Book Eleven 12x12" inkjet prints

   Book Eleven  

     A Collection of 12x12" Inkjet Print Photographs    

     Selected & Printed from my Blog Image Archives in October, 2024

~  A Work-in-Progress  ~  

Introduction

Between September 20, 2024 and October 10, 2024 I completed three 12x12" inkjet print PROJECT's and made several LARGE inkjet Prints as well.  In the beginning of October I found some additional images I wanted to include in my 12x12" inkjet print archive.  The complete listing of 12x12" Books, PROJECTS and LARGER sized prints is available at this link:  The Complete 2023-2024 Inkjet Print Project.   

(Note: The blog 12x12" Books were created to serve as an online documentation of all the prints I have made recently, for my 2023-2024 Inkjet Print Project, which is intended create a Print Archive of my favorite blog project images which have been created since 2011 or so.)

As with all the previous ten Inkjet Print Book projects, the photographs collected here below were randomly chosen (i.e., no formal, subject matter or conceptual themes were in mind when I selected images) from my vast Blog Projects Digital Image Archive.  All of the images in this project now exist as 12x12" formatted inkjet prints with surrounding (varying) tonal mattes.  After the prints were made, and I began the process of preparing the images for publication of this blog page, I have--where it seemed to make sense--placed some images together for various reasons whichI have explained in the texts or project links included under the pictures and their image number, project title (Book Ten), and a brief, usually descriptive title. 

More pictures will undoubtedly be added to this project at a later date.  And, on the other hand, this could possibly be the last 12x12" Book in my 2023-2024 Inkjet Print Project.  (I said this same thing at the time I published Book Ten.)  

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A few preliminary notes before you view the photographs  

All of the images you will be seeing exist as 12x12" inkjet prints.  Please visit this link  The 12x12" Studies Inkjet Print Books, PROJECTS & other LARGER inkjet prints which contains all of the complete hyperlinked inkjet print project titles.   

Under each of the photographs published below I have indicated (in script type) an Image # and this Project's Title; then on the next line below I provide the Title of the image (which in most cases is descriptive rather than poetic or metaphoric).  When I feel that the title does not supply enough context, I will also write additional text below the Title line in an attempt to explain something about the image or my creative process that you (the viewer) might find useful in terms of better connecting--in unexpected, meaningful ways--with the image.

The tonal mattes that surround each image varies in tone and width according to what looks and feels best for the image.  I enjoy thinking of the matte as an atmosphere of silence that surrounds the image and perhaps helps you to become more receptive or empathic to what the image or "Thing" wants to say to you.  Becoming silent, stilling the mind, is the best way to "listen" to an image, especially an image that is functioning for you as a True, living Symbol.  (Visit my project regarding the practice of Contempating Symbolic Photographs)

There are instances in which I used a matte tone that matches a particular tone on the edge of the image area so that where that image area and the tonal matte interface, those spaces merge into each other as if the internal space of the image becomes extended into the space of the surrounding tonal matte.  ~  Also, there are instances in my work in which, at their original conception, I suspended an image or "thing" in a pure black space that extended to the very outer edges of the 12x12" format, then later I decided to add a slightly lighter-than-black tonal matte surrounding the interior black tone.  In those cases I probably chose to do that simply because it looked better to me in some way; or perhaps I felt the tonal transition from light-black to pure-black helped to create a more intimate invitation into the center of the image in which the image or thing is suspended in a pure black space. 

Finally, if you are viewing this blog project on a desktop or laptop computer, I want to encourage you to click on each of the images (twice) which--I hope--will give you access to an alternate viewing mode that's possible with my blog projects and images.  Please read the brief statement below and if you would like more technical information, click on the highlighted blog page title How Best View  . . . . 

A brief note about "How to Best View My Online Blog Images" 

If you are viewing this project on a desktop computer or a laptop, I encourage you to read my blog explanation regarding How to Best View My Online Blog Images.  In brief, click on the images once, then once again; this will (hopefully) enlarge the image and present it in a dark tonal environment at its maximum viewing quality in terms of image sharpness, luminance, tonal gradations, etc.  Once you have entered this alternate viewing space you can then use your zoom-in & zoom-out keyboard (or menu) options to adjust the image size, and darken or lighten your computer's screen brightness to suit your equipment and viewing preferences.

 

  Book Eleven      

       A Collection of 12x12" Inkjet Print Photographs   

     Selected & Printed from my Image Archives in October, 2024

Book Eleven    Image #1   (12x12 inkjet print)

                 (Picture Window with Bird, Snow Flake, Steam and snail drawings)                      

           This image is part of an ongoing series: visit my New Camera-Work Photographs  

Also see:  Picture Window / Window Pictures

Book Eleven    Image #2   (12x12 inkjet print)

                Symmetrical Photograph (Costa Rica, Yellow Bird on a tree branch)             

Book Eleven    Image #3   (12x12 inkjet print)

(Black Berry Plants in the Early morning Spring fog covering the entire meadow)

Book Eleven    Image #4   (12x12 inkjet print)

(Thistle plant, standing tall near the North Meadow Pond in the Early morning, Spring fog)

Book Eleven    Image #5   (12x12 inkjet print)

(Hudson River Valley,  looking south at Bear Mountain Bridge, mid morning)

Book Eleven    Image #6   (12x12 inkjet print)

(Hudson River Valley, evening view of Storm King Mountain from Cold Springs, NY)

Visit my Hudson River Valley blog project

If you visit the project you will note that all the images are in the 4:3, long rectangle

format.  These two images have been re-formatted to the square 12x12" format.

I must confess I favor the square images, when its possible to use.  Not all of

my 4:3 photographs work well in the square versions. 

Book Eleven    Image #7   (12x12 inkjet print)

Three Stones stacked on Broad Brook Road

Book Eleven    Image #8   (12x12 inkjet print)

(Charging my iPhone in Larry's house before I leave Memphis to go back home  2023)

Visit my 2023 Return-Visit to Memphis project (my first 12x12" PROJECT)

Book Eleven    Image #9   (12x12 inkjet print)

(Wire loop)

Book Eleven    Image #10   (12x12 inkjet print)

 (Laundry & shadows flapping in the wind)

 Book Eleven    Image #11   (12x12 inkjet print)    

(Nocturne -Black Birds gathered on concrete steps)      

Images 7-9 above are from my Early Studies 12x12" inkjet print PROJECT      

 Book Eleven    Image #12   (12x12 inkjet print)
Chinese Restaurant Round Table Setting

 Book Eleven    Image #13   (12x12 inkjet print)

(Ivy surrounding a garage window - the Nov. 2024 version)

see my ICON project

 Book Eleven    Image #14   (12x12 inkjet print)

(Golden Winter morning light - with blue center)

see my Baby Sitting project

 Book Eleven    Image #14   (12x12 Symmetrical inkjet print)

(Sunlit foggy morning in Vermont)

Note:  This project is a Work-in-Process.

I intend to add more photographs eventually.

*

This project was announced on 

my bog's Welcome Page 

October, 2024

Related Blog Project Links

How to Best View My Online Blog Images with your desktop or laptop computer.    

The Complete list of Studies Projects

The Complete series of 12x12" Inkjet Print Studies PROJECTS, BOOKS

The Complete Collections of Theme-Related Blog Projects

The True, Living Sacred  Symbol

Please visit the Welcome Page to my blog The Departing Landscape.  It includes the complete hyperlinked listing of my online photography projects dating from the most recent to those dating back to the 1960's.  You will also find on the Welcome Page my resume, contact information . . . and much more.

Portraits & Faces : a 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT

 

Portraits 

& Faces  

 12x12" inkjet printed photographs    

A 12x12" Inkjet Print blog PROJECT 

     

   

Introduction

This collection of "portrait" images which has been drawn from my still-growing archive of 12x12" inkjet prints (dated 2023-24) includes images that play with the historical convention of the head & shoulder photographic portrait; and then there are some images with pay homage to Alfred Stieglitz and his abstract cloud equivalents.  Some of the images are sharp, some are out-of-focus (O.F.), some have been transformed in any number of ways.  

Regarding the question: What is the difference between a "Portrait" and a "Face"? . . .   I will leave that open for you to contemplate.     

I am not a purist, but, truly speaking, any photograph that functions for me as a True living Symbol is a "Self-Portrait" in regard to the way Symbols give visual form to the transcendent idea of The Oneness of Being.  In the yoga that I have been practicing (since 1987) the ancient teachings say that everything in our created universe is pervaded by God (or Guru, or the divine Self).  This ancient yogic philosophy feels right to me and I have experienced the Truth of this idea enough times to believe in its essential transcendental meaning.  

On the other hand, there is a personal embodied self as well, and it's presence is equally a part of the Great Play of Consciousness in which each one of us perform our necessary roles.  When the personal and transpersonal conjoin in the form of a photograph I am awakened to its innate power, manifested simultaneously by its visual and invisible creative energy and the feelings that energy invokes in me.   Such is the nature, the magical wonder of the Oneness of Being and the grace of my Creative Process which transforms a photographic image into a True, living Symbol.

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I have written comments under many of the images included below, thus I feel I have said more than enough in this brief introduction.  I do however want to bring your attention to how best to view my blog published 12x12" inkjet printed photographs, especially for those of you who are viewing this project with a desktop or laptop computer.  

If you are viewing this blog project on a desktop or laptop computer, I encourage you to try to access what I assure you is a preferable, alternate blog viewing mode that presents the image in a darkened viewing environment, enlarged, and with a much sharper, luminous and tonally more accurate rendering of the image compared to that which first appears in the blog's default, published viewing mode.  

Please read the brief statement below and, if you would like more technical information, I encourage you to click on the blue hyperlinked blog page title How to Best View My Online Blog Images.

A brief note about "How to Best View My Online Blog Images" 

If you are viewing this project on a desktop computer or a laptop, I encourage you to read my blog explanation regarding How to Best View My Online Blog Images.  In brief, click on the images once, then once again; this will (hopefully) enlarge the image and present it in a dark tonal environment at its maximum viewing quality in terms of image sharpness, luminance, tonal gradations, etc.  Once you have entered this alternate viewing space you can then use your zoom-in & zoom-out keyboard (or menu) options to adjust the image size, and you can darken or lighten your computer's screen brightness to suit your equipment and viewing preferences.

  

The Photographs

12x12" inkjet printed 

 Portraits 

& Faces  

   A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT, November, 2024     

Image # 1  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)   

Circled, Lined Abstract Portrait

Image # 2  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)   

A shadow "portrait "of the artist"

I have made so many puddle photographs.  In this instance I saw 

an image of myself inside a luminous puddle on our driveway.

Visit my Puddle Photographs project  

Image # 3  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)   

Gloria, my wife, August 1969 

We had just gotten married in August, she with a concussion from a car accident in May.

I took this photography at a water reserve in Oklahoma while we were on or way to 

Albuquerque, New Mexico where we would be studying art for 3 years at UNM

where I had received a teaching fellowship in their Photography program.

Image # 4  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Larry, (O.F.) blind-sided by light 

(O.F. stands for "Out-of-Focus")

Image # 5  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Face (O.F.)  with Triangles & Circles--lines & shapes--within a Square gray tonal matte

Image # 6  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Gloria, 2017, Reading under a floor lamp in our rocking chair

The image is a reflection, in our picture window, which I photographed one evening.

Image # 7  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

A Portrait of Jessica (our daughter) as Persephone, Queen of the Underworld.  

Visit my Persephone project

Image # 8  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

A portrait of my young nephew, Luke, contemplating the Universe.

Image # 9  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

 Self-Portrait : lying dead in the Wisconsin River

I took this picture (of a friend) sun bathing in the Wisconsin River just a few weeks

after I had taken our children Shaun and Jessica on a camping trip on the River.

During our camping trip I hit my head on a tree invisible under the water and

nearly went unconscious.   See my more detailed account of the accident and

my near-death encounter in Story #18, Death, Art, Writing   

Image # 10  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Portrait of a River Sprite near a small water fall in the Milwaukee River.

Visit my River Songs project

Image # 11  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Portrait of a Snow Sprite

Visit my project Photographs from the Silver World  

Image # 12  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

(O.F.) Sculptural Portrait / Death Mask

I took this photograph in one of the many churches Gloria and I visited while traveling in Italy

Image # 13  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Gloria, sun bathing on a large New Mexico stone in a secluded valley

Image # 14  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Portrait of a turtle (with three bubbles)

The turtle's head had emerged from under the water and seemed to be asking, posing, to be 

photographed.  It was being kept in our daughter's back yard pool.  One day   

it got out of the pool, disappeared, and was never to be seen again.

Image # 15  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

A veiled portrait of our cat, Mr. Blue.

Image # 16  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Portrait of a grasshopper posing on the window ledge of our front storm door

See my Faint Photographs project

Image # 17  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Portrait of a mythic bird (from my project In the Woods)

Image # 18  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

(Eye : Centered in Shadows)  

This image holds great mystery for me.  I did not see it coming as I worked

with the source image using the four-fold symmetrical process.  It is in a way an image 

of myself looking at myself.  ~ The gold color in the horizontal line that points 

toward the eye is itself worthy of wonder.

(Published first in mu Epilogue to the Giacometti  project)

Image # 19  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Symmetrical Photograph: Portrait, or Face, constructed from New Mexico Stones

I took the source image for this four-fold constructed symmetrical image in New Mexico, while

 I was an MFA student at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.  I see four stone birds 

eating a vertical stone form that as a total gestalt becomes a face with dark eye sockets in  

which linear "drawings" serves as eyeballs returning our gaze.  Like so many of my 

symmetrical photographs, this is a circular image--in a way--set within a square

format that is surrounded by a dark tonal matte.   ~  This symmetrical image 

is from a Photography Project in which I have tried to pay homage to the

 wonderful Spanish composer, Federico Mompou.

Image # 20  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Water Figure with colorful eyes and a dark mask

Image # 20  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT

Gloria, a frightened look, her left hand touching the side of her face

I took this photograph (I think) when Gloria was undergoing intense chemo therapy.

(If I didn't take it then, this image has always been about that, to me.)

Image # 22  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Portrait of a stone on a wooden plank in the snow (with a red branch over its face).

I have given this image another title: "Seeing with the eye of the Heart"

a phrase spoken once by my meditation teacher

Gurumayi Chidvilasananda

Image # 23  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

"I was so happy to see my friend's face"

This image is a 12x12" square version of the title photograph I used for a photography project inspired 

by a book Soul Fury authored by Coleman Barks, the well known translator of the poems of Rumi,  

the great Sufi Poet Saint.  As you will see, below, I have taken some poetic license in the way I 

changed Barks translated words of a Rumi poem which was published by Barks in Soul Fury. 

As a young child I went eagerly to school

and loved listening to the teacher.

Growing up, I was so happy

to see my friends' faces.

But something different is happening

here further along in my story.

I came in visible form, a cloud.

Now I leave invisible, as wind.

Image # 24  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

The wind-blown Face of a Blue Angel . . . merging back into the invisible world

This photograph of a sculpted head was taken in Italy, in a church, I think; perhaps in the Vatican.

Image # 25  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Vine Garage

My project The Garage Series began as a "character study" of the garages that 

lined (both sides) of Milwaukee's working class alley ways.  The facades 

seemed like personalities, perhaps mirroring the people who owned

 and cared for the simple humble buildings. 

Image # 26  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Negative/Positive (O.F.) Soap Face

The title's  (out-of-focus) Soap Face  is a reference to the source image I used along with

the transforming tools of photoshop: the inversion and blur tools.  We humans live in

dualistic modes of being that have to do with our minds, our egos.  Consequently

our vision of ourselves and others is quite significantly muddled, and skewed.

My photographs which function for me as True, living Symbols has been

a powerful antidote to dualism.  I define the Symbolic Photograph 

as the visual embodiment of the Oneness of Being.  I have spent

much of my blogging life trying to write about this.  I'm not 

about to try to do it all here in this tapered block of text.

Image # 27  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Portrait of a Broad Brook Stone with red lips

I have photographed many rocks and stones.  This is the first and so far only image of a stone 

with red lips.  Broad Brook is a magical lively brook that flows down through southern 

Vermont  past the house in which my brother-and-sister-in-law) live.  Some of my 

most important work has made in Broad Brook and the Vermont Woods.

Image # 28  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Portrait of a man reflecting on his life

Image # 29  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Portrait of a fisherman, fishing in the fog

I very much identify with this image.  Looking for things to photograph is very much

like fishing; one persists, patiently waiting for the feeling of something alive on

the other end of the line that serves as a call to action.  I photograph in a state

very much like meditation: silent, receptive, and all the time consciously 

 preparing for that magical luminous moment . . .  I consider every

photograph I make a Self-Portrait, but most especially those 

images which function for me as a True, living Symbol. 

Image # 30  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Khidr : (Black & white) Snow Angel

Visit my project Snow Angels, Rilke's Angel, & Khidr 

Image # 31  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Khidr, Earth Angel; the "Green Man"

After traveling to Turkey in 2011, I became fascinated by Islamic Sacred Art.  ~  This image

was inspired by a wealth of research I did regarding the Sacred Art of Islam.  My reading

led me to the work of Henry Corbin and Tom Cheetham who writes about Corbin's work. 

See Cheetham's book Green Man, Earth Angel;  The World Turned Inside Out;  

After Prophesy;  All the World an Icon 

Image # 32  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Gloria (O.F.) with both of her little fingers next to her nose & near her eyes

Image # 33  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

A Vatican Sculpted Head Transformed, by Wind, into an image of an Elephant

 Elephants are remarkable beings, beyond our imaginations.

Image # 34  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

A Face (O.F.) with eyes closed

This could be a portrait (interpretive) of the person I photographed, but being out of focus

and the fact that the eyes are closed, the image is for me a "Face" and more than that

a photography that functions for me as a Symbol.  True, living symbols cannot be

 defined in a particular way for they transcend the limits of human language

and thus their meanings are unknown and open ended.

Image # 35  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Animal Face (O.F.)

Image # 36  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

(The Presence or Spirit, or Soul of a Person)

The classic head and shoulder portrait is often my point of departure in this collection

of "portraits" made over a lifetime.  In this case, I have never come closer at giving

visual form to a person's soul.  In the yoga I practice, in which the Oneness of 

Being is the dominate teaching, there is the understanding that everything

is pervaded by the same soul, the same one inner divine presence.  This

picture for me is about That.  I did have an experience once in which

I saw something like this image late one night while we both were

asleep.  I saw Gloria's luminous presence looking down at me 

laying on the bed and, at the same time, I could feel her 

body, next to me, also asleep on the bed.  

Image # 37  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Circular Lined (O.F.) Negative/Positive Skeleton Face 

Image # 38  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Ganesh, with his hands over his face moving either toward or away from his eyes.

In the yoga I practice Ganesh is a living god that bestows his grace in multiple ways upon

 those who remember, honor and invoke his presence. This symmetrical image is (for me) alive  

with his spirit which removes obstacles, and, in some cases creates obstacles by which one

can advance in their spiritual practice.  The image was spontaneously given to me 

via my creative process.  I share it with you, with gratitude. 

 

Image # 39  PORTRAITS   (A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT)

Looking over the North Meadow, Woods & Pond at sunset  (Version 4; a Self-portrait)

This is a new version of an image which I have always experienced as being filled with 

divine/Angelic presence. At the same time it invokes the remembrance--with great 

respect and gratitude--of Alfred Stieglitz, an early mentor of mine when I was a 

young college student studying photography.   His series of cloud photographs, 

which he called Equivalents (and Songs of the Sky) filled me with wonder,   

the feeling I experience with this image.  The dark matte tone has been

difficult for me to get just right.  My idea I is that the matte should

 resonate with the darker clouds within the image which hint of a  

coming or passing storm.  ~   I have always believed that I am 

 a picture-maker, and thus free to do what I must to get an

image to resonate for me in a way that is in synch with  

what I feel is alive within the depths of my heart or  

soul.  When I succeed I get in touch with a calm 

sense of silence.  This Self-portrait is, for me 

an appropriate image with which to 

conclude this project. 

*

*     *

This project was first announced on 

my bog's Welcome Page on

November 1, 2024

Related Blog Project Links

How to Best View My Online Blog Images with your desktop or laptop computer.

Symmetrical Photographs : A Collection of Images, Projects & Texts  2022

The Complete Collections of Theme-Related Blog Projects

The 12x12" Inkjet Print Books & thematic PROJECTS  

The 21x21" Square Inkjet Prints, October 2024

The LARGER Inkjet Prints & published inkjet print published blog project  Revised October 2024

The True, Living Symbol & The Symbolic Photograph 

Please visit the Welcome Page to my blog The Departing Landscape.  It includes the complete hyperlinked listing of my online photography projects dating from the most recent to those dating back to the 1960's.  You will also find on the Welcome Page my resume, contact information . . . and much more.