"Childlikeness" has to be restored with long years of training in the art of self-forgetfulness. When this is attained, man thinks yet he does not think. He thinks like the showers coming down from the sky; he thinks like the waters rolling on the ocean; he thinks like the stars illuminating the nightly heavens; he thinks like the green foliage shooting forth in the relaxing spring breeze. D. T. Suzuki
We all move on the fringes of eternity and are sometimes granted vistas through the fabric of illusion. Ansel Adams Yesterday morning, I sat by the water and noticed patterns of reflections: thus, yesterday's image. It may not be a good image, but it shows something of what is there to be seen if we will look. Then I read a couple of comments by Robert Adams, and they seem to me to reflect something I try to show in my photographic images:
"Even if one believes . . . that the general nature of life is suffering, there are still pleasures to be enjoyed. Eating at a beautifully set table, for example. And music. And working with hand tools . . . Finding the shape in the wood." (CN--or reflected patterns in the water.) Earlier in this blog I wrote about the problem of sentimentality. Here's what Adams wrote on that question: "We wonder if we have the right, here in our damaged landscape, to enjoy beautiful exceptions like an old tree or unpolluted skies. In order to guard against sentimentality . . . perhaps we should turn away from improbabilities. What is the excess, however, that defines sentimentality? What is too much respect for a juniper or a cottonwood? What is the worth of evidence that allows hope?" |
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