Hi John! .
~Please view this on your laptop or desktop so you can enlarge
each image and see it in a dark tonal viewing environment
~ Any formatting and gammatical issues will be corrected later.
~Each image has a project I. D. number, but the numbers do not necessarily
appear in their sequential order due to my constant editing.
~The N before the I.D. number indicates that the symmetrical image was constructed
or printed specifically for this project (which I began in Mid-December 2025).
~The P indicates the image had been made prior to that date.
I have introduced a new print size for this project: 15x15" on 20x24" paper
~ The introduction and Epilogue are still works in progress
~Thanks for taking a look. Comments of all kinds are welcome.
~ I know I have failed already at Gloria's request to use fewer words.
Homage to
M. C. Escher
&
Waldemar Januszczak's
film
"MANNERISM"
Art's Wildest Movement
(1520-1590)
Welcome to my new blog project,
a "Wonder Room"
filled with Many Photographic Curiosities
Introduction
I did not see this Homage project coming. There have been many other projects that have emerged for me from a deep sense of respect and gratitude to the artists and subjects I love, an appreciation that had evolved over a long period of time. This project, on the contrary, was completely unexpected and and it took me totally by surprise thanks to a synchronistic falling-together-in-time that was extraordinarily meaningful to me in a very personal way: the juxtaposition of two consecutive videos I saw in mid-January, 2026: Robin Lutz's excellent film, made in 2021, entitled M.C. Escher ~ Journey to Infinity and Waldemar Januszczak's wonderful new three part video Art's Wildest Movement: MANNERISM.
Amazon had emailed me an announcement that I received right after watching Journey to Infinity, informing me that I might like to see Januszcsak's new series on Mannerism which Amazon had just added to their video website. I had purchased the Journey to Infinity after seeing it on Amazon.com when it first came out in 2023. And I decided to watch it again in January, 2026 because of a few pictures I had included in my Humor project, images of an upside-down stairways* that reminded me of the many images Escher had made of infinitely unfolding and circling stair steps.
(*This project's title image, above and the three symmetrical variations on that image are the first four images in my collection of photographs below: see Images #1A-1D)
I have made many many homage project: in 1972 I fulfilled my MFA written thesis requirement by paying homage to photographers Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Weston, and the "Father" of depth psychology, Carl Jung and his work on the structure of the psyche, the unified psyche (which he had termed the Self), the True nature of Symbols, and -- at the very heart of my thesis -- Jung's theories on Synchronicity.
I have also paid homage to many composers, musicians (Morton Feldman, Steve Lacy and Thelonious Monk) and painters (Morandi and Robert Ryman). I have made projects in Homage to poet Robert Bly's essay on Thing or Object poems published in his book "News of the Universe." I have paid homage to the sculptor/painter Giacometti, a meadow, a woods, a garden and parks, and I have paid homage to Angels, Ghosts, a River, a Lake, a water fall, a brook, and snow; and I devoted a project in homage to my family life, my practice of Siddha Yoga, and Colemen Barks' wonderful translations of Rumi poems and Landinsky's translations of poems by Hafiz . . . and more. (See the complete list of my Homage blog projects.)
But this project is different from the others. There is a different kind of "wildness" in the imagery, thanks to Januszczak's enthusiastic, funny and yet dead serious three part video series on Mannerism, which was particularly dear to his heart because of his first love, as a child, for the art of the Mannerist painter El Greco, the 16th century painter who used bright colors and elongated figures in his paintings which fascinated the young Januszczak and directed him to his life's work as an Art Historian.
Also, this project is different for me in the way that I use titles with certain images which could possibly make the image resonate in the minds of viewers with social, political and environmental overtones, issues I am very concerned with.
In the last ten days of January 2026, as I struggled to write this introduction, I was also being deeply moved by the horrible reports of another innocent civilian being violently attacked and murdered--shot dead multiple times--by federal agents. Two needless killings in less than two weeks!!! The news and images that are being shown and written about all day long, about how the most vulnerable and innocent people are being attacked, badly damaged physically and emotionally . . . and even being killed by our own Federal Government, breaks my heart. I could never have imagined this could happen in this county though I know now that are many problems that must be addressed when we at last move out of this insane mess this administration has created. Nonetheless, there is definitely a sense now that the People, and more elected politicians, are beginning to unite in a powerful way against the current administration that seems to want to become a full-fledged Oligarchical or Authoritarian Government. Currently we see and hear nothing but lies and misinformation as both state and federal laws and our constitutional rights are being completely ignored and abused.
*
So this new project has been both a kind of refuge for me and at the same time a way to photographically "speak out" in ways I had never before felt necessary or appropriate in my work. However, and very importantly, the past difficult year 2025 is one of the things that has helped me bond with M. C. Escher (1898-1972) who had himself experienced--multiple times--similar situations in his life.
Regarding M.C. Escher
Robin Lutz's excellent film, M.C. Escher ~ Journey to Infinity made in 2021, provided me with a deeper and more personal way to appreciate the life Escher lived, the ideals he pursued, and in particular his love of his wife Jetta and his love of Islamic Art which began to blossom for him when he first visited the Alhambra, in Granada, Spain in 1922 . . . followed by a second visit in 1936 with his wife Jetta.
The film brings Esher's work quite literally to life, and it clearly explains (visually and in Escher's own words) his deep fasciation with the overwhelming number of non-figurative, interlocking-repeating geometric and floral images that pervades the Alhambra, images which in most cases celebrate the divine idea of the Infinite. The film also gives an intimate account of how Escher moved through the world as a very introverted artist with the many personal challenges he had been faced with in his life.
The film made me aware that he and I have shared some very similar kinds of art making interests including Perceptual ambiguity, Image Repetition, Symmetry, and the concepts of Unity, Infinity and Endlessness . . . Above all, Escher was interested in connecting or uniting things together; or, said another way, "closing the circle".
His lithograph Bond of Union (see below), which is a 1956 portrait of himself and his first wife Jetta reveals Escher's deep love of the woman who had suffered sever mental health problems throughout her entire life, most probably related to her family's forced departure from Russia in 2017, when she was a young woman. At the age of 23, while her family was living in Finland, she experienced near starvation and the slaughter of many people close to her. Her family moved to Italy in 2022 and she and Escher met in Italy in 2023. Pictures of her made in Italy at that time show her as being noticeably emaciated. Escher and Jetta married in 2024 and lived relatively happily in Italy until the growing oppression of Mussolini's rule forced them to leave the country and move to Switzerland in 1935.
Escher and Jetta moved to the Netherlands in 1941 due to the rising pressures of World War II. Then they separated in 1968 when she left her home with Escher in the Netherlands to live with their youngest son who lived in Switzerland. Escher died in 1970; Jetta passed away in 1987. I suspect Escher's introverted nature and his primary focus on his art work must have provided him with some refuge from all the trauma he and Jetta had to live through. However Jetta's constant and deepening battle with her depression probably was exacerbated by Escher's introversion and fixation on his art work. (See this article on the hidden emotions in Escher's work)
Escher Bond of Union 1956 Lithograph
The 1948 woodcut (below) by Escher, entitled Stars is related to Bond of Union in the way that the two images conjoin opposites (male-female in Bond, and mythic/alchemical Lizard-like natural forms with mathematical-geometrical forms in Stars). Also, in both images everything is suspended in dark cosmic space with an infinite number of different sized balls in Bond (atoms? planets? worlds?), and in Stars we see different sized geometrical shapes.
Escher "Stars" 1948 Woodcut
Escher was fascination with image repetition and the metamorphosis of one image into another. In the 1953 lithograph entitled "Relativity" (below)--one of many of Escher's prints which employ the "stairs motif"-- the viewer is tested in his or her ability to be aware of what is unfolding before their eyes while at the same time the brain and the "eyeballs" are being tickled (or agitated) with irrational, impossible, ambiguous-puzzling space-time imagery.
Escher "Relativity" 1953 Lithograph
Escher "Sky and Water I" 1938 Woodcut
Regarding my own Creative Process
If you are not familiar with my work, I invite you to visit my two blog projects Triadic Memories and "An Imaginary Book" which explore many of the same kinds of visual problems in which Escher was interested.
In Triadic Memories (2003-007) I became fascinated with image repetition. In some pieces I present the viewer with various kinds of ambiguous perceptual challenges which Escher pursued constantly throughout his life, as in his 1953 lithograph, "Relativity," and his 1938 woodcut "Sky and Water I" (immediately above).
I particularly like "Sky and Water" for it's simple, elegant, graphic and symmetrical organization, its tonal inversions and subject matter transformations (the dark birds against a light ground transforming into light fish against a dark ground) all of which happens before our eyes simultaneously. I use tonal inversions frequently in my work and you will see several examples of it in the collection of photographs I have presented below for this project.
In my "An Imaginary Book" (2011-13) I explore image repetition mostly in the form of four-fold symmetrical imagery. Like Escher, I too became fascinated with image repetition in the Islamic Sacred art that I not only saw but experienced internally when Gloria and I visited Turkey in 2011. It was my experience of the Sacred Art of Islam in Turkey which inspired me to begin making symmetrical photographs and publish them in my multiple-chaptered blog project An Imaginary Book.
I devoted the entire year after my visit to Turkey to research at first on the theme of Sacred Art in general. But I pretty quickly focused on Islamic Sacred Art which I had felt strongly attracted to and then became totally absorbed in. My research had ignited a flame to visit Spain, for I had become crazed with the desire to experience for myself the Alhambra, and the Great Mosque of Cordoba which I had read so much about.
"An Imaginary Book" became my first project in a long series of projects which were to become essentially a contemplation on the idea of Sacred Art within a contemporary art context. (See my large collection of Sacred Art Photography Projects.)
*
My interest in Sacred Art did not just come out of the clear blue sky! I loved the photographs and stories I had encountered about Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston in my first few years of college in the Photo program at RIT (Rochester, NY) in the early 1960's. I was impreseed with their ideas about the photograph as equivalent and the essential nature that lived inside objects and things. I visited the cloud photographs of Stieglitz and Weston's Green Pepper nearly every week when I journeyed to Eastman House for my History of Photography lectures by Beaumont Newhall.
In graduate school I became inspired by Carl Jung's work on the structure of the psyche, his concept of a Unitary Reality in which the fractured parts of the psyche became united in what he termed the Self (which was the same termed used by the yogic masters I have studied). Jung's deep research into archetypal imagery, alchemy, Symbols, and Synchronicity became the primary themes of my MFA written thesis requirement at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque (1969-72) which was entitled The Symbolic Photograph A Means to Self Knowledge.
Siddha Yoga & Symbolic Photographs
In 1987 Gloria and I were invited (by one of Gloria's sisters) to take a two-day meditation program with Gurumayi Chivilasananda at her ashram in New York State. On the second day of the intensive I had a very intense visceral experience of Gurumayi's grace, the divine energy that pervades Inner divine Self which dwells in the Human Heart. It was quite literally an experience of the Oneness of Being.
Immediately after the intensive I began to meditate and study the teachings of the Siddha Yoga Masters on a daily basis. This quite naturally led to the integration of my practice of Siddha Yoga with my practice of photographic picture-making. The desire to make Symbolic Photographs became more expansive after I had several experiences of Gurumayi's grace. I came to understand that True Symbolic photographs are pervaded a subtle radiance and an unknowable kind of meaning that had more to do with the grace of my Creative Process and much less to do with what I thought I knew and understood.
I believe it was my practice of Siddha Yoga and Gurumayi's grace that had prepared me for all that I would experience in Turkey in 2011 and then my deep appreciation for the Alhambra when I visited it in 2012, which later was mostly what had attracted me to look more closely at Escher's work after seeing the film Journey to Infinity.
A really strong Symbolic Photograph, and especially the very best of the Symmetrical photographs, which are quite literally visual embodiments of grace are profoundly important to me in the way that they help keep me connected to and conscious of the many experiences of grace which I have been blessed to receive from Gurumayi.
"MANNERISM"
I was not really familiar with the Art Movement (1520-1590) known as Mannerism until mid-January, 2026 when I initiated this project after seeing Waldemar Januszczak's remarkable series of three hour long videos (2024-25) entitled Art's Wildest Movement: MANNERISM. I had known the painters El Greco and Arcimboldo, two of the greatest of the Mannerists, but I did not have a sense of the importance of the movement itself.
The "Mannerist" movement originated in Italy around 1520 and then later it moved into France and Prague and the Netherlands--where, interestingly, M.C. Escher grew up and where after many years of traveling the world and trying to avoid several horrible wars, he returned to the Netherlands in 1941 and lived there until his death in 1972.
Essentially "Mannerism" was a reaction to the naturalism and harmonious ideas of the High Renaissance Masters, the instability of the Protestant Reformation, and the 1527 eight day plunder of Rome by the mutinous troops of the Roman Emperor Charles V. With the Mannerists' rejection of naturalism they had permission to get totally "wild" (Januszczak's word) with their new, fresh, unusual and at times "crazy" (Januszczak's word) artistic innovations.
Januszczak's videos takes us on a wonderful visual journey to the places and the original Mannerist works--of many diverse kinds--he loves so much; he provides us with wonderful commentary on the historical, social and political contexts in which the movement took place, and he intimately shares with us his childhood fascination with the colorful elongated figures of El Greco which initiated his love of art and his life as an art historian.
Regarding My "Quirky" Photographs
I recognized in many of the things Januszczak talked about in his Mannerism video series certain aspects of my own work which I had always been curious about: those photographs that I had come to refer to as Quirky (image which seemed to me oddball, spontaneous, unexpected, unusual, crazy) and perhaps in some cases imagery which I had unconsciously carried within myself--imagery that expressed the anger and frustration I was feeling with the world in which I was living . . . in the "Age" (or Yuga) known in yogic traditions as Kalie Yuga. (Visit my Kalie Yuga blog project)
My Quirky images have often seemed to function for me on the very far fringes of what I had aspired to create in my more "sacred" art work. Nonetheless the Quirky images did have a vital kind of life, a sense of freshness in their own strange way. I especially enjoy the ineffable and unknowable, unsayable meanings . . . of the Quirky images which, in certain ways, is not unlike the way True living Symbols function for me. I like they way some of the Quirky images can be wonderfully disarming in a certain ineffable way. And, of course, that was largely what Mannerism was very much about.
A Mannerist portrait ,by Arcimboldo
Like many things that begin as new, strange and challenging to a culture, and then become absorbed by the culture in a suffocating way by the strict boundaries of a cultural's conventions, Januszczak elaborates on how Mannerist art began to be collected by the wealthy for their odd, eccentric and exotic differences because the Mannerist period (1520-1590) was a time when new worlds of information had become accessible from new places never before known or seen; it was a time when new things began to appear and attract attention for their unknown qualities. Thus it had gradually become all the rage for the very rich to present entire "Wonder Rooms" (and even entire buildings!) full of Mannerist art. Eventually it became popular for people of less wealth and prestige to collect small, strange and fascinating objects and present them in their Curiosity Cabinets.
A "Wonder Room" full of "Curiosities"
It seems to me my project has turned out to be something like a Curiosity Cabinet, or Wonder Room filled with my carefully selected Quirky works; and in that regard I am content, even delighted to say that I have come to consider M.C. Escher himself as a Mannerist -- though certainly he never did think of himself in that way. He thought of himself as a "mathematician," and pursued his work, more like a scientist. Despite how popular his art became for the 1960's hippy generation . . . I believe Escher deserves to be better understood and appreciated. So if you haven't already seen this film, I hope you will view M.C. Escher ~ Journey to Infinity
Regarding the Two Parts of my Project
I have presented my work for this project in two parts. In Part One I have decided to present only Symmetrical photographs which in large part serves as my homage to Escher and his love of image repetition, symmetry, unity and endlessness . . . the Infinite.
My symmetrical images are quite literally constructed images which unite four repeated images into a unified whole, images often filled with surprising and wonderful quirky transformations. And, as I said earlier, and what is especially important to me about Symmetrial images: at there very best, they are quite literally images celebrating the spiritual idea of the Oneness of Being. And in that respect those kinds of images definitely function for me as True, living Symbols.
When you see Escher's work and then hear what he has to say about himself as a artist, it is surprising that he did not view his work from the perspective of an artist. He could not understand the popularity of his work by the Hippy Movement in the mid 1960's and early 70's. He allowed others to color his works and use them in commercially attracive supped-up ways. Escher was little phased by this perhaps because when necessary he did commercial graphic art to make money.
I sense a spiritual presence in some of Escher's works, but I'm not aware that Escher ever saw his work in that way. I can't help but wonder if his interest Islamic works of decorative art was in part due to an unconscious or intuitive identification with the great spiritual traditions of Islamic Sacred Art which he had awakened to during his first visit to the Alhambra and then his return again in 1936.
I had first discovered the power of repeating patterns in my own work while making Chromatic Fields under the influence of the contemporary music of American composter Morton Feldman whose work was inspired by the Turkish rugs he loved and collected. I began making symmetrical photographs after I traveled to Turkey in 2011 in hopes of understanding Feldman's music.
I learned, as did Escher that it was much more practical and efficient to create pattern fragments for my Chromatic Fields which could then be easily connected together into larger visual fields. In the film Journey to Infinity we get to see Escher of work using this technique to create his late, 1969 woodcut print entitled Snakes (presented here, below):
This image relates in some obvious ways to the 1956 Bond of Union (which I showed earlier above). The snake itself is quite meaningful to anyone who has studied alchemy or most any of the yogic paths being practiced today, for the snake represents the the sacred, purifying and transforming energy known as Kundalini Shakti, which is said to lay asleep in a coiled-up position near the base of the spine until it becomes awakened (by grace). Once awakened this mysterious and ultimately Creative divine energy travels up the human body along the area that runs parallel to the spinal cord, purifying the many subtle energy centers called chakras as it continues upwards toward the top of the head, where it at last completes its difficult upward journey by merging with the chakra that resides there.
In the yoga I practice, the inner divine Self which is said to exists in every human heart, becomes be fully realized when the yogi's mind and the Human Heart merge into each other, usually after many years of spiritual practice and with the blessings of grace from a Siddha Guru. I think Escher's image Snakes could be interpreted in this spiritual sense. Indeed, the image literally represents the phenomena of merging, as does many of Escher's metamorphosing works . . which are often mesmerizing and magical images representing The Oneness of Being.
*
Regarding Escher's love of mathematics, patterns, and Islamic Art, I want to present below a quote I had used several times in my "Imaginary Book". The words are by Keith Critchlow, author of the book entitled Islamic Patterns An Analytical and Cosmological Approach:
Islam’s concentration on geometric patterns [which are based upon mathematical laws of repetition] draws attention away from the representational world to one of pure forms, poised tensions and dynamic equilibrium, giving structural insight into the workings of the inner self and their reflection in the universe.
The circle is the archetypal governing basis for all the geometric shapes that unfold within it . . . reflecting the unity of its original source, the point, the simple, self-evident origin of geometry and a subject grounded in mystery.
The circle has always been regarded as a symbol of eternity, without beginning and without end, just being . . . In the effort to trace origins in creation, the direction is not backwards but inwards.
Speaking of circles you will probably notice that there are lots of circles in the photographs I have included in this project; indeed, I have ofter referred to my symmetrical images as "circular" (or round) images. I have even understood in certain moments of lucidity that the square format I use most of the time in my work is in actuality a "round" format.
*
I want to conclude this Part One section about my project, with two quotes: the first one is by Escher that was used at the very end of the film M.C. Escher ~ Journey to Infinity:
I pursue a vision that cannot be realized. My prints that were made with the primary aim of making something beautiful, simply cause me headaches. That is why I never feel fully at home amongst my [artist] colleagues. They pursue beauty first and foremost. Perhaps I only pursue wonder.
The second quote is by Januszczak which he uses at the beginning of each of the three parts of his video series Art's Wildest Movement: MANNERISM:
"Between 1520 and 1590 a new movement appeared in art.
It produced art that was strange, wild and inventive.
And it filled the world with wonders"
* * *
Part Two of my project consists of mostly Straight Photographs, though many are anything but straight-forward recordings of what was in front of the camera's lens when I made the exposure. I love to transform my "straight" images--and every other kind of image I make--for I love the idea of Re-vision; indeed I have often made multiple transformed versions or variations of some of my most favorite source images --those images I have used for constructing the four-fold symmetrical photographs.
I must add here that, though I use the term "I" often when I talk about my creative process-- usually I do not feel like the one doing the real creative work. It's most often a spontaneous impulse that wells up from within me that generates "my" most meaningful works; thus I become the messenger or facilitator and Witness of what the grace of my Creative Process wants to manifest. This being the case, I am usually as astonished as other viewers when I see the end results of "my" Creative Process. In the yoga I practice, it is said that the Human Heart is the interior source for everything that we perceive in the outer world. The Heart, then, is the True source of grace, or what I call inspiration; and it is the grace (or shakti) that dwells in the Heart that manifests the images in the outer form of photographs, images which function for me as True, living Symbols.
I have, like the Mannerists, and their collectors, included in this project many straight images, and many images of many kinds of subjects . . . many kinds of Things and types of photographs including, for example: abstract portraits of people, faint or out-of- focus pictures of animals and people, large pictures of small insects; ghosts & angels & nature sprites . . . even images that narrate emotionally charged personal stories based in mythological archetypes . . . and . . . well, "whatever else" you may discover in this "Cabinet of Curiosities" on your own, images that invoke--for you--in you--a sense of Wonder.
(I happen to especially like the type of images that at first appear to describe something, and then--when looked at more closely, may be difficult to see, understand, or identify with a name or with lots and lots of words. It this regard I'd like to warn my viewers to take with "a grain of salt" anything I say about my work. What's most important is what you receive from your own contemplations of any work of art, no matter who made it or what the artist or any one else says about it.)
* * *
I will conclude this Introductory Statement with the words Januszczak uses at the conclusion of the third and last part of his video series on Mannerism:
Mannerism had many faces. [Some perverse but also some sublime.] . . . Mannerism "did" many things: it did "fear" and "love", "anger" and "religion," "mythology" and "sex." And it did all of them in new ways . . . It jumped so happily from medium to medium . . . and from small to very large [for example from jewelry to sculpture to architecture] . . . Was there ever an art movement that achieved as much on as many fronts as Mannerism? No, I don't think so.
A brief note regarding "How to Best View My Blog-Published Images"
If you are viewing this project on a desktop computer or a laptop, I encourage you to click on the images once, then once again; this hopefully will 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. You can then use your zoom-in & zoom-out options to adjust the image size, and you can darken or lighten the screen brightness with keyboard controls (or file menu options) to suite your particular viewing preferences in relation to your computer. For a further explanation, or if clicking on the images don't place you in the alternate viewing space, please visit this blog page for additional technical options: How to Best View My Online Blog Project Images
Additional information:
Each image in the project exists as an inkjet print made with the highest quality paper and inks. ~ The size of the print is given under the image on the far right side. ~ And each image has an I.D. # which I have placed under the far left side of image. However, please don't concern yourself with the numerical progression, as it is often broken due to editorial decisions I have made in the process of changing the project's ordering of the images within its vertical sequence. ~ Images that were created and printed new and specifically for this project has the letter N preceding the ID number; and Images that were made and printed prior to the creation of this project will have the letter P preceding the ID number. ~ I have provided a title for each image on the second line beneath the image, in "Italics and in quotation marks" and I have--when it seemed necessary or at least helpful--included some commentary under selected images and provided links to some of my other related projects. ~ Welcome to the project. SF
Part One:
The Symmetrical
Photographs
________________________________________
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#1A Inkjet print, straight photograph 12x12"
"Upside-down stairs"
(a straight photograph turned upside down)
This image, from my early
served as the Source image for the 4 symmetrical variations I've presented below.
And it was this image which initiated the idea for this project in mid-December, 2025 shortly after
I watched again the excellent film: MC Escher - Journey to Infinity which I had purchased on
Amazon.com after seeing it the first time in October, 2023.
The image above (#1A) and the image below (#1B) were published in early December, 20205 in my Humor
12x12" Inkjet Print blog project simply because it reminded me of M C Escher's black and white prints.
Though the images are not so humorous, they do bring a smile upon my face when I study them
Closely. I am charmed by the perceptual surprise they quietly present--the way they appear
to be simultaneously "up right" and "upside down." I find myself going up & down
& around in circles as I study this and the other image variations below. Together
they seemed to have sparked all the new pictures you will be seeing after them.
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#1B Symmetrical Photograph 12x12"
"Circular Upside-down Staircase . . .
Infinitely ascending and descending"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#1C Symmetrical Photograph 12x12"
(90% rotation of Image #1B, "Upside-down Circular Staircase")
("Flying" or "Winged" Staircase)
"Concrete Bridge" (structural details--Vertical version)
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#17 Symmetrical Photograph 21x21"
"A Man Falling off a ladder into the starry sky"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#5 Symmetrical Photograph 12x12"
"Constellations of stars in infinite space"
(Constellations of road salt on a black surface)
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#18 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"A Nocturnal Mystery (with four heads or eyes or moons) hovering over Lake Michigan"
(This image of Lake Michigan on Milwaukee shores was made in 30 degrees below zero weather.
The camera malfunctioned, and leaking light transformed the film's latent image
with an unexpected light.)
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#19 Symmetrical Photograph 15x15
"Angel Wings"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#6 Symmetrical Photograph 15x15"
"A Blur of Whirling Sufi Dancers"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#7 Symmetrical Photograph 15x15"
"Road Curb, and Light reflected in Rain Puddles"
Stack%20of%20Wood%20Palets%20with%20stripes%20of%20sunlight%20and%20shadow%20%20%20copy.jpg)
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#2 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"Light & shadow-streaked stacks of wood pallets"
This photograph is a mystery for me. When I came upon the digital file
I had made of this image made originally on black and white film
it excited me and I knew immediately that it would make a
strong symmetrical image for this project. The stacks
of light & shadow streaked wood pallets reminded
me of my favorite Escher woodcut prints that
I had seen in one of four books I owned.
I have not been about to find that published image!
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#3-H Symmetrical Photograph 15x15"
"Concrete Bridge (structural details, Horizontal version)"
The vertical version of this image was presented above.
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#23 Symmetrical Photograph 15x15"
"Shooting hoops alone at the neighborhood school playground"
"Industrial Park Fenced-off Space"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#22 Symmetrical Photograph 15x15"
"Garage facade with basketball hoop & backboard"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#4 Symmetrical Photograph 12x12"
"Street scene with tree branches in the foreground; parked cars in the background"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#31 Symmetrical Photograph 15x15"
"Dancing tree shadows"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#8 Symmetrical Photograph 15x15"
"Fishing Poles & lines suspended over circling waters"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#9 Symmetrical Photograph 15x15"
Dogs running up and down the sand dunes
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#10 Symmetrical Photograph 15x15"
"Shadow Truck with eight rimed tires"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#11 Symmetrical Photograph 15x15"
"Long White Hooded Figure with a short dark shadow"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#12 Symmetrical Photograph 15x15"
"Man Entangled in a web of his own making"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#42 Symmetrical Photograph 15x15"
"Symmetrical "Dream Portrait" with an image painted by Rousseau of a man and his hand." (photo collage)
Homage to Escher N#15 Symmetrical Photograph 15x15"
Children at play ~ Reaching-For & Holding-Up "The Big Ball"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#14 Symmetrical Photograph 15x15"
"Man covering his face with one hand; his other hand is
placed upon the soaped store window with the spider-like shadows"
I was about to take a picture of the soaped-up window with the shadows
when the man unexpected struck that pose for me.
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#65 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"Black and White Birds Flying in a Positive / Negative Grid formation"
"Black and White Birds forming a circle in flight"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#119 Two-fold Symmetrical Photograph 15x15"
A tree in Maine's Acadia National Park with a Strange frightening Angelic Presence"
I find this photograph both funny and frightening. I included the image in my
project Angelic Presence.
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"Meadow-Fog Fantasy"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#21 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"Chatham Lane houses in the fog--
viewed from inside the meadow"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#20 Two Fold Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"Ghost of the Hudson River Duality"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#26 Symmetrical Photograph 16x20
"People standing together looking directly into
'The BIG Flash of Light'"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#25 Two Fold Symmetrical Photograph 16x20"
"Man-ghost standing in a box contemplating his lived life
looking through dual circular mirrors . . . or are they rings of fire?"
"Young boys looking down into the Universe"
%20x%2017%22(w)%20Symm%20%20rainbow%20colored%20arms%20&%20hads%20above,%20dark%20below%20%20%20IMG_9209%20%20copy.jpg)
Double-Symmetrical Photograph
"Rainbow colored arms & hands--left and right sides;
and in the middle . . .
Only hands are visible; the arms are in dark boxes "
"A Bus Driver Encounters His Double in Costa Rica"
After I took this picture I hear a God-awful scream coming from one
After I took this picture I hear a God-awful scream coming from one
of the sleeping quarters. It was a woman's scream and when we
all ran to see what was going on, she showed us the large
snake that had coiled up inside the room near the door.
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#29 Symmetrical Photograph 12x12"
"Fish Under Water--Conjoined"
"Ancient Cave-like Paintings
discovered by grandparents on the inside
surface of their picture window"
There are only a few days in the spring each year when the sun
hits our picture window just at the right angle to illuminate
all this kind of cave-art-like markings.
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#58 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"Chair Shadows in the warm light of Fall"
"Four Suspended Blue Birds"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#40 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"Sea Lions swimming in the light on their stomachs, sides, & on their backs"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#137 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"Rose hips, shadows and flies"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#30 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"Bird Shadows on Venation Blinds with Light Streaks, and
a window in the background revealing blue sky"
"Mythic Birds & Mythic Cats--Conjoined"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#68 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"An Unnamed Mythic Creature of the woods--with two heads and many eyes"
See my project In the Woods
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#69 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"Sunlight and shadows on sand forming a circular symmetrical disk"
"A Butterfly's Expanding Pulsating Light on a Garden's Stone Path"
"Ritual Circle in the Snow"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#100 Symmetrical Photograph 15x15"
"Meadow Plants in snow forming a path to infinite space & light"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#99 Four-fold Symmetrical Faint Photograph 15x15"
"Two Meadow Plants in the snow longing to connect and close the circle"
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Homage Escher & Mannerism P#90 Symmetrical Photographs 21x21"
"How tall is this water falls?" (A miniature water garden in the Alhambra, Spain)
There are four repeated waterfalls in this four-fold symmetrical photograph.
As I remember it the one falls that was in the miniature garden was
between 12-18" hight.
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#88 Symmetrical Photograph 21x21"
"Fish Feeding Time in an Alcatraz pond" (green eyes in the center version)
(Visit my project Crystalline Paradise: Moorish Spain)
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#89 Symmetrical Photograph 21x21"
"Khidr: Earth Angel, Green Man"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#85 Symmetrical Photograph 21x21"
"Maple Tree Limbs & Leaves in vertical flight toward a powder blue sky"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#64 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"Young Fig Tree growing inside a basement corner"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#91 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"The Blue Angel of Tears"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#39 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"Angelic Lyre"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#87 Quirky Symmetrical Photographs 21x21"
"Mysteriously Dark Meadow Landscape with a Purple Sky"
"Shepherds resting in a blue shadow on a rocky hill with One Large Cloud on the horizon"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#54 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"Illuminated still life inside a shadow"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#55 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"Shadow Tourists Wandering Among Vatican Columns"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#70 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"Pompeii Figures Under Glass with reflections of light"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#55 Symmetrical Photograph 16x20"
"Old Broken Garage suspended in black space"
I have been suspending things is black space since 2001 and the concept then, and that still
remains for me today is that black space represents silence, both in music and in the
most sacred of all spaces, the Human Heart. What we are now witnessing
in Minnesota by ICE agents---by orders from of our National Government
as a whole . . . is Heart Breaking.
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#56 Symmetrical Photograph 15x15"
"Young Father & Son in a room illuminated with florescent lights and an open door"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#57 Symmetrical Photograph 16x20"
"Lamp Shades & an Infinite progression of Shadows"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#138 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
(Air vents in the likeness of a Shiva Nataraja statue)
Visit my Photography and Yoga project
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#50 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"Bedside Lamp and shadows"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#49 Symmetrical Photograph 15x15"
"Double Chandeliers with dimmed lights, Conjoined"
"A Ceramic Bowl opening--revealing its interior light"
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Homage Escher & Mannerism P#51 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"Winter Fantasy--Silver World
(Sunrise over ice covered bush limbs)"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#84 Symmetrical Photograph 21x21"
"The Witnessing Eye"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#52 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"Windswept Pompeii Piazza"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#59 Symmetrical Photograph 16x20"
"The secret language of meadow plants in snow"
"Two red lipped Stones thinking about each other"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#67 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"Pink Goldfish in a blue pond"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#63 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"Ice forms on an overhead Skylight Window"
"Frozen Fingers pointing toward cracks in the iced-over pond"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#60 Symmetrical Photograph 16x20"
"Four Black and White Negative/Positive Headless figures walking into the raining sky"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#61 Symmetrical Photograph 16x20"
"Morning Ghosts wandering around the Anchorage Alaska Airport"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#62 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"Figure standing on her toes in Death Valley"
"Dissolution in Fire"
Visit my project: Creation-Dissolutionn of A World
Visit my project: Creation-Dissolutionn of A World
"Maya's Terrifying Mask of Illusion in the Age of Kali Yuga"
Visit my two related projects:
&
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#120 Symmetrical Photograph 21x21"
"Niagara Falls: Ball of water with two masked figures"
Visit my project: Falling Water
"Silver World Snow Sprite"
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#28 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"River Sprites playing near a water falls"
from my project "River Songs"
"Leaves falling into the River"
Visit my project: River Songs
"Suspended South Meadow over an Orange Sunset with some blue clouded sky"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#38 Symmetrical Photograph 21x21"
"The Mask of Circles over Infinity"
Islamic Sacred Art is often about the Infinite, endlessness, the eternal divine Presence.
See my blog project: "An Imaginary Book" and in particular the chapter Infinite Beauty : Texts
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#102 Symmetrical Photograph 21x21"
"Circular Sacred Garden"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#137 Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"Rock Flower" with Turquoise gems at its center"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#104 Symmetrical Photograph 21x21"
"Angel of the Blue Forest"
"Blue Angelic Presence"
Part Two
The "Straight" Photographs
Mostly "Mannerist" "Strange"
"Oddball" Images
including:
Portraits, images of Animals, Insects
. . . all kinds of Things . . .
. . . ghosts, angels, mythological characters, whatever . . .
_______________________________________________________
leaving%20the%20tent%20%20%20copy.jpg)
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#73 Photograph (out of focus) 18x18"
"A Weary Elephant slowly leaving the tent"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#78 Faint Photograph 18x18"
"A Running Bull about to die in the Foggy Fading Departing Landscape"
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Homage Escher & Mannerism P#79 Faint Photograph 18x18"
"Departing Grasshopper"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#80 Faint Photograph 18x18"
"Two conjoined Geckos on a white wall in a dark restaurant in Cost Rico"
(The Flash on my camera went off when I took this picture)
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#97 Two-fold symmetrical photo 18x18"
"A Net-less Basketball Hoop with an Automobile Tire on top of it . . . and it double"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#96 Basketball Hoop with Cut Net 18x18"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#101 Inkjet print 18x18"
"White electric cord emerging from the surrounding darkness"
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Homage Escher & Mannerism P#86 Neg /Pos Photograph 18x18"
"A Swan, swimming in light, under a diamond suspended in darkness"
"Abstract Portrait with Eclipsed Circles & Crossed Lines"
"Negative / positive Circled / lined image of a human skull"
(To see more Line-Drawing Portraits visit my project
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#83 Inkjet print 21x21"
"Moon & Birds on telephone lines"
This is a chromatic field image that has been circled and tonally inversed.
%20(Stone%20snow,%20red%20plant,%20wood%20planks)%20%20IMG_8246%20%20copy.jpg)
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#7123 Straight Inkjet print Photograph 18x18"
"The Witnessing Eye"
(Stone with dark "eye", red plant & snow covered wood plank)
Homage Escher & Mannerism N#118 Inkjet Print - Photograph 15x15"
"Auto Tire on top of a Basketball hoop with a little bit of backboard"
photographed from below, up against a white sky
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#129 Inkjet Print - Photograph 15x15"
"Peach & shadow on a table and its line of separation"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#76 Portrait (out of focus) 18x18"
"Gloria with her hand over her squinting eyes"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#77 Portrait (out of focus) 18x18"
"Violent light striking (dissolving) Larry's face"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#75 Portrait (out of focus) 18x18"
"Portrait with stripes of light & shadow on a man's face,
and light reflected in his shadowed glasses"
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Homage Escher & Mannerism P#124 Inkjet Print Photograph 18x18"
"Portrait" (Elephant Head)
%20with%20horizon%20line%20and%20luminous%20waves%20%20D%205137-18%20%20%20copy.jpg)
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#74 Straight Photograph 18x18"
"Young black boy (with a dark horizon line crossing behind his shoulders)
looking down, standing in luminous breaking waves"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#128 Inkjet Print 18x18"
"Figure With Lines"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#72 Inkjet Print - Faint Photograph 15x15"
Figure walking in a snow storm
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#101 15x15"
"Skeletal Garage" suspended in black space
Motel window view of a pool area
Visit my Quirky Photographs project
Quirky, oddball, cryptic, mysterious; images one can't identify or why the picture was made,
images approaching abstraction . . . If you look at my Quirky project you will note that
many images in this project (or variations on an image) are also in my Quirky project.
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#98 Faint Photograph 15x15"
"Limbless Tree in winter fog"
"Still Life with Plastic Flowers"
(& multiple tricky horizon lines)
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#134 Inkjet Print 18x18"
Quirky Photo: Strange obscure events sighted in the Vermont Woods
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#130 Inkjet Print 18x18"
"Thunder storm over the meadow . . . as viewed
through our picture window and interior reflections"
* * *
Six Photographs from my 1975-76 project
The Persephone Series
%20grimacing%20O.F.%2018x18%20%20copy.jpg)
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#81 Inkjet Prints made from silver gelatin prints 18x18"
"My daughter Jessica as the mythological Child-God, Persephone, grimacing &
tearing, anguished by having been abducted by Hades and held captive in
the Underworld--separated from her mother, Demeter
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#93 Persephone Series Photograph 18x18"
Gloria, my wife, as "Demeter (Persephone's mother) dreaming of her daughter
who was being held captive in the underworld"
"Hades holding Persephone captive in the Underworld"
"Persephone, feeling lonely, sitting on a dark stone and bathing her feet
in the dark waters of an Underworld stream"
"Demeter, grieving for of her lost daughter while bathing"
"Our son Shaun as Hades, God of the Underworld, creating more and more
mythic 'Underworlds' with every exhale of his breath"
* * *
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#95 Inkjet Print 18x18"
"Double Portrait … Gloria, Sleeping"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#117 Inkjet Print - Photograph 18x18"
"Circled Faint Photograph:
Boy--with hands in his pockets--talking to a beautiful girl sitting on a rail"
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Man and Woman walking together in the light
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#108 Inkjet Print 18x18"
"Spinning Blue Angel of the Light"
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"Blue Angel of the Picture Window"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#116 Inkjet Print - Photograph 18x18"
"Still life--Illuminated Yellow Flowers in a vase--reflected in a flat TV screen"
%20Reflection%20in%20computer%20screen%20%20IMG_3658%20copy.jpg)
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#136 Inkjet Print - Photograph 18x18"
A "Quirky" Photograph (Reflections on a computer screen of a backlit still life)
Many of my Quirky photographs are sometimes based in perceptual ambiguities--i.e.,
"Things are not always as they appear," or "What am I looking at?" This image was
"interesting" to me at first, but I doubted its integrity as an image. Humor
has its divine aspect, I believe, and given the yogic teachings that
say "this world is an illusion based in the dualistic nature of the
human mind . . ." to play with appearances photographically
can help change the way one see the world.
Nathan Lyons often asked:
"Do you believe what you see?" or ". . . see what you believe?"
"Blue fish with a red mouth in green water"
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#115 Inkjet Print - Photograph 18x18"
"Stone in puddle with reflections in warm light
(with an irrational decorative addition)
Homage Escher & Mannerism P#113 Inkjet Print - Photograph 18x18"
Approaching abstraction: Office Buildings viewed through venetian blinds
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Homage Escher & Mannerism P#114 Inkjet Print - Photograph 18x18
Abstract Portrait: "A Constantly Talking Liar"
("If the mouth is moving it is telling lies")
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Homage Escher & Mannerism P#132 Inkjet Print - Photograph 15x15"
"Portrait of a Turtle, in water with air bubbles"
"Masked Ghost wandering around Atlanta, Georgia"
from my project Atlanta City Series
%20%20dog%20(in%20a%20zoo's%20sea%20lion%20exhibit)%20wondering%20what%20it's%20seeing%20%20.jpg)
"The Unanswered Question"
(Dog? Looking at an upside-down, suspended Y? or Question Mark?)
%20into%20the%20light%20%20(%20D%20119%20DL)%20%20copy.jpg)
"Waving Goodbye"
140 next
Epilogue
_________________________________
*
This Inkjet Print Project
was published and announced on my blog's Welcome Page
February ?, 2026
Related Project Links
Symmetrical Photographs ~ Images, Projects, Texts click here
Photography and Yoga 2016
The True living Symbol click here
The Symbolic Photograph click here
Contemplating Symbolic Photographs click here
Welcome Page to The Departing Landscape blog-website which includes the complete hyperlinked listing of my online photography projects dating back to the 1960's, my resume, contact information, and more.
.