Welcome to The Departing Landscape blog/website
Steven D. Foster
"Visual Poem" for The Departing Landscape Project
A 12x12" Studies PROJECT
November 24, 2023
The Complete
Makom : the Place (and the Milwaukee "Place" Projects) click here
Intimate Space (Interior space) Projects click here
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The
Complete List
~ Photography Projects ~
In Chronological Order,
from the Most Recent and
Dating Back to the mid-1960's
click on the blue hyperlinked titles
to see the online projects
~ click on the images to enlarge them ~
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Part III Pandemic inspired project
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Part II Pandemic inspired project
August 2, 2020
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An extensively revised version of the 2011 project
June 25, 2020
Snapshot of my dad and me, 1945
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June 8, 2020
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Still Lifes and Symmetrical Photographs
Part I Pandemic inspired project
A Personal History of Photography
This is an illustrated chronology about my involvement in photography, including personal stories, images from projects, much much more.
Thank you for visiting my Departing Landscape website.
SF
"Visual Poem" for The Departing Landscape Project
Most Recently Added Project(s)
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(Updated November 1, 2024)
Including: ALL Nine of the 12x12" Inkjet Print Books & ALL of the 12x12" PROJECTS
(plus the LARGER Sized Inkjet Prints & Projects)
October 27, 2024
Part I: The Symmetrical Photographs (A work in progress) Part II: All other 21x21" Square images
October 18, 2024
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November 1, 2024
A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
November 4, 2024
A Non-thematic Collection of Inkjet prints made in September 2024
October 10, 2024
A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
October 1, 2024
A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
September 20, 2024
A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
May 15, 2024 / Revised September 12, 2024
A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
September 5, 2024
A Non-thematic Collection of Inkjet prints made in September 2024
August 8, 2024
A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
July 28, 2024
(First Edition: Images made between April 2024 through July 2024)
A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
July 12, 2024
A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
July 3, 2024
A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
June 26, 2024
The 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
June 11, 2024
The 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
Homage to Thelonious Monk & his "Quirky" music
June 8, 2024
The 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
June 6, 2024
The 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
~ Finding Light In the Darkness ~
June 1, 2024
The 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
Photographs made at Niagara Falls State Park
Updated May 31, 2023
Started 2011, Updated 2020 & July 27, 2023
May 7, 2024
A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
Square inkjet versions of selected images from my blog project "The Meadow"
May 2, 2024
A Non-thematic Collection of Inkjet prints made in May 2024
April 15, 2024
(A revised 12x12" version of the earlier 2018 project The Rising Sun - Prelude to An Exhibition)
The 12x12" Studies PROJECT
April 2, 2024
(A revised 12x12" version of the earlier 2015 project As Above, So Below)
The 12x12" Studies PROJECT
March 22, 2024
A 12x12" Studies PROJECT
12x12"inkjet print versions of 3.5"silver gelatin prints, 1994-2000 Studies
March 1, 2024
A Collection of seventeen 21x18"Inkjet prints made in 2024
January 15, 2024
December 12, 2023
A 12x12" Studies PROJECT
A Collection of 12x12" Studies photographs inspired by Giorgio Morandi
December 1, 2023
A 12x12" Studies PROJECT
A Collection of 12x12" Studies photographs from two earlier 1970's projects
November 24, 2023
A 12x12" Studies PROJECT
A Collection of new and earlier 12x12"Studies photographs
in Recognition of the Roundness & Oneness of Being
November 12, 2023
A 12x12" Studies PROJECT
A Collection of new and earlier 12x12" Studies images
See the complete listing of my photography projects
below, following the Introductory texts.
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~ Click on all images to enlarge ~
~ Click on Blue Hyperlinked Words to Open Links ~
THIS PAGE WAS LAST REVISED on November 1, 2024
Forthcoming Retrospective Exhibition
The 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 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 follwing the closing program of the conference, the SPE Midwest Planning Committee announced 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 he 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 in 2021, with an accompanying publication and the intention to travel the exhibition.
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.
So many questions came up for me: Was it possible to create sacred art today? Could sacred art be manifested through a contemporary art practice such as my own? . . . in a world so tarnished by fear and anger, corporate and political corruption, and the rapid decay of the natural world?
My studies led me to the writings of many wonderful scholars, but the most important ones, for me, were Henry Corbin and 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. It 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 a sacred duty, and, this sharing then becomes part of the means by which certain aspects of one's own creative-spiritual process of unfolding approaches a more fully, consciously realized sense of completion.
The Epiphany of 1955
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 and discovered an unfolding form of Self-Knowledge through a life dedicated to photographic picture-making, teaching and the practice of Siddha Yoga.
It is quite clear to me, now, that photography had come to me as a sacred gift blessed with the presence of what I would call "the grace of destiny." 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 accounts of my life in photography.
Gratitude
When I look carefully and deeply into my life, the experiences that have graced me over the past seventy years, I can sense that there has always been an overarching connection between things, a meaning and a direction to my life. It's as if I have been guided by some unknown invisible force. 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, all my teachers, the practices of Siddha Yoga, and my photography. For all of this I am profoundly grateful.
THIS PAGE WAS LAST REVISED on November 1, 2024
Introduction
Welcome to my photography blog entitled 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 in general). Though I have never considered myself a political artist or activist, and I have consciously avoided gearing my work towards political issues, nonetheless 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.
The global environment has already passed the 350.org tipping point. There was a time when we could have perhaps turned back the ever quickening process of the decay of this beautiful planet; now all we can hope to do is slow down the process of deterioration being speeded up daily by continuing and increasing use of fossil fuels. The Trump Administration's denial of science and the reality of Climate Change has simply made things all the worse for our Planet.
Sacred Art Projects
In 2011 I began working on a large multi-chaptered project "An Imaginary Book" which initiated a new thematic direction in my creative process with 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 as I revise this introduction in mid-March 2024 I am tempted to say at this point that every aspect of my photography has been in some way illuminated by grace. This preoccupation with the Sacred has been the natural outcome of a conscious understanding, and merging of my creative process in photography with my practice (since 1987) of Siddha Yoga meditation.
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 page of online projects within each of the collected theme-related areas.
A little 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 1977-2007). 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 online photography blog projects.
My blog has since then become both an "exhibition space" for my newest work and an 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 it is 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. It was impossible to say no. Thus, despite my reluctances I agreed to an exhibition at The Alice Wilds in March and April of 2018, curated by John and Jon, his co-conspirator in this adventure. Visit my two projects The Rising Sun ~ Prelude To An Exhibition and Postlude To An Exhibition. Please note: The Alice Wilds is the only gallery that represents my work. Any interest in purchasing prints of images seen on this website should be directed to John Sobczak at the gallery.
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 in general). Though I have never considered myself a political artist or activist, and I have consciously avoided gearing my work towards political issues, nonetheless 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.
The global environment has already passed the 350.org tipping point. There was a time when we could have perhaps turned back the ever quickening process of the decay of this beautiful planet; now all we can hope to do is slow down the process of deterioration being speeded up daily by continuing and increasing use of fossil fuels. The Trump Administration's denial of science and the reality of Climate Change has simply made things all the worse for our Planet.
Sacred Art Projects
In 2011 I began working on a large multi-chaptered project "An Imaginary Book" which initiated a new thematic direction in my creative process with 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 as I revise this introduction in mid-March 2024 I am tempted to say at this point that every aspect of my photography has been in some way illuminated by grace. This preoccupation with the Sacred has been the natural outcome of a conscious understanding, and merging of my creative process in photography with my practice (since 1987) of Siddha Yoga meditation.
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 page of online projects within each of the collected theme-related areas.
A little 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 1977-2007). 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 online photography blog projects.
My blog has since then become both an "exhibition space" for my newest work and an 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 it is 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. It was impossible to say no. Thus, despite my reluctances I agreed to an exhibition at The Alice Wilds in March and April of 2018, curated by John and Jon, his co-conspirator in this adventure. Visit my two projects The Rising Sun ~ Prelude To An Exhibition and Postlude To An Exhibition. Please note: The Alice Wilds is the only gallery that represents my work. Any interest in purchasing prints of images seen on this website should be directed to John Sobczak at the gallery.
Forthcoming Retrospective Exhibition
The 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 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 follwing the closing program of the conference, the SPE Midwest Planning Committee announced 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 he 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 in 2021, with an accompanying publication and the intention to travel the exhibition.
Then of course the Coronavirus Pandemic delayed those plans. In March, 2022, I learned that the Museum's intention was to open the show some time in 2024. Now I know only that the Museum has been looking to hire another curator, perhaps someone with an interest in photography.
At the end of the Pandemic I decided I should begin to create an inkjet Print Archive of favorite images that I have published in my blog projects. I saw no reason to make prints after I began publishing on my blog, but now I have regains some hope that perhaps in the future the Museum of Wisconsin Art may be considering once again an exhibition of my work. Between January 2023 and March 2024 I have printed a wonderful collection of inkjet prints all of which are represented in multiple blog projects. I invite you to visit this link: The Complete Collection of Inkjet Print Projects 2023-2024.
"Click on" the Images to Enlarge the Images
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.)
"Click on" the Images to Enlarge the Images
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.)
* * *
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 or 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.
I then went to Chicago and studied with Aaron Siskind and Wynn Bullock while completing my undergraduate degree at the Institute of Design, IIT (1966-68). In graduate school at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, I studied with Van Deren Coke, Beaumont Newhall and Ray Metzker. 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 and Edward Weston; and many painters have influenced my work, such as Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Morandi and Robert Ryman. (I have created projects directly inspired by Morandi, 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 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 to Minor White and Alfred Stieglitz and Valentin Silvestrov, and several other projects which address influences, my education, and much more. See: 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 a very special image which I called the symbolic photograph. Both synchronicity and the symbol have remained central concepts regarding my creative process today. I titled my thesis : The Symbolic Photograph : A Means to Self-Knowledge ~ A Jungian Approach to the Photographic Opus. I have outlined the key ideas at this link: Click here
Despite my spiritual leanings, and my fascination with Jung's ideas, I became discontent with myself as a person. 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 Epiphany of 1987
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 Epiphany of 2011
I then went to Chicago and studied with Aaron Siskind and Wynn Bullock while completing my undergraduate degree at the Institute of Design, IIT (1966-68). In graduate school at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, I studied with Van Deren Coke, Beaumont Newhall and Ray Metzker. 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 and Edward Weston; and many painters have influenced my work, such as Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Morandi and Robert Ryman. (I have created projects directly inspired by Morandi, 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 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 to Minor White and Alfred Stieglitz and Valentin Silvestrov, and several other projects which address influences, my education, and much more. See: 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 a very special image which I called the symbolic photograph. Both synchronicity and the symbol have remained central concepts regarding my creative process today. I titled my thesis : The Symbolic Photograph : A Means to Self-Knowledge ~ A Jungian Approach to the Photographic Opus. I have outlined the key ideas at this link: Click here
Despite my spiritual leanings, and my fascination with Jung's ideas, I became discontent with myself as a person. 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 Epiphany of 1987
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 Epiphany of 2011
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 was the same energy I experienced in my practice of yoga. I have no doubt 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.
The sacred or divine energy that I experienced in Turkey was the same energy I experienced in my practice of yoga. I have no doubt 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.
So many questions came up for me: Was it possible to create sacred art today? Could sacred art be manifested through a contemporary art practice such as my own? . . . in a world so tarnished by fear and anger, corporate and political corruption, and the rapid decay of the natural world?
My studies led me to the writings of many wonderful scholars, but the most important ones, for me, were Henry Corbin and 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. It 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 a sacred duty, and, this sharing then becomes part of the means by which certain aspects of one's own creative-spiritual process of unfolding approaches a more fully, consciously realized sense of completion.
The Epiphany of 1955
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 and discovered an unfolding form of Self-Knowledge through a life dedicated to photographic picture-making, teaching and the practice of Siddha Yoga.
It is quite clear to me, now, that photography had come to me as a sacred gift blessed with the presence of what I would call "the grace of destiny." 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 accounts of my life in photography.
Gratitude
When I look carefully and deeply into my life, the experiences that have graced me over the past seventy years, I can sense that there has always been an overarching connection between things, a meaning and a direction to my life. It's as if I have been guided by some unknown invisible force. 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, all my teachers, the practices of Siddha Yoga, and my photography. For all of this I am profoundly grateful.
And my thanks to 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: March, 2024
Steven D Foster
revised: March, 2024
The Complete
Collection of "Theme-Related
Photographs & Projects"
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Photographs & Projects"
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The complete Collection of "Studies" projects click here
The Complete Collection of Inkjet Print Projects 2023-24 click here
All of the 12x12" Studies Books & Projects made in 2023 & 2024
and All of the LARGER Sized Inkjet Prints & Projects made in 2023 & 2024
The Pandemic Inspired Projects ("Finding Light In the Darkness") click here
Music Inspired Photography Projects click here
Composer Morton Feldman, Steve Lacy, Thelonious Monk, Charles Ives, Chopin, Liszt, William Bolcom, Delius, Vaughn Williams, Frank Bridge, Wagner, Valentin Silvestrov . . .
Sacred Art Photography Projects click here
Composer Morton Feldman, Steve Lacy, Thelonious Monk, Charles Ives, Chopin, Liszt, William Bolcom, Delius, Vaughn Williams, Frank Bridge, Wagner, Valentin Silvestrov . . .
Sacred Art Photography Projects click here
Circle Photographs click here
Symmetrical Photographs ~ Images, Projects, Texts click here
Angel Projects, Photographs & Texts click here
Makom : the Place (and the Milwaukee "Place" Projects) click here
Intimate Space (Interior space) Projects click here
Multiple-Exposure Projects (3) click here
Homage Photography Projects click here
Travel Themed Projects click here
Hydrofracking project click here
Homage Photography Projects click here
Travel Themed Projects click here
Hydrofracking project click here
The True living Symbol click here
The Symbolic Photograph click here
Contemplating Symbolic Photographs click here
A Personal History of Photography click here
An Illustrated Annotated Chronology of My Life in Photography (updated July, 2023)
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The
Complete List
~ Photography Projects ~
In Chronological Order,
from the Most Recent and
Dating Back to the mid-1960's
click on the blue hyperlinked titles
to see the online projects
~ click on the images to enlarge them ~
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A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
November 1, 2024
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A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
October 10 2024
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A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
October 1, 2024
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A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
September 20, 2024
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A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
May 15, 2024 / Revised September 12, 2024
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September 5, 2024
A Non-thematic Collection of Inkjet prints made in 2024
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(First Edition: Images made between April 2024 through July 2024)
A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
July 28, 2024
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A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
July 12, 2024
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The 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
July 3, 2024
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The 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
June 26, 2024
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A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
A Homage to Thelonious Monk & his "Quirky" music
June 11, 2024
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A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
June 8, 2024
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A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
~ Finding Light In the Darkness ~
June 6, 2024
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A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
Photographs made at Niagara Falls State Park
June1, 2024
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A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
Square inkjet versions of selected images from my blog project "The Meadow"
May 7, 2024
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(A revised version of the earlier 2018 project The Rising Sun - Prelude to An Exhibition)
A 12x12" Inkjet Print Studies PROJECT
April 15, 2024
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(A revised version of the earlier 2015 project As Above, So Below)
A 12x12" Inkjet Print Studies PROJECT
April 2, 2024
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A 12x12" Inkjet Print Studies Project
12x12"inkjet print versions of 3.5"silver gelatin prints, 1994-2000 Studies
March 22, 2024
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~ A collection of large Inkjet prints, made in 2024 ~
March 22, 2024
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~ A collection of large Inkjet prints, made in 2024 ~
March 1, 2024
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~ A collection of Inkjet prints, made in 2024 ~
February 14, 2024
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~ A non-thematic collection of Inkjet prints, made in 2024 ~
February 2, 2024
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a 12x12" Inkjet Print Studies Project
12x12" Studies Versions of two related projects from the 1970's
December 1, 2023
The Persephone Series 12x12" Inkjet Prints
The Steve Lacy Series 12x12" Inkject Prints
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a 12x12" Inkjet Print Studies Project
~ A collection of new and earlier photographs in Recognition of the Oneness and Roundness of Being ~
November 24, 2023
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a 12x12" Inkjet Print Studies Project
and Part 4 of the "Walkabout" project
September 12, 2023
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"The Eye of the Heart"
~ A collection of Inkjet prints, made in 2023 ~
August 8, 2023
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Started 2011, Updated 2020 & July 27, 2023
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A meditation on my fascination with image repetition and image re-vision
June 25, 2023
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~ A collection of Inkjet prints, made in 2023 ~
May 20, 2023 (Revised June 20, 2023)
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March 12, 2022 Revised May & June, 2023
~ Inkjet prints, made in 2023 ~
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A Photography Project About Death, Angels & the Blue Pearl
February 15, 2023 ~ Revised: inkjet prints, made in April 2023 ~
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Part III of the WINDOW PICTURES project
August 10, 2022
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Moonlit Photographs in Homage to Fryderyk Chopin, his 21 Nocturnes, and Andrzej Wasowski, pianist
July 13, 2022
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Dedicated to my wife Gloria & offered in homage to Valentin Silvestrov and all the people of Ukraine
Spring, 2022 (May 15)
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February 7, 2022
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December 10, 2021
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October 30, 2021
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September 23, 2021
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Revisiting Giorgio Morandi
August 17, 2021
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A Meditation On Three Photographs
June 3, 2021
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The Concluding Pandemic-inspired project X
& Introducing Dick Knapp and a link to his "Night Photographs"
April 5, 2021
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Snow Photographs ~ Pandemic-inspired project IX
March 2, 2021
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Duality : Illusion & Reality Pandemic-inspired project VIII
February 2, 2021
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Winter 2020-21 : Images and texts inspired by an escalating Pandemic VII
January 5, 2021
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Images and texts inspired by an escalating Pandemic VI
December 11, 2020
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Images and texts inspired by an escalating Pandemic V (on the Eve of the November Elections)
November 1, 2020
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Part IV Pandemic inspired project
October 7, 2020
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September 9, 2020
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Part II Pandemic inspired project
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June 25, 2020
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June 8, 2020
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Still Lifes and Symmetrical Photographs
Part I Pandemic inspired project
May 5, 2020
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April 6, 2020 Prelude to the Pandemic Project
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February 1, 2020
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December 11, 2019
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Snapshots:
November 28, 2019
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October, 2019
Meditations on "The Moment" ~ Homage to Valentin Silvestrov
June 14, 2019
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Surface Traces, Reflections, Views May 2, 2019 (revised August 2022)
WATER Photographs
September 26, 2018 . . . Completed April 2, 2019
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I Was So Happy To See
My Friend's Face
August 2, 2018
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Studies IX : Lila
July 4, 2018
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Postlude To An Exhibition:
May 21, 2018 / revised January 14, 2020
Part Four of a four part series
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Symmetrical Snow Photographs
Homage to Alfred Stieglitz, Minor White, the Equivalent,
and composer Valentin Silvestrov
May 21, 2018 / revised January 14, 2020 Part Three of a four part series
~
Snow Photographs : Homage To Harry Callahan
and All My Teachers
April 11, 2018 Part Two of a four part series
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The Rising Sun ~ Prelude To An Exhibition
March 9, 2018 Part One of a four part series
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Homage to Robert Ryman
October 2017 - January 2018
1. Introduction & Commentary December 25, 2017
2. Surface Veils, Delight & Enlightenment Jan 16, 2018
3. Epilogue February 1, 2018
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Broad Brook Photographs
October 14, 2017
November 14, 2017
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Homage to Giacometti
July 12 - October 31, 2017
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Alone
Blue Symmetrical Photographs
June 1, 2017
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The Eye of Siva
White Blue & Gold Snow Photographs
May 1, 2017
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The Siva Sutra Rock Photographs
April 2, 2017
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The Pulsating Uncreated Heart : Origin & Center of Creation
March 12, 2017
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Creation-Dissolution of a World
February 14, 2017
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Grace-Photograph-Symbol-Universe
January 27, 2017
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Time Time-Changes Sacred Time
New Year's Day, 2017
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Snow Angels
Rilke's Angel of the Elegies
Khidr, Angel of the Earth
December 9, 2016
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Death
A Meditation
in Photographs & Texts
Broad Brook Symmetrical Photographs
November 15, 2016
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Broad Brook Photographs
9-10 & 9-11 . 2016
October 10, 2016
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Zoo Photographs
July, 2016
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The City of Souls
June, 2016
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Babysitting Photographs
May 4, 2016
Sleepy Baby Stroller Views & Dreamscapes
On the Ground Floor
Symmetrical Constructions
Commentaries & Epilogue
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There is No Thing To Know
April, 2016
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April 6, 2020 Prelude to the Pandemic Project
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Photographs, Poems & Commentary
March 14, 2020
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February 1, 2020
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December 11, 2019
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November 28, 2019
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September 26, 2019
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June 14, 2019
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May 16, 2019 (revised July, 2022)
Window-Meadow Photographs August 10, 2022
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WATER Photographs
September 26, 2018 . . . Completed April 2, 2019
Water & Death Project, part 8
~
I Was So Happy To See
My Friend's Face
August 2, 2018
~
Studies IX : Lila
July 4, 2018
~
Postlude To An Exhibition:
May 21, 2018 / revised January 14, 2020
Part Four of a four part series
~
Symmetrical Snow Photographs
Homage to Alfred Stieglitz, Minor White, the Equivalent,
and composer Valentin Silvestrov
May 21, 2018 / revised January 14, 2020 Part Three of a four part series
~
Snow Photographs : Homage To Harry Callahan
and All My Teachers
April 11, 2018 Part Two of a four part series
~
The Rising Sun ~ Prelude To An Exhibition
March 9, 2018 Part One of a four part series
~
Homage to Robert Ryman
October 2017 - January 2018
1. Introduction & Commentary December 25, 2017
2. Surface Veils, Delight & Enlightenment Jan 16, 2018
3. Epilogue February 1, 2018
~
Broad Brook Photographs
October 14, 2017
November 14, 2017
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Homage to Giacometti
July 12 - October 31, 2017
Part 5. Regarding Giacometti's Fear of Death September, 2017
6. Vision, Re-vision and "Recurrence of Creation" October 1, 2017
6. Vision, Re-vision and "Recurrence of Creation" October 1, 2017
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Alone
Blue Symmetrical Photographs
June 1, 2017
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The Eye of Siva
White Blue & Gold Snow Photographs
May 1, 2017
~
The Siva Sutra Rock Photographs
April 2, 2017
~
The Pulsating Uncreated Heart : Origin & Center of Creation
March 12, 2017
~
Creation-Dissolution of a World
February 14, 2017
~
Grace-Photograph-Symbol-Universe
January 27, 2017
~
Time Time-Changes Sacred Time
New Year's Day, 2017
~
Snow Angels
Rilke's Angel of the Elegies
Khidr, Angel of the Earth
December 9, 2016
~
Death
A Meditation
in Photographs & Texts
Broad Brook Symmetrical Photographs
November 15, 2016
~
Broad Brook Photographs
9-10 & 9-11 . 2016
October 10, 2016
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Studies VIII : Sufism
Signs, Veils, the Symbolic Photograph
"records of encounters with God
in the details of everyday life"
September, 2016
~
Photographs & Poetry
featuring the poems of
Hafiz
and other Poet-Saints
August, 2016
~
Zoo Photographs
July, 2016
~
The City of Souls
June, 2016
~
Babysitting Photographs
May 4, 2016
Sleepy Baby Stroller Views & Dreamscapes
On the Ground Floor
Symmetrical Constructions
Commentaries & Epilogue
~
There is No Thing To Know
April, 2016
~
January-February, 2016
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Photography and Yoga
June-October, 2015
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Snow : Photographs from The Silver World
January ~ May 2015
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The Photograph as ICON
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Acadia~Arcadia?
September - December 2014
Commentaries & Construction of Symmetrical Photographs
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The Angels
Photographs Inspired by the art of Paul Klee
and the writings of Henry Corbin and Tom Cheetham
August -- November 2014
Photographs Inspired by the art of Paul Klee
and the writings of Henry Corbin and Tom Cheetham
August -- November 2014
August, 2014
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The Creative Process
May - July, 2014
Still Life
Photographs Inspired by Giorgio Morandi
July 2013- April 2014
2006 - 2013
~
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"An Imaginary Book"
2011 - 2013
The Complete Collection of Projects
inspired by Islamic Sacred Art & Sacred Knowledge
The Nine Core Projects:
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The Hydrofacking Suite
2011-12
The Departing Landscape Project
2007-12
++Abstract+Photo+(letters+on+glass)+18x21+.jpg)
2005-09
+18x18+.jpg)
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2008-continuing
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2010
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2007
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Triadic Memories Project
2003-07
Studies II 1994-2000 / 2011
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1990-92
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1988-89 / 2011
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1985-88
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In The Woods
1974 / 2011
1974 / 2011
New Mexico Photographs
1971-72
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Interior House Images, New Mexico, Homage to Gaston Bachelard
January 8, 2020
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1971-72
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Interior House Images, New Mexico, Homage to Gaston Bachelard
January 8, 2020
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Videos
in which my images are used
in which my images are used
_____________________________________________
Contact Information:
Steven D. Foster
Steven D. Foster
3906 Chatham Lane
Canandaigua, NY 14424
Brief Bio
Gallery Representation (as of August 1917)
The Alice Wilds, Contemporary Art Gallery, Milwaukee, Wi.
Gallery Representation (as of August 1917)
The Alice Wilds, Contemporary Art Gallery, Milwaukee, Wi.
This was my last photography exhibition. I have since then posted all of the fruits of
my creative process to this blog-website.
my creative process to this blog-website.
This link takes you to the Program Archive.
A Personal History of Photography
This is an illustrated chronology about my involvement in photography, including personal stories, images from projects, much much more.
Thank you for visiting my Departing Landscape website.
SF
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End of Welcome page
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