~ Click on Blue Hyperlinked Words to Open Links ~
THIS WELCOME PAGE WAS LAST UPDATED on June 10, 2025
Introduction
Welcome to my photography blog, The Departing Landscape which is dedicated to exploring-- and sharing with you--my creative process in photographic picture-making. You will find on this, the Welcome Page, a Complete Illustrated Listing, in chronological order, of my online photography projects, beginning with the most recently completed projects and including a few early projects dating back to the mid-1960's. Click on the hyperlinked Project Titles to see the complete online projects. A few of the projects contain multiple project pages, each with their own hyperlinked title. I also invite you to visit my Personal History of Photography which is an illustrated biographical chronology of my life experience in photography. For contact information, resume, brief biographical information go to the bottom of this page or, Click Here.
About the Title of My Blog
Many of my photography projects have been directly or indirectly inspired by music. This blog's title The Departing Landscape was taken from a phrase which the great American composer Morton Feldman used to describe how sound leaves us in our hearing as it decays into silence. At the time I initiated this blog, in 2010, I was in the process of completing a large multi-chaptered project entitled The Departing Landscape Project which was preoccupied simultaneously with Morton Feldman's music and the environment (the threat of hydrofracking in New York State, and Climate Change globally). Though I have never considered myself a political artist or activist, and I have consciously avoided gearing my work towards political issues, shortly after we moved from Milwaukee to Canandaigua, NY in 2008, I found myself needing to defend New York State and our entire Planet from dissolution due to man's ignorant, greedy and power hungry ways regarding gas and oil drilling.
There was a time when we could have perhaps turned back the ever quickening process of decay of this beautiful planet; now all we can only hope to slow down the process of deterioration being speeded up daily by continuing and increasing use of and drilling for fossil fuels. The Trump Administration's denial of science and the reality of Climate Change is simply making things much worse for our entire Planet.
Sacred Art
In 2011 I began working on a large multi-chaptered project "An Imaginary Book" which initiated a new thematic direction in my creative process which explores the idea of the sacred in contemporary art practice. The number of Sacred Art Photography Projects has grown rapidly in the the years that followed "An Imaginary Book" and when I revised this introduction to my blog in mid-March 2024 I came to a point where I was tempted to say that every aspect of my photography has been in some way illuminated by grace.
This preoccupation with the Sacred has been the natural unfolding of a growing conscious understanding which has resulted in a merging of my creative process in photography with my practice (since 1987) of Siddha Yoga meditation, when I met Gurumayi Chidvilasananda and experienced her initiating grace during a two day mediation program with her.
Other Thematic-Related Collections of my Photography Projects
Over the past fifty years several thematic trends have asserted their presence in my work across a large number of bodies of work. I have provided below (just before the Complete chronological listing of my photography projects) a list of Collected Theme-Related Projects (including of course the Sacred Art Photography Projects) each with its own hyperlinked "click here" sign that will take you to my continually updated pages of online projects within each of the collected theme-related areas.
Some background information
I began constructing this website in 2010, three years after I retired from teaching Photography as a Fine Art at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (from 1975-2007). In 2008 my wife Gloria and I moved to Canandaigua, NY. In 2012, after exhibiting my work in a commercial gallery in Rochester, NY (click here) I made the decision to discontinue trying to exhibit my work in galleries and museums and instead focus all my creative energies toward the production of new online photography projects published on my blog.
My blog has gradually become for me both an "exhibition space" for my newest work and a digital archive for nearly all of the photography projects I have created over my career, which dates back to 1955, when--at the age of nearly ten years old--I experienced an Epiphany that set me on my path as a photographer. (I have written a brief essay about that life transforming experience, and have included in this introduction, along with two other epiphanic stories.)
Gallery Representation
Though I thought my days of gallery representation and exhibiting had come to an end (and I was content with that because publishing projects on my blog had become so personally satisfying for me), in the spring of 2017 John Sobczak, Director of a new contemporary art gallery in Milwaukee, The Alice Wilds contacted me and insisted that my work should be seen again in Milwaukee. (John had been a student of mine at UW-Milwaukee dating back to the late 1970's.) He was joined in this effort by another student of mine, Jon Horvath. Thus, despite my reluctances I agreed to an exhibition at The Alice Wilds in March and April of 2018, curated by John Sobczak and Jon Horvath, his co-conspirator in this adventure. (Visit my two projects The Rising Sun ~ Prelude To An Exhibition and Postlude To An Exhibition.
(Note: The Alice Wilds permanently closed its doors in mid-April, 2025. The Director of The Alice Wilds, John Sobczak, continues to represent my work and can be contacted at this email address: john@thealicewilds.com )
A Forthcoming Retrospective Exhibition & The Covid Pandemic
My mini-retrospective exhibition at The Alice Wilds gallery in the spring of 2018 apparently initiated a renewed interest in my work in Wisconsin. In the fall of 2019 I was honored in Milwaukee during the October, 2019 Society for Photographic Education's Midwest Chapter Conference as the year's "Honored Educator." After delivering my talk Snapshots: Stories of My Life In Photography & Teaching, and following the closing program of the conference, the SPE Midwest Planning Committee announced (to my surprise) their purchase of two of my photographs which were to be gifted to the Museum of Wisconsin Art; and then Tyler Friedman (Curator of exhibitions at MoWA at the time) walked up on the stage to receive the gift. Then Tyler, to my great surprise, proceeded to make a public announcement to the audience of photo educators that the Museum was planning to present a large retrospective exhibition of my work to be displayed in 2021, with an accompanying publication and the intention to travel the exhibition. ~ A few months later, the Coronavirus Pandemic delayed those plans.
At the end of the Pandemic I felt the strong urge to begin to create an inkjet Print Archive of my favorite blog published images created since 2013 (which is when I decided there was no reason to make prints of all my new work published on my blog). But after suffering the loss of the retrospective exhibition, I regained some hope that perhaps in the future the Museum of Wisconsin Art would consider, once again, the exhibition and publication of my work. Thus between January 2023 and April 2025 I have been engaged with a huge printing project of my personal favorite blog published images in varying formats (12x12", 16x20", 18x18", 21x21") which can be seen at this blog link: The Complete Collection of Inkjet Print Projects 2023-24 & 2025.
"Click on" the Images to Enlarge them
If you are viewing this blog with a desktop computer (or a laptop) all photographs on this page, and on most of my project pages, can be enlarged by clicking on the image once, and once again. The enlarged image will appear sharp and fully luminous within a dark tonal field. (After enlarging an image, click on the left-pointing arrow in the upper left corner of the screen to return to the initial project page. Visit this link to learn More about how to Best View My Online Blog Images.)
Influences ~ Teachers
While I was living in Rochester, NY and going to school at the Rochester Institute of Technology as a photography major (1963-66), I studied with Minor White, and I also took two year-long Home Workshops with Nathan Lyons. At that time Nathan was Director of Exhibitions at George Eastman House, in Rochester, NY; in the early 1970's he would become the founder and director of the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY.
After three years studying photography in Rochester, I went to Chicago and studied with Aaron Siskind and Wynn Bullock while completing my undergraduate degree at the Institute of Design, IIT (1966-68). Then I went to graduate school at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, on a full Teaching Fellowship (1969-72). I studied with Van Deren Coke, Beaumont Newhall and Ray Metzker as a graduate student. In 1974, when I was teaching at Georgia State University, Atlanta with John McWilliams, I was fortunate in being able to spend three days in close contact with one of my photography mentors, Fredrick Sommer.
Other influences include: photographers Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Weston, Gary Winogrand, W. Eugene Smith. Also, many painters have influenced my work, such as Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Giorgio Morandi, Alberto Giacometti and Robert Ryman. (I have created projects directly inspired by Morandi, Giacometti, Klee and Ryman.)
I have also been influenced by writers and scholars including Carl Jung, Henry Corbin, Tom Cheetham, Gaston Bachelard, and the poets Robert Bly, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Francis Ponge. ~ I have dedicated an entire page and many projects to the influence music has had on my work (click here); and in 2018 I created two projects that pays Homage to All My Teachers, and a project dedicated to Minor White, Alfred Stieglitz and Valentin Silvestrov. Several other projects address influences, my education, and much more. (See for example: Snapshots: Stories of My Life In Photography & Teaching / New Mexico Photographs 1971-72 / Makom : Milwaukee "Place" Photography Projects / A Personal History of Photography.)
The Symbolic Photograph
When I was a Graduate student in New Mexico (1969-72) I became close friends with a fellow photography student, Dick Knapp, who introduced me to the ideas and writings of depth psychologist Carl Jung. I then took a class in Mythology which emphasized Jung's psychological-archetypal perspectives. The inherent power of the material covered in that class, the teacher's passion for the material, and Jung's profoundly insightful view of the world and the psyche persuaded me to devote my MFA written thesis to an examination of my creative process in photography in relation to Jung's ideas, especially those regarding the symbol, the archetypes, his study of alchemy, and his theory about synchronicity. Indeed, at that time (1972) I was convinced that synchronicity was at the very center of the power of my creative process, and that a very special image--which I called the symbolic photograph--gave perfect visual form to an unsayable meaning I felt existed both within myself and my world. Today, synchronicity and the symbol remained central concepts regarding my creative process because I know that they are living forms of what I call grace.
I titled my 1972 MFA thesis The Symbolic Photograph : A Means to Self-Knowledge ~ A Jungian Approach to the Photographic Opus. I have outlined the key ideas in the thesis in the following blog page link: Click here.
Despite my spiritual leanings, and my fascination with Jung's ideas, I became discontent with many aspects of my life. Even though I was doing well in my career as a teacher and exhibiting artist, and I was married to a wonderful woman and we had two wonderful children, I began feeling deep inside myself that these things in themselves were not fulfilling me in the way that I had hoped they would. I was longing for something more, and intuitively I sensed that I needed a special kind of teacher, though I could not quite consciously admit this to myself, nor could I have ever imagined how I would find what it was I was longing for.
The 1987 Epiphany
I have since learned that life has a way of giving us what we need if the longing is deep enough and pure enough. I was eventually led--reluctantly at first--to Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, the living head and meditation Master of the Siddha Yoga Path. After I met her in August, 1987, I experienced a series of amazing, life-transforming encounters with her grace, the sacred energy known in Siddha Yoga as chiti shakti. My experiences left no doubt in my mind--and more importantly, in my heart--that I had found my true teacher. ~ Gurumayi, and the practices of Siddha Yoga have had a profound influence on my life and my creative process in photography. I have come to understand that photography, for me, is a form of spiritual practice, a kind of meditation in action. Through my practice of picture-making I have come to a deeper understanding of Gurumayi's teachings, and the yogic scriptures. I have written about my life-transforming experiences with Gurumayi, and the relationships between my practice of photography and the practices of Siddha Yoga in some detail in a multi-chaptered blog project Photography and Yoga and many other photography projects that followed. See my complete listing of the Sacred Art projects.
The 2011 Epiphany
In 2011, while my wife Gloria and I were traveling in Turkey, I had a series of mysterious experiences--what Henry Corbin would define as intuitive, personal visionary experiences, psychic events, encounters with the sacred--all directly related to various forms of Islamic Sacred Art. The most important of these experiences took place in the Turkish and Islamic Art Museum in Istanbul. As I was looking at a collection of old, magnificently illuminated Qur'ans, one of the books seemed to come alive. I experienced this beautiful, sacred book as if it were "breathing." It seemed literally radiant with a self-luminous presence. The book seemed to emit a palpable sacred energy which I felt flowing in and through my body. After that experience, a new level of enthusiasm for art-making flooded my being.
The sacred or divine energy that I experienced in Turkey seemed to be the same energy I experienced in my practice of yoga. I have no doubt, now, that the grace I had received from Gurumayi--since meeting her in 1987--had prepared me, "opened" me, allowed me to be receptive to the sacred presence embodied within that illuminated Qur'an I experienced in Istanbul.
After I got back home and started working on a blog about the trip, it occurred to me, with stunning surprise, that I did not understand the true nature of what is commonly referred to as "sacred art." A deep desire welled up within me, a strong inner conviction: I needed to know what "sacred art" was at its most essential level, and what it must mean for me since I had become obsessed with wanting to understand it. I studied intensely to gain both an historical perspective, but also, more importantly, a deeply personal and conscious relationship with the idea of sacred art through my own creative process in photography.
My studies and contemplations led me to the writings of many wonderful scholars, but the most important ones for me were Henry Corbin--his writings on Sufism, the mystical aspect of Islam, and the writings of Tom Cheetham, whose four contemplative books on Corbin's work helped me to see more clearly the deeper nuances of Corbin's ideas and motivated me to read Corbin's writings directly.
What had begun as a simple travel blog of Turkey slowly blossomed into the very large, ambitious, multi-chaptered project, "An Imaginary Book." This project, which took nearly two years to complete, then unfolded into the continuing and rapidly growing series of related Sacred Art Photography Projects.
*
When I was teaching and exhibiting my work in commercial galleries, I was shy and extremely careful about speaking openly on matters of the spiritual in my work. It was only after meeting Gurumayi in 1987 and practicing Siddha Yoga in a committed enthusiastic way for many years, and after having had many palpable, profoundly transforming experiences of the sacred energy known as citi shakti, that I began to feel some willingness and confidence to speak from personal experience in my blog about my relationship to the sacred through my creative process in photography.
The making of of this blog and the creation of the project "An Imaginary Book" have been two very important and related turning points in my Creative Process. The blog gave me the forum through which I could contemplate, visually explore, and verbally articulate the theme of the sacred within my creative process. This blog has also provided me with an intimate and articulate means of sharing my Creative Process publicly for all to see. I believe that sharing one's Creative Process with others is an essential part of a true, living creative process.
The 1955 Epiphany
When I was nearly ten years of age I experienced a profoundly important moment of self-recognition that directed me to my life's work in photography. One day, in the summer of 1955, my cousin came running excitedly toward me with something he wanted to show me. In his hands--which he held out to me as if in a gesture of offering something very precious to him--were a batch of snapshots he had just gotten back from the drugstore. When I saw those little photographs in his hand I knew instantaneously that I must become, I would become a photographer!
My dad was in the hospital when this happened; he would die a few weeks later. In fact I actually experienced his death in a feverish dream-like state the night he passed away. (see story #5) A few months later, I received--as a Christmas present I had asked for from my mom--a darkroom kit with which I could process my own film and make little contact prints from my negatives. I set up a temporary darkroom in the basement and from that moment on took refuge in photography and my creative process.
It is quite clear to me, now, that photography had come to me, spontaneously, as a sacred gift blessed with a divine presence, or what I generally refer to as grace. Photography filled the space of my absent father; it took me out of a small town in Indiana and into an unlikely world of art galleries, museums, and universities; and I believe it helped me find my way to my true teacher, Gurumayi and the Siddha Yoga Path.
See my online chronology A Personal History of Photography for more detailed and illustrated accounts of my life in photography. (Links to my Resume, Contact information and a Brief Bio are provided at the bottom of this Welcome Page.)
Gratitude
In the many profoundly personally meaningful experiences that have graced me over the past seventy years, I can sense an overarching connection between those things; an overarching meaning and direction they have provided me, my life. Since meeting Gurumayi I have come to realize that grace has constantly been transforming my life in the most profound ways, and this recognition has made me all the more grateful for the love and support I have received from my wife Gloria and our two children, my friends and students, my teachers, the practices of Siddha Yoga, and my creative process in photography. For all of this I am profoundly grateful.
Thank you for visiting my blog. I warmly invite you to view any (and all) of my projects listed below. Your participation in the work is an important, integral part of my Creative Process.
Steven D Foster
revised: April 29, 2025
Book Twelve Image #11 (12x12 inkjet print) (New March 2025) (Also 18x18")
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