Symmetrical
Thing-Centered Photographs
Part III of the "Thing-Centered Photographs" project
A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT ~ October 1, 2024
He gave me a bowl and I saw.
The soul has this shape.
(from a poem by Rumi, trans. by Coleman Barks)
Both matter and Consciousness arise from silence, the silence of God,
the silence of light. The same profound silence exists in minerals,
plants, and oceans. It also exists at the core of every living being.
It is here, in silence, that the search for knowledge culminates.
When you become immersed in the stillness of your soul,
you understand everything. ~ The entire universe is
your body; your body is the entire universe.
Gurumayi Chidvilasananda
Two quotes from the SYDA Foundation publication Resonate With Stillness
Introduction:
I made my very first Symmetrical Photograph after my wife and I traveled through Turkey for two weeks in the spring of 2011. I became enchanted by the many forms of Islamic Sacred Art I had encountered during our travels, including an exhibition of ancient hand painted Qur'an illuminations I saw (and experienced!) at the Turkish and Islamic Art Museum in Istanbul. As I became absorbed in a particularly beautiful gold painted image that filled an entire page of an ancient Qur'an, the image began to appear self-luminous to me. The image became pervaded by an interior glow that made the image (and the book) come alive before my very eyes!* That experience, and the trip as a whole was life-transforming. It initiated in me a strong desire to more fully understand Islamic Sacred Art.
(*See my project Prayer Stones, the first chapter in my multi-chaptered project "An Imaginary Book". This experience qualifies, in the yoga that I practice, as darshan. See my Epilogue at the end of this project to learn more about darshan.)
My symmetrical photographs are image constructions which were inspired by the images I saw in the ancient Qur'ans, the architectural details that pervaded the two beautiful mosques I visited in Istanbul: the the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque and the Blue Mosque; many wonderful Turkish rugs we saw in several museums . . . and then later, all the reading I had done regarding the Sacred Art of Islam after we returned home from our travels.
My very first experiment with the four-fold process and its mirroring imagery transformed the source image (a detail I took from a marble column in the Haigia Sophia Grand Mosque) into a completely new, living, visual reality that had a surprisingly powerful transforming affect upon me as I continued to study the image (presented below). I felt incredibly excited about the possibility of creating an entire body of work based on the travel photographs I made in Turkey. Over the next two years that project did unfold; I entitled it "An Imaginary Book."
Symmetrical Photograph: Source Image : Marble Column, Haigia Sophia
I have made two kinds of symmetrical images. The most dominant technique of the two is a four-fold visual construction; then secondly, and much less frequently, I use a two-fold construction (as illustrated above in the title photograph of the bowl). The source image is a single straight photograph, duplicated four times and then mirrored in each other both vertically and horizontally, as in the marble column photograph above. I have written in detail about my techniques multiple times in many of my photography projects, but I suggest you visit my Preface for "An Imaginary Book" and my blog project Straight Photographs & Constructing Symmetrical Photographs for a full illustrated account of the process I use in making symmetrical photographs.
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Several different kinds of symmetrical photographs have emerged as I have continued to experiment with Symmetrical imagery over the past twelve years, and there are two in particular I will be addressing in this 12x12" inkjet print Symmetrical Thing-Centered PROJECT, and a forthcoming project.
Infinity : Symmetrical Photographs
The four-fold symmetrcial image above will be included in my next blog project Infinity: Symmetrical Photographs, Infinite Patterns of Space & Light. The images in that project will be less about "the thing photographed" and more about the experience of infinite space & light that the source images and their four-fold transformation magically manifest.
Both Symmetrical projects, in their different ways, however, will be dealing with "interior space." In this project I am striving to give visual form to the more abstract issue of "the inner essence" of a Thing, which as Gurumayi and Rumi have stated, above, is the Soul of all things, all matter, the Consciousness that pervades the entire Universe including every human body.
The the intention that belies this project has essentially been my sole preoccupation since I completed my MFA written thesis in 1972 on the them of the The True, living Symbol & The Symbolic Photograph.
I speak of the Symbol and the Symbolic Photograph in nearly all of my introductory statements to my many and various Photography Projects, for projects that are dominated by straight photographs or Symmetrical photographs. For example, in Part I of my three-part 12x12" inkjet Thing-Centered Photographs project, Things In Their Place, I write about the transcendent nature of Place in relation to my straight, Thing-Centered photographs.
Straight photographs are wonderful in the way they can describe with such clear, direct fidelity the outer appearance and forms of a thing, especially when the light and a photographer's vision come together in just the right way. Equally as wonderful is the Symmetrical Thing-Centered Photograph when the four-fold process succeeds at giving a startlingly new visual form to the source image and manifests what I experience to be a thing's Internal Dimension. True, living Symbols occur only when grace becomes the primary force directing my creative process. That is to say, it is not the process that generates images of revelation, it is the grace of my Creative Process.
The yoga I practice is quite clear about the divine presence that pervades the human Heart, that which gives every thing its living presence; that which pervades the entire Universe. The great yogic siddha, Bhagawan Nityananda, who initiated the the Siddha Yoga Path in 1956, taught: "The Heart is the Hub of All Sacred Places. Go there and Roam." He taught that everything visible and invisible is pervaded by the divine Self, the Soul, Universal Consciousness, the Oneness of Being. For me, the Symmetrical Photograph (when it is functioning at its very best) is the most literal (and in some cases the most powerful) visual metaphor for the idea of Unitary Reality, the Oneness of Being. I love the way symmetrical images unveil a True symbolic transcendence of our ordinary day-to-day experience of dualistic reality. In the research I discovered regarding the Sacred Art of Islam, the mirroring image is the perfect metaphor for the Oneness of Being. And in terms of my studies of Carl Jung's research into the psychic dimensions of medieval Alchemy, the symmetrical photograph addresses most articulately the alchemical idea: the miracle of the "One thing":
That which is Below corresponds
to that which is Above,
and that which is Above corresponds
to that which is Below,
to accomplish the miracle of
the "One Thing"
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The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus
Alchemical Treatise
See my project:
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The Internal Dimensions of a Thing
In Janaury, 2016 I published a very ambitious photography project which consisted only of Symmetrical Photographs entitled: The Center of Being: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs ~ The Internal Dimensions of an Object, its Light, Its Metaphysical Image & The Phenomenon of the Mirror. The project's Epilogue is entitled Turning Things Round & Inside Out, which includes a section entitled The Circle and the Wheel of Consciousness. I invite you to explore the project. Much of the material relates to this project.
It was through my research on Islamic Sacred Art that I discovered two amazing writers, Henry Corbin & Tom Cheetham from whom I quote often in the Center of Being project. In my Epilouge I quoted Tom Cheetham:
By turning the world inside out, by giving birth in the world to that
interiority which is characteristic of the things of the soul . . .
we return the hidden dimension to the manifest
and uncover the depths that lie just under
the surface of the world.
For Henry Corbin the bridge between creature and Creator is . . .
the transformation of the sensory world into symbols, into open-
ended mysteries that shatter, engage, and transform the
entire being of the creature.
from Tom Cheetham's book The World Turned Inside Out : Henry Corbin and Islamic Mysticism
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A few preliminary notes before you view the photographs
All of the images you will be seeing exist as 12x12" inkjet prints. Please visit this link The 12x12" Studies Inkjet Print Books, PROJECTS & other LARGER inkjet prints which contains all of the complete hyperlinked inkjet print project titles. (Note: My symmetrical photographs in general benefit from being printer larger than 12x12." I have printed several in larger sizes and can make most all of my symmetrical images larger than 12x12" -- up to 21" high.)
Under each of the photographs published below I have indicated (in script type) an Image # and this Project's Title; then on the next line below I provide the Title of the image (which in most cases is descriptive rather than poetic or metaphoric). When I feel that the title does not supply enough context, I will also write additional text below the Title line in an attempt to explain something about the image or my creative process that you (the viewer) might find useful in terms of better connecting--in unexpected, meaningful ways--with the image.
The tonal mattes that surround each image varies in tone and width according to what looks and feels best for the image. I enjoy thinking of the matte as an atmosphere of silence that surrounds the image and perhaps helps you to become more receptive or empathic to what the image or "Thing" wants to say to you. Becoming silent, stilling the mind, is the best way to "listen" to an image, especially an image that is functioning for you as a True, living Symbol. (Visit my project regarding the practice of Contempating Symbolic Photographs)
There are instances in which I used a matte tone that matches a particular tone on the edge of the image area so that where that image area and the tonal matte interface, those spaces merge into each other as if the internal space of the image becomes extended into the space of the surrounding tonal matte. ~ Also, there are instances in my work in which, at their original conception, I suspended an image or "thing" in a pure black space that extended to the very outer edges of the 12x12" format, then later I decided to add a slightly lighter-than-black tonal matte surrounding the interior black tone. In those cases I probably chose to do that simply because it looked better to me in some way; or perhaps I felt the tonal transition from light-black to pure-black helped to create a more intimate invitation into the center of the image in which the image or thing is suspended in a pure black space.
Finally, if you are viewing this blog project on a desktop or laptop computer, I want to encourage you to click on each of the images (twice) which--I hope--will give you access to an alternate viewing mode that's possible with my blog projects and images. Please read the brief statement below, and if you would like more technical information, click on the highlighted blog page title How to . . . .
A brief note about "How to Best View My Online Blog Images"
If you are viewing this project on a desktop computer or a laptop, I encourage you to read my blog explanation regarding How to Best View My Online Blog Images. In brief, click on the images once, then once again; this will (hopefully) enlarge the image and present it in a dark tonal environment at its maximum viewing quality in terms of image sharpness, luminance, tonal gradations, etc. Once you have entered this alternate viewing space you can then use your zoom-in & zoom-out keyboard (or menu) options to adjust the image size, and darken or lighten your computer's screen brightness to suit your equipment and viewing preferences.
Though all the symmetrical images below exist as 12x12" inkjet prints, many also
exist in larger print sizes, such as 21x21". Some of the symmetrical
images work well in the 12x12" format, and yet in general I feel
all of them work best in larger sizes and can be printed in
larger sizes up to 21x21" on a 24x24" paper base.
A Poetic Prelude to the Photographs
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I want to share with you Charles Simic's insightful, luminous poem entitled Stone, a poem in which the writer, through his empathic Imaginal identification with a stone, takes us deep into the center, the internal dimensions of the stone, where he experiences its interior light and "the star-charts" written on its "inner walls":
Go inside a stone.
That would be my way.
Let somebody else become a dove
Or gnash with a tiger’s tooth.
I am happy to be a stone.
From the outside the stone is a riddle:
No one knows how to answer it.
Yet within, it must be cool and quiet
Even though a cow steps on it full weight,
Even though a child throws it in a river;
The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed
To the river bottom
Where the fishes come to knock on it
And listen.
I have seen sparks fly out
When two stones are rubbed,
So perhaps it is not dark inside after all;
Perhaps there is a moon shining
From somewhere, as though behind a hill--
Just enough light to make out
The strange writings, the star-charts
On the inner walls.
The Symmetrical
Thing-Centered Photographs
Image #1 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
(The Meadow, Woods & clouds suspended in the Orange Glow of the setting sun)
The meadow and woods behind our house doesn't usually float up in the sky.
You can credit its happening here of course to the four-fold
symmetrical process I have applied to its source image.
Image #2 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
Ceramic bowl on round wood table
This is a two-fold symmetrical photograph.
Image #3 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
(Marble Column)
The source image for this four-fold constructed image was a detail of a marble column
in the Haigia Sophia Grand Mosque. When I looked at the column, this is very
much what I was seeing: the luminous infinite space within the marble. I also
included this image in my Infinity : Symmetrical Photographs project.
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Image #4 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
Celestial Music : The Angel of the Lyre
So much of my photography has been influenced by music.
Visit this link to see those music inspired projects.
This symmetrical photograph is radiant with
light which often, for me, serves as an
equivalent for music, or sound.
Image #5 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
(Bedroom lamp and shadow)
The symmetrical images work most gracefully with subject matter from the
natural world. I have tried often to make symmetrical images of subject
matter from the culture I live in, as in the above image. They often seem
to me too surreal, too "manufactured." You can of course see for yourself;
what I say about my own work is not as important as your own
experience, your own personal revelations.
Image #6 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
(Framed Photo and house plants)
Image #7 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
(plastic coated wire)
I like parenthetically identifying the source image (the subject matter)
photographed for some of the Symmetrical Photographs.
I think, this is because I take a certain pleasure in the
transformation that manifests in the process
of making the symmetrical images.
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Image #8 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
"Tree Limb / Butterfly Angel"
Some people believe that certain things have their own Angel, perhaps
severing as a protector or guardian of a thing in ways we can't see or understand.
Image #9 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
Angelic Presence in the Vermont Woods above Broad Brook
I have read a lot of wonderful books about Islamic Sacred Art and the more mystical
aspects of Islam an in particular Sufism. Angles are a very real aspect of this
living tradition. This image is for me pervaded by a very strong angelic
presence. I have made many projects associated with the very
beautiful Broad Brook which runs through the southern
part of Vermont. In making friends with the Brook
I have allowed myself to be become absorbed
in its living spirit, its divine presence.
Image #10 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
(Broad Brook, Blue Water Pool Surrounded by Stones)
I invite you to visit this 12x12" inkjet PROJECT:
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Image #11 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
Snow-Drift forms ("Hour-Glass" with red Heart center)
Visit my multi-chaptered project Snow : Photographs from the Silver World
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Image #12 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
(Maple leaves flying in a powder-blue sky)
I seldom title symmetrical photographs. They are essentially abstract images, and
images which are functioning for me as True, living Symbols. I don't like being
told how to see or think about an image, but sometimes I just have to share
my experience of an image, if only via a brief title. This particular
image reminds me of a bird in flight, not a soaring flight but the
a king of flying I associate with a helicopter, a vertical rising up.
Despite its humorous aspect, this is for me a (strangely) mysterious image.
Image #13 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
Snow drift (Angel or nature Sprite)
2023-2024 12x12" inkjet Print Project (the text is relevant).
Also visit the Collected Angel Projects, Photographs & Texts.
Image #14 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
Burning bush on Broad Brook Road
When I click twice on this image and it becomes enlarged I love looking
into the middle section and the spaces on either side of the center of the image.
The side spaces are extremely haunting for me. I feel as if I have entered another linear world.
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Image #15 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
Flower Icon (Pink-white petals w yellow-red center, 4 pairs small bulbs, 4 Large bulbs)
Image #16 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
Ritual Site (Snow, plants, dark shapes)
This image feels like a sacred space created for the purpose of ritual.
I have seen images like this in New Mexico, in the form of "sand paintings"
created by the indigenous peoples of the region.
Image #17 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
(Eye : Centered in Shadows)
This image holds great mystery for me. I did not see it coming as I worked
with the source image using the four-fold symmetrical process. ~ The gold
color in the horizontal line that points toward the eye is worthy of wonder.
Visit my Epilogue to the Giacometti project
Image #18 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
Eye : A Symmetrical Broad Brook Stone
This is another "eye" image, surrounded by radiating water-light energy on the two sides.
The yogic sages teach that perception is projection. I have often felt energy leaving
my eyes going outward to meet the perceived object. The Truth, say the
yogic sages, is that "The Seer and the Seen are One."
Image #18A/37 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
The patterns of light inside the Infinite space of a dark stone in Broad Brook
The stone is dark, surrounded by the brook's gushing greenish waters after a rain storm.
The brook's larger stones are banging into each other creating a sound like Thunder.
This symmetrical image unveils the infinite space inside the dark stone and the
untold numbers of living shimmering patterned points of light! (I have also
included this image in the Infinity : Symmetrical Photographs project)
Image #19 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
Falling Water Symmetrical Photograph /Niagara Falls 12x12" PROJECT)
I think of my symmetrical images as being essentially round in nature.
This is literally a round image in a square frame of falling waters.
I see a dark figure with his arms outstretched above and below
the center of the image. (Perhaps a nature sprite?)
click here to visit my Falling Water 12x12" project
Image #20 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
I like it when the four-fold process transforms the subject matter to such a significant degree
that what was photographed is no longer recognizable. Such images insist that we
recognize and process meaning in alternative ways. In this case the subject matter
was the air bubbles left behind by a sea lion swimming by the pool's viewing
window at the Seneca Zoo in Rochester, NY.
Image #21 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
Symmetrical Photograph: Looking through Multiple Window Panes
into a white tent illuminated by strings of light bulbs.
Image #22 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
Coupled Golden lighted Chandelier (A two-fold Symmetrical Photograph)
Image #23 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
(Driveway, blue sky puddle & shadows)
Visit my Puddles project
Image #24 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
Ancient Prayer Stone, Turkey
This is a 12x12 version of an image I included in the first chapter of my
2011-13 "An Imaginary Book" project entitled Prayer Stones
Image #25 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
Blue Crystal-Centered "Rock Flower"
Image #26 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
Broad Brook Stone Symmetrical surface Design
Visit my Broad Brook project
Image #27 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
New Mexico stones / Face / Stone birds eating stones)
Part of my 1972 MFA visual thesis consisted of photographs of stones
in the New Mexico Landscape near Albuquerque. / In 2019 I transformed
several of those images using the four-fold symmetrical process for a project in
(Listen to Stephen Hough's Mompou album)
Image #28 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
Two Flames Merging
Image #29 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
Stream waters flowing down into a "bubble crystal"
Image #30 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
Young fig plants growing inside next to a basement window
Image #31 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
(Vent Pipes)
This image is for me very evocative of the Shiva Nataraja.
Image #32 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
Cloud forest, suspended in mist (Costa Rica)
Image #33 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
(Crossed Dark / Light Lingams / Propellers)
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Image #34 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
"Angel of Tears" (12x12 version with small surrounding matte)
(See my Collected Angel projects)
Image #35 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
Symmetrical Snow Drift with a Crystalline Light in the Center / between shadow-triangles
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Image #36 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
Blue Egg / Blue Lingam
(Visit my Blue Pearl project)
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Epilogue
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Darshan
As a student of Siddha Yoga I have had the great good fortune to read many accounts of the spontaneous teachings from Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, her teacher Swami Muktananda, and his teacher Bhagawan Nityananda. Since I used a poem about "going inside a stone" as a Prelude to the collection of photographs in this project, I thought it would be appropriate to conclude this project with one additional story about a stone, with one additional symmetrical photograph of a stone, and one additional quote by my teacher, Gurumayi.
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Baba Muktananda tells a story about a teaching he received from his guru Bhagawan Nityananda, a great yogic saint who lived continuously in a world in which everything was a mystery, a miracle, because he experienced every "Thing"-- including the entire Universe--as a form of God, his own inner divine Self. Nityananda, a born Siddha, lived the yogic Truth: The Oneness of Being; he saw, wrote Muktananda, "the many in the One and the One in the many."
Here is Baba Muktananda's story:
Once I went with my Guru for a walk along the bank of a river. Near the road was a huge rock. He said, "Do you see this rock? See the miracle? See the doing of of the universal Consciousness? Here it has become a rock, here it has become a human being, here it has become a tree.
Nityananda had seen the mystery of things. He was fully aware of the inner Observer, the One who understands. (from Bhagawan Nityananda of Ganeshpuri, a SYDA Foundation publication)
Image #18A/37 12x12" PROJECT: Thing-Centered Symmetrical Photographs
The patterns of light inside the Infinite space of a dark stone in Broad Brook
The stone is dark, surrounded by the brook's gushing greenish waters after a rain storm.
The brook's larger stones were banging into each other creating a sound like Thunder.
The symmetrical image unveils that inside the stone, inside its infinite space,
there are untold numbers of living shimmering patterned points of light!
This image unveils for me the divine, luminous nature of the dark stone I had photographed in a Vermont brook which I have photographed for many years and has become for me like a dear friend who has shared many of its secrets with me. The image represents for me an experience which, in the yoga I practice, is known as Darshan.* The image is also an excellent example of what I call a True, living Symbolic Photograph. Photography has become for me a yogic practice. In this regard I must share this brief teaching by Gurumayi:
"Spiritual practice has a way of creating a boundaryless bounary
to hold the experience of the Infinite."
(the quote is from Resonate With Stillness, a SYDA Foundation publication)
(*The Siddha Yoga definition for the word Darshan given in the Glossary of many SYDA Foundation publications is as follows: "[lit., to have the sight of] A glimpse or vision of a saint; being in the presence of a holy being; seeing God or an image of God.")
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I will conclude this Epilogue, and the project as a whole, with this teaching on Darshan by Gurumayi:
In you keep yourself open [to grace] darshan will happen at all times. Darshan is always taking place. When the time is right [the grace of] Baba Muktananda and Bhagawan Nityanada [will] grant the darshan of infinity. Until then we [students of Siddha Yoga] always keep ourselves prepared: prepared to experience the Truth, prepared to know the Truth, prepared to have darshan. (from Resonate With Stillness, a SYDA Foundation publication)
(Note: Image #37 --above-- will be published in my forthcoming blog project:
Infinity: Symmetrical Photographs~Infinite patterns of Space & Light)
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This project was first announced on
my bog's Welcome Page on
October 1, 2024
Related Blog Project Links
*Infinity: Symmetrical Photographs~Infinite Patterns of Space & Light coming soon
How to Best View My Online Blog Images with your desktop or laptop computer.
Infinity : Symmetrical Photographs Infinite Patterns of Space & Light October ??, 2024 coming soon
Please visit the Welcome Page to my blog The Departing Landscape. It includes the complete hyperlinked listing of my online photography projects dating from the most recent to those dating back to the 1960's. You will also find on the Welcome Page my resume, contact information . . . and much more.