I'm a writer and editor of an online literary magazine (which accepts submissions of photographs, by the way, if they fit the theme). My primary blog is Via Negativa. I love the template there, but it doesn't permit any images wider than 425 pixels.

Somatic awareness allows a person to glean wisdom from within.
Thomas Hanna

The vast majority of my photos have been taken within a mile of where I live. For me as a poet and an editor, photography is a spiritual practice, a training in how to see, how to frame and edit, how to find the poetry in ordinary things. I'm especially interested in the challenge of making photos in which the roles of figure and ground are reversible, or even nonexistent. Philosophically, I feel we must get beyond a perception of nature as mere scenery. Gorgeous wall calendars from Sierra Club and the like offend me at a very basic level; nature porn does nothing for the cause of conservation. Indeed, to the extent that it helps sell SUVs and houses in subdivisions, it actually makes things worse. We must get people to appreciate their own back forty, or the vacant lot down the street — only then do we have a chance of convincing them that every part of this planet is a work of art in which we participate and are continually remade.

We have drunk Soma and become immortal; we have attained the light...
Rig Veda

 

FinePix S5200

I keep telling myself that the limitations of my equipment constitute an artistic challenge. Would it make sense for me to succumb to societal pressure to upgrade, to be a consumer, if the primary purpose of my photography is to communicate love of the natural world?

 

I of course own the copyright on all the photos I publish here. If you want something, let me know. If it's for a non-commercial purpose, I won't ask for anything but credit and a link.

 

Yes.