upon Taoist teachings
to explore the creative and spiritual dimensions of the art of photography. Excerpts from the Taoist classic "Chuang Tzu" and the writings of Western aesthetes are complemented by over 60 photos from the work of such canonical photographers as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Alfred Stieglitz, and Dorothea Lange.
4. "Galen Rowell's Vision: The Art of Adventure Photography" by the outdoor photographer Galen Rowell about his philosophy regarding the art of photography.
It's not the standard 'wait-for-the-right-light' or 'make-sure-you-have-emotion-in-it'
self-help book on photography.
Rowell writes about meeting the Dalai Lama and their conversation about how some people travel to holy locations, such as Mecca, Jerusalem and the like, for spiritual fulfillment, referencing how some people travel to the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevada, etc., to take better photographs, while others excel at creating beautiful images in their neck of the woods.
Some people are so highly developed spiritually that they can gain full enlightenment by staying at home, even if they live in an unholy place. A pilgrimage is not important for them because they are already on the path to spiritual rewards without leaving their normal lives to seek out some sacred place. Pilgrimages are of the greatest benefit to those individuals who find it difficult to gain the proper spiritual outlook in their daily lives at home.
Each and everyone of us has the same opportunity: To use our cameras and take pictures within a short radius from where we live. We don't have to travel to the Alps or the Andes or Barbados to find beauty. There's plenty of beauty around us, but sometimes we're so desensitized by our own surroundings that we forget just how beautiful it is in the personal world that we inhabit in our daily lives.
So, take your camera, go out and start looking for that award-winning picture opportunity in your very own neighborhood! It is there. It is up to you to find it, to see it!
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma -- which means living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. Most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Artistic imagination must remain free. It is by definition free from any fidelity to circumstances, especially to the intoxicating circumstances of history. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
People who have no inner life are slaves to their surroundings. Within yourself, deliverance must be searched for -- because each person makes their own prison. Too many people are living in prisons that they have themselves manufactured.
Start with a style and you are in chains, start with an idea and you are free. A free person is someone who does not fear to go to the end of their thought.
Live in your own temple, my friend.
Freedom to speak -- without competition.
Freedom to listen -- without judgment.
Freedom to be right -- without domination.
Freedom to be wrong -- without accusation.
Freedom to laugh -- without ridicule.
Freedom to cry -- without belittlement.
Freedom to be vulnerable -- without fear of condemnation.
Freedom to worship -- without comparisons.
Freedom to love -- without restraint.
“Let freedom ring. From every mountainside, let freedom ring. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
Thank you for visiting my photostream and come again soon.
Best wishes,
Lucid Images
I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you,
And you must not be abased to the other.
Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,
Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best,
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.
I mind how once we lay, such a transparent summer morning,
How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turned over upon me,
And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart,
And reached till you felt my beard, and reached till you held my feet.
Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and joy and knowledge that pass
all the argument of the earth,
And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,
And I know that the spirit of God is the eldest brother of my own,
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women
my sisters and lovers,
And that a kelson of the creation is love.
~ Walt Whitman
Words and thoughts, spoken/written by others,
to ponder when behind the camera:
“Less is more.”
~ Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
“I shut my eyes in order to see.”
~ Paul Gaugin
“Respect is love in plain clothes.”
~ Frankie Byrne
“Film is cheaper than opportunity.”
~ Steve Silberman
“Imagination is the eye of the soul.”
~ Joseph Joubert
“Not all those who wander are lost.”
~ John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
“The substance of painting is light.”
~ Andre Derain
“Hope never abandons you; you abandon it.”
~ George Weinberg
“Be the change you want to see in the world.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“I have seized the light. I have arrested its flight.”
~ Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre
“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”
~ Confucius
“Leap into the boundless and make it your home.”
~ Chuang Tzu
“A seven-bath developer is no substitute for thought.”
~ Terence Donovan
“The way to love anything is to realize it might be lost.”
~ G. K. Chesterton
“Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today.”
~ James Dean
“The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
“We never reflect on how pleasant it is to ask for nothing.”
~ Seneca
“The heart has reasons that reason does not understand.”
~ Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet
“The artist's vocation is to send light into the human heart.”
~ Robert Schumann
“Let your imagination release your imprisoned possibilities.”
~ Robert H. Schuller
“All of our unhappiness comes from our inability to be alone.”
~ Jean de La Bruyère
“If I knew how to take a good photograph, I'd do it every time.”
~ Robert Doisneau
“The hardest thing in photography is to create a simple image.”
~ Anne Geddes
“As long as you're enthralled by a lifeless form, you're not free.”
~ Bodhidharma
“The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.”
~ Isaac Asimov
“You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving.”
~ Amy Carmichael
“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.”
~ Pablo Picasso
“Hope is not a dream but a way of making dreams become reality.”
~ L. J. Suenens
“Don't fight darkness. Bring the light, and darkness will disappear.”
~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
“The sky is the source of light in Nature and it governs everything.”
~ John Constable
“The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.”
~ Victor Hugo
“Tell me who admires and loves you, and I will tell you who you are.”
~ Charles Augusta Sainte-Beuve
“I find the single most valuable tool in the darkroom is my trash can.”
~ John Sexton
“In nature, light creates the color. In the picture, color creates the light.”
~ Hans Hofmann
“If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn't need to lug around a camera.”
~ Lewis Hine
“Life beats down and crushes the soul; art reminds you that you have one.”
~ Stella Adler
“Begin to see yourself as a soul with a body rather than a body with a soul.”
~ Wayne Dyer
“Thou didst well; for wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man regards it.”
~ William Shakespeare (King Henry IV, Part 1. Act I, scene ii, line 194)
“I want my paintings to have a light of their own, they must glow from inside.”
~ Douglas Portway
“The greatest treasures are those invisible to the eye but found by the heart.”
~ Anonymous
“Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I'm going to take tomorrow.”
~ Imogen Cunningham
“The reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls are connected.”
~ Nicholas Sparks
“There is a vast difference between taking a picture and making a photograph.”
~ Robert Heinecken
“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”
~ Dorothea Lange
“Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds.”
~ Bob Marley
“It is with true love as it is with ghosts; everyone talks about it, but few have seen it.”
~ François de La Rochefoucauld
“The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”
~ Marcel Proust
“There are two kinds of light -- the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.”
~ James Thurber
“In the depths of winter I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
~ Albert Camus
“There are two ways of spreading light: To be the candle, or the mirror that reflects it.”
~ Edith Wharton
“In my view, you cannot claim to have seen something until you have photographed it.”
~ Emile Zola
“Thirty-six satisfactory exposures on a roll means a photographer is not trying anything new.”
~ Freeman Patterson
“Trust that little voice in your head that says 'Wouldn't it be interesting if . . .’ And then do it.”
~ Duane Michals
“There are two lasting bequests we can give our children: One is roots, the other is wings.”
~ Hodding Carter
“Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.”
~ William Ellery Channing
“Don't just use light to illuminate . . . think about what light means in the context of the painting.”
~ Martha Mayer Erlebacher
“If you wait to do everything until you're sure it's right, you'll probably never do much of anything.”
~ Win Borden
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The truth is that life is delicious, horrible, charming, frightful, sweet, bitter, and that is everything.”
~ Anatole France
“Paint your picture by means of the lights. Lights define texture and color -- shadows define form.”
~ Howard Pyle
“Do not fear death, but rather the unlived life. You don't have to live forever. You just have to live.”
~ Natalie Babbit
“The mind has exactly the same power as the hands; not merely to grasp the world, but to change it.”
~ Colin Wilson
“Photography has no rules. It is not a sport. It is the result which counts, no matter how it is achieved.”
~ Bill Brandt
“The goal is not to change your subjects, but for the subject to change the photographer.”
~ Anonymous
“It is very easy to take for granted the phenomenon that we are each alive, but we must try not to.”
~ Alex Grey
“Light is a thing that cannot be reproduced, but must be represented by something else -- by color.”
~ Paul Cezanne
“Feel, feel, I say -- feel for all you’re worth, and even if it half kills you, for that is the only way to live.”
~ Henry James
“Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.”
~ Storm Jameson
“Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn one's back on life.”
~ Eleanor Roosevelt
“The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.”
~ Charles Du Bos
“The contemplative life is often miserable. One must act more, think less, and not watch oneself live.”
~ Sébastien-Roch Nicolas Chamfort
“Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them.”
~ David Hume
“It rubs me the wrong way, a camera . . . It's a frightening thing . . . Cameras make ghosts out of people.”
~ Bob Dylan
“There will always be men struggling to change, and there will always be those who are controlled by the past.”
~ Ernest Gaines
“Entering the earth I support all beings with My energy; becoming the sap-giving moon I nourish all the plants.”
~ Bhagavad Gita
“There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart . . . pursue those.”
~ Michael Nolan
“Being happy doesn't mean everything is perfect. It means you have decided to look beyond the imperfections.”
~ Anonymous
“Happiness is different from pleasure. Happiness has something to do with struggling, enduring, and accomplishing.”
~ George Sheehan
“It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block.”
~ Paul Gauguin
“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.”
~ Nelson Mandela
“If we pose for ourselves, we surely always pose for others, attempting to display ourselves as we want to be seen.”
~ Nancy Etcoff
“It's strange that words are so inadequate. Yet, like the asthmatic struggling for breath, so the lover must struggle for words.”
~ Thomas Stearns Eliot
“Color helps to express light, not the physical phenomenon, but the only light that really exists, that in the artist's brain.”
~ Henri Matisse
“I would rather have eyes that cannot see; ears that cannot hear; lips that cannot speak, than a heart that cannot love.”
~ Robert Tizon
“Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering. There's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.”
~ Leonard Cohen
“There is only you and your camera. The limitations in your photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are.”
~ Ernst Haas
“I didn't want to tell the tree or weed what it was. I wanted it to tell me something and through me express its meaning in nature.”
~ Wynn Bullock
“To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wildflower. To hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.”
~ William Blake
“The picture must radiate light, the bodies have their own light which they consume to live: They burn, they are not lit from outside.”
~ Egon Schiele
“One photo out of focus is a mistake, ten photos out of focus are an experimentation, one hundred photos out of focus are a style.”
~ Author Unknown
“The virtue of the camera is not the power it has to transform the photographer into an artist, but the impulse it gives him to keep on looking.”
~ Brooks Anderson
“Ultimately, simplicity is the goal in every art, and achieving simplicity is one of the hardest things to do. Yet it's easily the most essential.”
~ Pete Turner
“I work hard every afternoon from 4:30 to 4:40, that being the limit of the light I represent, the title of my picture being 'Early Evening'.”
~ Winslow Homer
“Now, to consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk.”
~ Edward Weston
“My first memory is of the brightness of light . . . light all around. I was sitting among pillows on a quilt on the ground . . . very large white pillows.”
~ Georgia O'Keeffe
“Work a great deal with evening effects, a lamp, a candle, etc. The tantalizing thing is not always to whom the source of light, but the effect of light.”
~ Edgar Degas
“Every setting conveys a thousand realities, and the joy of photography comes with emphasizing the dimensions that bring personal choice to bear.”
~ Jill Enfield
“One man scorned and covered with scars still strove with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable stars; and the world will be better for this.”
~ Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
“Listen to no one who tells you how to love. Your love is like no other, and that is what makes it beautiful. Your self is your divinity. . . . Express yourself.”
~ Paul Williams
“In our lives there is bound to come some pain, surely as there are storms and falling rain; just believe that the one who holds the storms will bring the sun.”
~ Mac Powell
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”
~ Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher
“Color possesses me. I don't have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour: Color and I are one. I am a painter.”
~ Paul Klee
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”
~ Helen Keller
“Darkness is where we begin and where we end. We don't usually see light traveling in darkness of space because we only can see its reflection on substance.”
~ Ala Bashir
“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way.”
~ Pablo Neruda
“I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.”
~ Frida Kahlo
“Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God. But only he who sees it takes off his shoes, the rest sit 'round it and pluck blackberries.”
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be, because sooner or later, if you are posing, you will forget the pose, and then where are you?”
~ Fanny Brice
“Love is not written on paper, for paper can be erased. Nor is it etched on stone, for stone can be broken. But it is inscribed on a heart and there it shall remain forever.”
~ Author Unknown
“Love and electricity are one in the same. If you do not feel the jolt in your soul every time a kiss is shared, a whisper is spoken, a touch is felt, then you're not really in love at all.”
~ C. J. Franks
“I tell you everything that is really nothing, and nothing of what is everything. Do not be fooled by what I am saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I am not saying.”
~ Charles C. Finn
“The word 'art' is very slippery. It really has no importance in relation to one's work. I work for the pleasure, for the pleasure of the work, and everything else is a matter for the critics.”
~ Manuel Alvarez Bravo
“I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
~ Robert Frost
“May the love hidden deep inside your heart find the love waiting in your dreams. May the laughter that you find in your tomorrow wipe away the pain you find in your yesterdays.”
~ Author Unknown
“It is only when we silent the blaring sounds of our daily existence that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us, as it stands knocking on the doorsteps of our hearts.”
~ K. T. Jong
“Photography is not about cameras, gadgets and gizmos. Photography is about photographers. A camera didn't make a great picture any more than a typewriter wrote a great novel.”
~ Peter Adams
“There are only four questions of value in life: 'What is sacred?' 'Of what is the spirit made?' 'What is worth living for?' 'What is worth dying for?' The answer to each is the same -- only love.”
~ Don Juan DeMarco
“The idea that any photography can't be personal is madness! . . . I see something; it goes through my eye, brain, heart, guts; I choose the subject. What could be more personal than that?”
~ Cornell Capa
“The greatest purity is nothing or nothingness -- no thinking, no desiring, no imagining. You are then one with the moment and the great movement of life, so nothing can happen that is not right.”
~ Barry Long
“Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask 'how,' while others of a more curious nature will ask 'why.' Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.”
~ Man Ray
“Everything flows, nothing stands still. Nothing endures but change. No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man. The only constant in life is change.”
~ Heraclitus
“Love comes to those who still hope even though they've been disappointed, to those who still believe even though they've been betrayed, to those who still love even though they've been hurt before.”
~ Unknown
“As I have practiced it, photography produces pleasure by simplicity. I see something special and show it to the camera. A picture is produced. The moment is held until someone sees it. Then it is theirs.”
~ Sam Abell
“Ideals are like stars: You will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you reach your destiny.”
~ Carl Schurz
“To cement a new friendship, especially between foreigners or persons of a different social world, a spark with which both were secretly charged, must fly from person to person, and cut across the accidents of place and time.”
~ George Santayana
“Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.”
~ Gloria Naylor
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
~ Mark Twain
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”
~ John Muir
“I like to explore, to be sensitive to the rhythms of the moment. Exploration means seeking out what I think is there, and yet often finding something finer, something closer to the center, that no amount of research could have led me to.”
~ William Albert Allard
“The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned; it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy.”
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“Some photographers enjoy distinguished careers without ever taking personal photographs. Others, audaciously and arrogantly and courageously discharge their most private feelings through photography. Trouble is, sometimes it all adds up to baloney.”
~ Burke Uzzle
“Out of defeat can come the best in human nature. As some of our fellow human beings face storms of adversity, they may rise with more beauty. They are like trees that grow on mountain ridges -- battered by winds, yet trees in which we find the strongest wood.”
~ Billy Graham
“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life -- think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, the way great spiritual giants are produced.”
~ Swami Vivekananda
“There is no art which affords less opportunity to execute expression than photography. Everything is concentrated in a few seconds . . . and in that moment he has one advantage over most arts -- his medium is swift enough to record his momentary inspiration.”
~ Sadakichi Hartmann
“We need to find Divinity, and Divinity cannot be found in noise and restlessness. Divinity is the friend of silence. See how nature -- trees, flowers, grass -- grows in silence. See the stars, the moon, and the sun; how they move in silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls.”
~ Mother Teresa
“To be a photographer, one must photograph. No amount of book learning, no checklist of seminars attended, can substitute for the simple act of making pictures. Experience is the best teacher of all. And for that, there are no guarantees that one will become an artist. Only the journey matters.”
~ Harry Morey Callahan
“Don't take for granted the things closest to your heart. Cling to them as you would for your life, for without them, life is meaningless. Don't shut love out of your life by saying it is impossible to find. The quickest way to receive love is to give; the fastest way to lose it, is to hold too tightly; and the best way to keep it, is to give it wings.”
~ Unknown
“I think about photographs as being full, or empty. You picture something in a frame and it's got lots of accounting going on in it -- stones and buildings and trees and air -- but that's not what fills up a frame. You fill up the frame with feelings, energy, discovery, and risk, and leave room enough for someone else to get in there.”
~ Joel Meyerowitz
“The thinker tries to determine and to represent the nature of the world through logic. He knows that reason and its tool, logic, are incomplete -- the way an intelligent artist knows full well that his brushes or chisels will never be able to express perfectly the radiant nature of an angel or a saint. Still they both try, the thinker as well as the artist, each in his own way.”
~ Hermann Hesse
“Consider the following: We humans are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others' actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others' activities. For this reason, it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others.”
~ Dalai Lama
“Instead of trying to reproduce exactly what I see before me, I make more arbitary use of color to express myself more forcefully: To express the love of two lovers by the marriage of two complementary colors. To express the thought of a brow by the radiance of a light tone against a dark background. To express hope by some star. Someone's passion by the radiance of the setting sun.”
~ Vincent van Gogh
“The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you'll always be seeking. I've never seen anybody really find the answer -- they think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.”
~ Ken Kesey
“The world we live in is a succession of fleeting moments, any one of which might say something significant. When such an instant arrives, I react intuitively. There is, I think, an electronic impulse between my eye and my finger. But even this is not enough. I dream that someday the step between my mind and my finger will no longer be needed. And that simply by blinking my eyes, I shall make pictures. Then, I think, I shall really have become a photographer.”
~ Alfred Eisenstaedt
“This is what I believe: That I am I. That my soul is a dark forest. That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest. That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back. That I must have the courage to let them come and go. That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women. There is my creed.”
~ David Herbert Lawrence
“There comes a time when you have to stand up and shout: This is me damn it! I look the way I look, think the way I think, feel the way I feel, love the way I love! I am a whole complex package. Take me . . . or leave me. Accept me -- or walk away! Do not try to make me feel like less of a person, just because I don't fit your idea of who I should be and don't try to change me to fit your mold. If I need to change, I alone will make that decision. When you are strong enough to love yourself 100% -- good and bad -- you will be amazed at the opportunities that life presents you.”
~ Stacey Charter
“I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it -- I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or myself. I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts. I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know -- but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and ways to find out more about me. However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me. If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded. I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me. I own me, and therefore, I can engineer me. I am me, and I am okay.”
~ Virginia Satir
“To laugh, is to risk playing the fool. To weep, is to risk appearing sentimental. To reach out for another, is to risk involvement. To expose feelings, is to risk exposing our true selves. To put your ideas, your dreams, before the crowd is to risk loss. To love, is to risk not being loved in return. To live, is to risk dying. To hope, is to risk despair. To try at all, is to risk failure.
“But risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing. They may avoid suffering and sorrow, but they simply cannot learn, change, feel, grow, love, live. . . . Chained by their attitudes they are slaves. Only the person who risks is free!”
~ Hugh Prather
“As long as I feel the full breeze in my hair and see the sun shining strong on the leaves, I will not ask for more. What better thing could destiny give me than the sensual passing of life in moments of ignorance like this? See life from a distance. Never question it. There's nothing it can tell you. Wise is the one who does not seek. The seeker will find in all things the abyss, and doubt in himself.
“Alberto Caeiro sees things with the eyes only, not with the mind. He does not let any thoughts arise when he looks at a flower. . . the only thing a stone tells him is that it has nothing at all to tell him. . . this way of looking at a stone may be described as the totally unpoetic way of looking at it. The stupendous fact about Alberto Caeiro is that out of this sentiment, or rather, absence of sentiment, he makes poetry. The main thing is: Knowing how to see. To know how to see without thinking. To know how to see when you see; and not think when you see or see when you think.”
~ Fernando Pessoa
“Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Looking at its sad appearance who would think that those stiff branches, those jagged twigs would turn green again and blossom and bear fruit next spring; but we hope they will, we know they will.
“Someday perhaps the inner light will shine forth from us, and then we'll need no other light.
“Where there is much light, the shadow is deep.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“I am the owner of my karma. I inherit my karma. I am born of my karma. I am related to my karma. I live supported by my karma. Whatever karma I create, whether good or evil, that I shall inherit.
“In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west. People create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true. The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.
“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future. Concentrate the mind on the present moment.”
~ Buddha
“We shall have to repent in this generation, not so much for the evil deeds of the wicked people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
“If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart and the senses.
“To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.
“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
“Silence is a source of great strength.”
~ Lao Tzu
“Out of damp and gloomy days, out of solitude, out of loveless words directed at us, conclusions grow up in us like fungus: One morning they are there, we know not how, and they gaze upon us, morose and gray. Woe to the thinker who is not the gardener but only the soil of the plants that grow in him.
“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
“He who would learn to fly one day, must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.
“You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.”
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
“We take a risk when we open our hearts because the truth is, if we open our hearts, we will get hurt. You can’t open your heart and not have some hurt because you’re in a human experience. Even if it’s the love of your life and you have many wonderful, deepening, growing, powerful years together, it’s a human experience and that person will pass over. Love takes courage. Be courageous.
“Start living now. Stop saving the good china for that special occasion. Stop withholding your love until that special person materializes. Every day you are alive is a special occasion. Every minute, every breath, is a gift from God.
“Put love first. Entertain thoughts that give life. And when a thought or resentment, or hurt, or fear comes your way, have another thought that is more powerful -- a thought that is love.
“Don't wait for something big to occur. Start where you are, with what you have, and that will always lead you into something greater.
“You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith.”
~ Mary Manin Morrissey
“Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.
“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.”
~ Oscar Wilde
“You learn to see by practice. It's just like playing tennis, you get better the more you play. The more you look around at things, the more you see. The more you photograph, the more you realize what can be photographed and what can't be photographed. You just have to keep doing it.
“Sometimes you can tell a large story with a tiny subject.”
~ Eliot Porter
“To photograph is to hold one's breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It's at that precise moment mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.
“Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.”
~ Henri Cartier-Bresson
“From the moment the creative photographer picks up his camera, he is entering into a new relationship with the world around him. Henceforth, nothing will be commonplace or taken for granted. He becomes dedicated to finding what is meaningful beneath surface reality and searching for what lies beyond the facade of appearances.
“A photographer shows us a record of what was seen at the time of exposure, but the creative photographer reveals to us what could not be seen or understood before. Reality, the visual world about him, is his domain but it is not easy. For "reality" is a visual fantasy of millions of forces at work in a constant state of flux and agitation.
“It is in this overwhelming kaleidoscope of mountains, garbage, chairs, people, time and valleys that he must find order and reason. What the creative photographer finds significant in reality depends on the dictates of his own unique vision and his understanding of life.”
~ Louis Stettner
“In the early dawn of happiness you gave me three kisses so that I would wake up to this moment of love. I tried to remember in my heart what I had dreamed about during the night before I became aware of this moving of life.
“I found my dreams but the moon took me away. It lifted me up to the firmament and suspended me there. I saw how my heart had fallen on your path singing a song. Between my love and my heart things were happening which slowly, slowly made me recall everything.
“You amuse me with your touch although I cannot see your hands. You've kissed me with tenderness although I haven’t seen your lips. You're hidden from me. But it is you who keeps me alive.
“Perhaps the time will come when you will tire of kisses. I shall be happy even for insults from you. I only ask that you keep some attention on me.”
~ Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi
“You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life? The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.
In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; and like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honor. Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king? Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.
“It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.
“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.
“You may tie my hands with chains and my feet with shackles, and put me in the dark prison, but you shall not enslave my thinking, for it is free, like the breeze in the spacious sky.
“Do not say, 'I follow the one true path of the Spirit,' but rather, 'I have found the Spirit walking on my path,' for the Spirit walks on all paths.
“I existed from all eternity and, behold, I am here; and I shall exist till the end of time, for my being has no end.
“Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.
“Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
“A gray day provides the best light.
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
“Of the original phenomena, light is the most enthralling.
“Look at light and admire its beauty. Close your eyes, and then look again: What you saw is no longer there; and what you will see later is not yet.
“The vivacity and brightness of colors in a landscape will never bear any comparison with a landscape in nature when it is illumined by the sun, unless the painting is placed in such a position that it will receive the same light from the sun as does the landscape.”
~ Leonardo da Vinci
“A human being is a part of a whole, called by us 'universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest. . . a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
“Most teachers waste their time by asking questions which are intended to discover what a pupil does not know, whereas the true art of questioning has for its purpose to discover what the pupil knows or is capable of knowing.
“All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.
“There are two ways to live your life: One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is to live as though everything is a miracle.
“We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
“Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything one learned in school.
“Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.
“Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Some photographers take reality . . . and impose the domination of their own thought and spirit. Others come before reality more tenderly, and photography to them is an instrument of love and revelation.
“A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.
“Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer -- and often the supreme disappointment.
“The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.
“There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.
“There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.
“A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words.
“Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.
“A photograph is usually looked at -- seldom looked into.
“A good photograph is knowing where to stand.”
~ Ansel Adams
Point Sur, Storm. Ansel Adams, 1946.
Why do you paint?
For exactly the same reason I breathe.
That’s not an answer.
There isn’t any answer.
How long hasn’t there been any answer?
As long as I can remember.
And how long have you written?
As long as I can remember.
I mean poetry.
So do I.
~ E. E. Cummings
My Flickr photographs are best viewed on Flickriver:
“If you can't interpret light and the way in which it plays with and defines its subjects, if you can't understand the subtle and not-so-subtle rhythms of the sun, if you can't recognize an architect's intent the minute you walk into a room, no amount of money you spend on a camera will make you a photographer.
“Quit twiddling with that post-processing software. Instead, get out there and start learning to take great pictures. And keep in mind, the more equipment you lug around, the fewer pictures you'll take.
“A birth certificate shows that we were born. A death certificate shows that we died. But PICTURES . . . show that we have LIVED!”
~ Lucid Images
The Six Makers of Your Destiny
Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become behavior.
Watch your behavior, for it becomes character.
Watch your character, for it becomes Your Destiny.
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- JoinedJanuary 2008
- OccupationRetired Lion Tamer. Sake Master Sommelier.
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