Bamboo Forests of Japan

Bamboo Forest, from the Kyoto in Spring Series

The Bamboo Forests of Japan are magical. Tight growth make it hard to capture depth. This view afforded me crisp and clear trunks of bamboo to the left, with a fading away patch of trees to the right. It took previsualization to find this image, a gem amidst the tremendous and overwhelmingly forest of sleek, firm and pliant growth.

Children of Kyoto

Children of Kyoto

I traveled to Kyoto, Japan recently to photograph and get acquainted

with the culture. The people are respectful, pleasant and friendly.

The environment is clean and beautiful.

If I was a child born in Kyoto, I too would be happy!

Faceless Buddha

Faceless Buddha, image from the Kyoto in Spring Series

Adashino Nenbutsu-Ji: A temple where there are hundreds of stone and faceless Buddhas [located in the outskirts of Kyoto Japan]. These mark the graves of nameless men and women who died penniless or forgotten centuries ago.
It was just outside the gates of the cemetery of the Faceless Buddhas, low and to my left, I caught the underside of a fern. It was vibrant green with red jagged edges. A gust of wind afforded me this view which otherwise would have gone unnoticed. When I looked at the fern from above it was drab and of no concern - it was the underside, aglow from sun that stood out.
I took my camera, knelt down low and proceeded to photograph the wind swept fern, as it blew across the viewfinder, stone Buddha and sky in the background.
The wind continued to lift the fern, sweeping it across the stone Buddha - a Buddha in relief on a slab of stone.
It was at this moment when I truly saw the temple grounds - noticing detail, shadow and juxtapositions. Before this I was blind - looking for a picture that I did not see.

Excerpt from Moleskin Travel Journal

Shadows, Nijo Castle

Shadows Nijo Castle, from the Kyoto in Spring Series

Geometry:

An arrangement of objects or parts that suggests geometric figures.

Deals with the measurement, properties, lines, angles, surfaces and solids.

Geometry and Form of Kyoto

A study of abstraction and form taken at Nijo Castle, Kyoto Japan.

Lone Blossom

Rainy morning

cherry blossoms

outside teahouse window

Looking through a Japanese Arts and Culture Magazine,

I was reviewing an article on Japanese modern art

and came across a piece of work that was quite simple,

simply budding limbs of a tree.

I will take my pictures of isolated cherry blossoms

and remove all background so as to leave simply

the lone blossom lying on white paper.

A sort of modern Japanese aesthetic.

After Rain

After Rain

flowers bloom

Kyoto Spring

Photography is the art of isolation and extraction.

Seeing without distraction while looking beyond what is apparent.

Being in present-time and in-the-moment;

able to see forms and geometry outside its context.