Roberta Holden’s photography draws on a wide range of unique life experiences. The themes of motion and impermanence that connect much of her work can be traced to her many years on the open ocean, both during her 14 years living aboard a sailboat as a child and later, as a professional sailor on the single-handed offshore racing circuit. Her photographs of the Polar Regions draw both from her practical experience in high latitude and high altitude regions, as a mountaineer and glaciological field assistant, as well as from her studies in atmospheric science, glaciology and Arctic studies. She first had the opportunity to explore Antarctica during a two-month, six-woman mountaineering and sailing expedition in 2002. Five years later, she returned as a photographer, lead climber and crew aboard another sailboat.

Similar to the contemplative traditions of Miksang and Zen Art, Roberta’s photographic practice emphasizes the experiential qualities of seeing as a path to awakening. From this philosophical perspective, there is no distinction between the photograph, the photographed and the photographer, no subject and object, no seer and seen, no barriers between mind and space. It is all experience. Seeing, really seeing, is a meditative act that broadens and deepens one’s awareness. Once basic technical considerations are mastered, the camera is no more than an extension of the mind, a tool to focus one’s attention on space and time.

Roberta’s style of photography shares many similarities to the Japanese aesthetic of Wabi-Sabi, which embraces the imperfect, the impermanent, the incomplete (“nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect"), as well as the earthy, the natural and the minimalist. It relates to feelings of solitude, melancholy, asperity and desolation.

Through her subjective lens as a photographer, Roberta seeks to use her photography to bring awareness to social and environmental justice issues.

info@nobarriersphotography.com