Hidden Gems
A collection of 30+
overlooked but important
photographs
~ with commentary on each of the images ~
An Inkjet Print Project : October 1, 2025
"Hidden things always come to light."
--Rumi / trans. C. Barks
Introduction
This thematic project is part of my ever expanding three year long Inkjet Print Project begun in 2023, which consists of newly printed images from work done mostly since 2008 when my wife and I moved from Milwaukee, Wi. to Canandaigua, NY. With few exceptions, all of my inkjet prints first existed as 12x12" images printed on a 14x14" paper base,; then I started printing my most favorite images in three larger sizes, when it seemed appropriate: 16x20" images on a 20x24" paper base, 18x18" images on a 20x24" paper base, and finally 21x21" image on a 24x24" paper base.
This project highlights images that in general came later in my process, after I had most of the 12x12" Inkjet Print Books & PROJECTS behind me, which helped provide the necessary experience and overview of my work as a whole that helped me decide on which images would work in larger sizes (or in the 16x20" longer format).
My blog was intended--from the outset (I started it in November, 2010)--to share my creative process, and serve as an online archive of my Complete Creative Process. I think the project before you now serves that intention well. I have tried to illustrate a full range of ways at getting to those most meaningful images, images which required a lot of work and contemplation that prepared me with the insight necessary to discover some of the hidden gems that did not at first come to my attention, my understanding.
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Below each image there is a Project title image number, followed by a title for the image (which might be simply a descriptive title, or in a few cases a title that has a more poetic intention behind it).
All but four of the 30+ images presented here are straight photographs. The other four are symmetrical photographs (two of which are two-fold constructions, and other two are four-fold constructions). The symmetrical photographs tend to be more abstract--and much less about what was photographed--and thus more difficult to write about. Thus I seldom have much of a title to give them other than an image number within a blog project title.
Though I always make images with my digital camera set at the 4:3 ratio, I have done so, for a very long time, with the intention of most probably cropping down the rectangular image to a square. I love the concentrated nature of the square image, its directness, its insistence of an intense looking at whatever is being pictured presented in the square, which more often than not has been placed at the very center of the image.
The 12x12" images I have presented in this project work for me in that more intimate image size; and similarly, I have learned that some images work much better in the larger formats. Also, of note, all of the images have a tonal surrounding matte (in various proportions to the image size) and I ask that you consider the tonal matte as an integral part of the entire image itself.
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In all of my inkjet print projects I have brought attention to my concern that you to see my blog published images at their highest possible quality, and this necessarily requires that you click on each image once, then once again, which (hopefully) transports the image into an alternate dark space viewing mode which for the sake of the image, is the best way to see the images. The blog's default presentation mode, consisting of white space surrounding the images and the texts, presents my images in an unfavorable tonal context, and they usually look unsharp if you look at them carefully. In the alternative mode (clicking on the image twice) you will notice immediately it offers a much larger, sharper, more fully toned rendering of the image as compared to what you had seen in the blog's default mode. Also, in the alternate mode you can make adjustments to the image size and illumination of the image by zooming in--or out--and my making your screen lighter or darker. Note: if you cannot access the alternate viewing mode with two clicks on the image, please read my brief blog article: Regarding Viewing My Online Blog Published Photographs.
The Photographs
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Hidden Gems #1 18x18" Inkjet Print
A Glint of light on a picture frame in our foyer
This image seemed too minimal when I first made it. I did include the image in a blog project
but it did not have the "feeling of presence" that this version of the printed image now has
for me. (The dark tonal matte and a better quality interpretation of the image made an
an important notice.) The printed image also has gained in presence with
the larger image size (18x18"). Also, this an image needs to be seen in the alternate
dark tonal viewing space. Click on the image once, then once again.
This image belongs to a conceptual theme that I am very interested in. Please see my 12x12"
Inkjet Print project MAKOM, the Place.
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Hidden Gems #2 18x18" Inkjet Print
(Shadow of a lamp on a wall between two corners)
from my project Homage to Robert Ryman
I am sure some people would be amazed to learn that I made a series of photographs
in homage to Robert Ryman, a remarkable painter. This image escaped me earlier,
before I started adding the tonal mattes around my inkjet printed images. In the
actual 18x18" inkjet print, there is an after image the appears in the left
matte border that has to do with the interaction of the warm brown
tone and the cooler gray next to. The after image echos the vibrant
shadow image of an the lampshade. Also, the afterimage provides
a "third corner" to the image (see my title for the image, above).
Hidden Gems #3 18x18" Inkjet Print
Bird Shadow (or shadow of an airplane) and light on Venetian Blinds
When I lived in Rochester, NY for three years (between 1963-66) my eyes were opened
to all sorts of things I had no idea about growing up in two small towns in Ohio and
Indiana. I will always remember the frightening art film I saw which had to do with
Nazism, et.al. For what its worth this image (made in the shadow of Trumps'
second term as president) invokes that remembrance and the writing of
Edgar Allen Poe. It's a beautiful image despite my disturbing my
associations, with its many surprising colors, vibrant imagery,
light & space. I also enjoy the opening up of the space to the
outside world and its light in the upper left hand corner--a
relief, a breath of fresh air, offering the possibility
of a transformed life for the better. Its an
elegant image in many ways that I did
not respect when I first saw this
photograph. The larger scale
print is a must see experience.
Window light reflected on a tall wood cabinet in a dark closet
I saw this situation many times before I finally got my camera and made the photograph.
The walk-in cloths closet is always dark, and the highlight from the window at the other end
of the bedroom would is usually reflecting its light on the beautiful dark wood finish in the closet.
I always knew I would have to make this photograph one day, but knew it would be there for me some time.
When Gloria's mother passed away, she chose to take this vertical chest of drawers,
which was probably made for storing jewelry carefully laid out in each of
the separate drawers. I associate the image with a casket and I suspect
thats why I avoided making the photograph for such a long time.
But the larger format print version of this image forces me
to really look at the picture, instead of the fear it invokes
in me. Like the image above, this one is very elegant
formally with seductive tones, surfaces, subtle
colors and a presence of light that is close
to spirit. The delicate little handles on
each drawer invokes an association
of birds flying south together for
the winter.
Bedside Lamp, Bed Post with rounded top, the corner of the room
I love this image, and it works well for me in the 12x12" print format.
The intimacy of the subject, the light, the pictorial space does not
ask for a larger print version. I had tilted the lamp shade for
a more plentiful light source when I read at night in bed.
The tilt animates the lamp, transforms it into a human
being, a being of light of many varying colors! (Henry
Corbin wrote a remarkable book, The Man of Light.)
Gems, for me, offer an intimate experience of light.
Hidden Gems #6 18x18" Inkjet Print
Chair Shadow (with electrical outlet) in late afternoon light
If you were to look for intimacy in this image it would have to be in the space behind
and beside the wood door of the kitchen's broom closet. I remember taking this
picture and being surprised by the largeness of the shadow in relation to
the small, almost hidden presence of the electrical outlet.
Every year
for two few weeks or so, we get this kind of light from the setting over the meadow.
I took it when I was working on my Morandi inspired project Still Life.
I remember that project with great love, and the light in
this picture, brings that feeling back to me in a
wonderful, palpable way: love for Morandi,
what I learned from his work; the love of
working in an intense creative flow on
the still life theme that surprisingly
invited me to discover more
and more meaning in Morandi's work.
Hidden Gems #7 12x12 "Inkjet Print (A "Quirky" Photo)
A goat, in a safe and comfortable barn, eating hay.
I took this picture at a farm in Watkins Glen, NY which cares for animals that were abused, or too old,
too sick, too lame . . . animals that would have otherwise been killed. Under the bright light, the hay
in the barn looked so clean, so safe and comfortable, so eatable to me.
I like this picture's simplicity, its directness, its mystery--
the way the goat's head become hidden in the hay.
Hidden Gems #8 12x12" Inkjet Print
Snow Man Meditating on a Stone
I am a meditator. Siddha Yoga is a powerful yogic Path, in my experience. And this
image looks like a human being bent slightly forward as if soon it will become
One with the stone, a stone I may have have photographed before while
working on the blog project The Siva Sutra Stones.
Making photographs and contemplating the images is a form of meditation
for me. The two practices have become inseparable for me and support
each other.
The snow figure looks like he or she is face-to-face with a force that must be reckoned with.
The title is punny, intentionally. Often meditators will meditate on a teaching, or a sound,
word or object; here, the "meditator" is literally on an an object and may soon melt into
the object (stone) upon which he or she is meditating. The goal of meditation is to know
experientially the non-dual state, sometimes referred to as the Oneness of Being. It's a
subtle interior experience of union with God, Siva, the Inner divine Self that dwells
in every human heart, and which pervades every created thing in this world.
Hidden Gems #9 12x12" Inkjet Print (a two-fold image construction)
Symmetrical Spirit Tree, Ocean Path, Acadia National Park
from the 12x12 inkjet print PROJECT Angelic Presence
This image, and the three below it, are from a new project Angelic Presence, which were made
when Gloria and I traveled to Vermont--in the summer of 2014; and then to Salem, Mass. & and
Acadia National Park, in Maine in the Fall. I was workin on a large project at the time
entitled The Angels which influenced everything I experienced during our visits to
each of the three places. The Angels project tried to do too much and failed to
do justice to our experiences in Salem and in Acadia National Park. So, at
last, I have finally gotten around to revising and elaborating upon my
Salem experiences in the the Angelic Presence project.
In the process of working on the new project, I was able to create and add several new images
and I revised (improved) others--all of which helped me deepen my awareness of what had
happened to me that summer & fall of 2014.
The so-called "timeline" of my Creative Process has its own volition and sense of
inner necessity and unity which transcends the apparent linearity of Time.
Thus I prefer not to pay to much attention to dates and titles
when I label my images: Re-vision is so much more interesting then trying to
keep track of dates, title changes, etc. I must allow my creative process
to be fluid so that it can go where It wants to go. How else can one
reveal what is hiding, shed light on what is hidden in the shadows?
This Symmetrical Tree picture has the kind of spirit that is both humorous (Halloween)
and at the same time, a little bit intimidating . . . the way the tree seems so alive
in the way that it waves its arms, the way its torso has so many pairs of eyes.
Hidden Gems #10 12x12" Inkjet Print
(Haunted) Hawthorn Hotel; the light next to our 3rd floor elevator door
from the 12x12 inkjet print PROJECT Angelic Presence
When I revised the image above--and the image below it--I was surprised to discover the
formal parallels between the two images . . . which I have written about in the
Angelic Presence project.
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Gravestone Angel (Salem, Mass)
from the 12x12 inkjet print PROJECT Angelic Presence
This print required a lot of work to get just right. It was one of the first images I tried to print when I
got my new Epson P6000 printer in January, 2023 and it just could not get it right. In this newest
version, the colors, the sense of light, the sense of spatial and material transparency
transparency in the dark blue tones is quite extraordinary and mysterious and
thus succeeds in giving the image an Angelic phantom-like Presence . . .
This "angel" is caring and watchful of everything happening
in its Historic graveyard. And I have written about some
of the strange things I encountered there in the Historic
graveyard as the light was quickly turning into darkness.
A question has just occurred to me: Is the angel in the photograph I made, or
in the gravestone I photographed? Angels are not subject to the limits of
linear time & space.
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Hidden Gems #12 12x12" Inkjet Print
Cloths Dryer, with glass door open & light reflections on the glass and rays of light on the wall
According to the Siddha Yoga teachings, everything in this Created World is both a form
of God, and is pervaded by a divine Presence that is often referred to as Consciousness.
In the visual arts (in my photographs) light is a particularly powerful vehicle for
making an invisible presence visible . . . or at least felt, for the yogic teachings
say that God exists in the form of one's feelings. In my blog project
Photography and Yoga I quoted the words that follow,
by Swami Muktananda, who founded the
the Siddha Yoga Path:
God exists in the form of feeling. The Bhagavad Gita says
"The world is the embodiment of one's feeling."
Hidden Gems #13 18x18" Inkjet Print (a "Quirky" Photograph)
Quirky Motel Window View of the motel's swimming pool area
This picture is a hidden gem in the sense that, as you see it now, it is a constructed image
rather than a "straight photograph." I can't say how it happened, it just happened on
impulse, without any agenda to begin with. I mean to say, it was a gift
of my creative process. It's a funny, odd, Quirky image.
See my 12x12" Quirky Photos PROJECT
and my 18x18" Quirky Photos
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Hidden Gems #14 18x18" Inkjet Print (a "Quirky" Photograph)
Reflections on a computer screen of a still life & computer chair
Many of my Quirky photographs are 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 me change the
way I see the world.
Nathan Lyons, my teacher for two years
in the early 1960's, would often say to
those of us in his Home Workshops:
"Do you believe what you see?"
or
"Do you see what you believe?"
Hidden Gems #15 18x18" Inkjet Print (a "Quirky" Photograph)
A strange event encountered in the Vermont Woods
I don't know what I was seeing here. Indeed, I took the picture mostly in hopes that the photo
would help me see what I couldn't see when it was in front of me. I saw a circle-- suspended
in space --that's what made look harder. Now I see, a blue dot on the tree trunk.
I can't say this too often: "The world is not what it appears to be."
Photographs can present an persuasive argument in support of this Truth.
Hidden Gems #16 18x18" Inkjet Print (a "Quirky" Photograph)
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Warm light on stone in water & reflections surrounded by a tarp that looks like gold.
There are many ways a picture can be a hidden gem. Here, for example, I did a very
strange thing: I copied part of the tarp (the gold form on the right side) and pasted
it in the upper left hand corner of the image. Don't ask why, and I ask you:
did you see this odd event when you first looked at the picture?
If not,
it was hidden until you could recognize its presence after reading this text.
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Hidden Gems #17 18x18" Inkjet Print
Looking down at a Heart-shaped Stone cracked open, with two eyes: one open, one damaged,
laying in a shallow river bed with a stream of water, mud or blood . . . passing over it
For the longest time I could not decide if I should include this image in a blog project
I was working on. It looked too personal, too dark in feeling, in meaning.
But after printing it several times and finally getting it right in this
version, I could not deny its importance to me.
As I wrote the text above I began remembering my experience I had the night
my dad died when I was nearly ten years old.
Hidden Gems #18 12x12" Inkjet Print
Miniature Pony reflected in a puddle, on a sunlit foggy day
See my project The 12x12" Inkjet Prints Early Studies Photographs
The square image is around 6" square in a lite gray matte 12x12". The small size
image is a homage to my earlier miniature silver print project, 1994-2000 Studies
This image is truly a "hidden gem." The original negative from which this image was
created couldn't be more different. If you looked hard enough in by blog
you might find the original version I printed of this image, but I promised
my dear friend Larry who had a very strong empathy to animals, I would
longer show the earlier version of this image. He felt it was disrespectful.
I am happy to report that he approved of this new version of the image before he passed away
this year from Parkinson's Disease. I miss Larry. He was always honest and
direct with me. We had a life long friendship which began when I met
in Rochester, NY during my first year as a photo student at the
Rochester Institute of Technology, 1963-64.
16x20" Inkjet Prints
The next set of images provide a little break visually from the square image format.
I love the square, its perfect symmetry, but not all images will work in that format.
Here are a few examples of inkjet printed images that needed the longer format.
Hidden Gems #19 16x20" Inkjet Print
From my project The Siva Sutra Rock Photographs
I confess that so many of the things I have taken great pleasure in photographing over the years
were things and arrangements of things that my wife Gloria had something to do with.
She has created a wonderful garden in the small spaces that surround our house on
Chatham Lane in Canandaigua, NY. We both love the stones that emerge from
under our land, and which we can get for free from our Town recycling center.
Rocks, stones, pebbles . . . of all sizes have attracted me, and in the yoga that
I practice some of the great yogic saints loved to throw stones at devotees,
and if they were lucky enough to be hit by this strange act of love, they
might experience all kinds of forms of great good fortune. I sense in
stones a consciousness pretty much like my own. My photographs
of stones, rocks, pebbles . . . are images of great love and respect
it seems to me. Stones can become luminous gems when seen
in the right light. Visit my 16x20" Inkjet Print Project
Hidden Gems #20 16x20" Inkjet Print
Early August morning, 2025. A Long Ominous Arching Cloud above the South Meadow, pond and woods
I love the meadow behind our house, and all the more so thanks to Francis Ponge's poem and the book
he created about the creation of the poem. When we my chance viewed the house we now live in
during our search for houses in the Rochester area, I fell head-over-heels with the meadow the
first time I looked out over it from inside the house through its large picture window. I felt
the creative juices start to flow within me in that very moment, and in a way, I experienced
the whole Meadow Project (which continues to this day, and has been ongoing since 2008)
as a homage to the great French Poet who through his poetry "took the side of all things."
I consider the sky above the meadow and the wood integral parts of the meadow as a
whole. The ongoing dance between that which is above and that which is below is
without question something to behold; I am grateful for this body of work.
This image wast made in August, 2025 and for me (writing this a month later)
it is one the newest additions to my 16x20" Inkjet Print Project.
Also please visit my blog project : The Meadow and
Hidden Gems #21 16x20" Inkjet Print
South Meadow & pond with scattered snow shapes and a dramatic evening sky
It's remarkable how the visual world can simply presents itself so perfectly for a photographer
that nothing has to be done but just see the perfection of its order as it presents itself.
The play of the shapes, lines, tones and light . . . is stunning in this image,
it seems to me. A pure gift. I seem to have gravitated to the darker tonal
ranges in the last year, no doubt a reflection of my introversion as I
was approaching my eightieth birthday (80) following
Covid-19 and now Trump's (and his Republican
allies') unimaginable presidency. This image is
beautiful and at the same time--I don't like saying it--apocalyptic.
Early Morning Ghosts wandering about in the Anchorage, Alaska Airport
Gloria and I decided to go on a tour of Alaska for our 50th Golden Wedding Anniversary.
I took this photograph early one morning before boarding a plane to our first
destination after our late arrival to Alaska from New York State. I
made a 12x12" square version of this image but it was not right
for this image. The mountain range in the background needed
a longer formatted image. The light coming over the mountains was my initial reason for making the photograph
and the people in the airport wandering around in front of me seemed (then) like an obstruction to what I
was seeing.
However, I saw this image much differently after we got back home (earlier than planned). We had time to visit the
Anchorage Museum our first day in Anchorage, and I was deeply moved by the wonderful audio-visual display honoring and
educating visitors about the indigenous peoples who first lived in this great, mysterious, challenging land . . . and still do. Indeed
the shadowy figures I saw wandering about in the morning airport light now invokes in me the remembrance, perhaps the awareness
of the spirit-presence of the native peoples who long ago lived and died in this hauntingly beautiful land. (I invite you to visit
my 12x12" inkjet print blog project ALASKA)
Hidden Gems #23 18x18" Inkjet Print
Dark Winter morning with a blast of Creation-Light
This image has an abstract, primordial quality that I associate with the creation of our world.
It is a nocturnal image, though it was a sunny day when I took the picture. Here the sun
has become a moon, or perhaps the eye of some strange creature rising up from the dark
waters of Creation, illuminated by a blast of light . . . from . . . who knows where?
I took this photo (or it took me) on a cold winters day in1981 when the temps fell
to around 30 degrees below zero over Lake Michigan and its Milwaukee shores.
My film holder leaked stray light onto my film and ruined the photograph I
thought I was making it for my 1981-82 Lake Series project. But I ignored
the "ruined negative" for many years, until I rediscovered it when
I was looking for negatives to print for my
I first made a 3.5x3.5" silver gelatin print of the negative for that project.
Later I made a 10x10" print of the image and liked the Lake's subtle
presence in the larger image. Later I digitized the image for the
18x18" inkjet print version you are seeing here, which I
I included in my project The Memory of Light
an earlier inkjet print thematic project.
Hidden Gems #24 21x21" Inkjet Print Symmetrical Photograph
A Butterfly of Light Illuminating a Stone Garden Path
Gems have been "hidden" in so many ways within my Creative Process. In other words,
the images were always there, they just needed to be discovered (un-covered,
revealed). This symmetrical photograph has been through three variations
all of which I did not like until this fourth image emerged, thanks to
some little voice inside of me urging"try using the source image in
one last variation."
This image is what I call a four-fold symmetrical photograph, an image constructed with one image
repeated four times and conjoined above and below, left & right. I love this version,
the last version possible after first making a print of the straight photograph which
became the source image for this image construction after three earlier variations.
My Creative Process often requires re-visions, over and over again, to get at the truly
essential image . . . which can feel like a great liberation to me. Here, the butterfly
has become light, light which illuminates a path
to even more light, free of its chrysalis, free to fly . . .
As Rumi once wrote (trans. Coleman Barks):
Hidden things always come to light.
Hidden Gems #25A MAKOM "Place" 18x18 Inkjet Print
Broad Brook stones; White & Blue with Shadows
This image, which I've always liked, has a strong sense of place (it's part of the
Broad Brook Series) I have been working on when visiting dear friends and
relatives in Vermont. The shadow over the larger white stone gives
the image a sense of time. It never occurred to me the image
held any potential for being the source image for constructing
a symmetrical photograph because the feeling of Place & Time
that pervades the image seemed so satisfying to me.
See my 12x12" PROJECT: MAKOM, the Place
Hidden Gems #25B 21x21" inkjet print, Symmetrical Photograph
(Two Blue Stones Broad Brook)
I don't know how it came about that I ended up trying to make this symmetrical version
of the straight photograph above (Hidden gem #21A) but its now one of my most
favorite symmetrical photographs, and the larger 21x21" format suites the
dark mystery of this image perfectly. I brightened and saturated the two
blues stones and called attention to the stones with the title as well.
The color blue has had great significance to me as a long-time
devotee of Siddha Yoga.
Family bathing in Lake Michigan
(an image from my early 1994-2000 Studies project)
I have often had the experience that once I hear from another person viewing an image
that he or she is deeply moved by that image, that it is especially meaningful for
them, I unconsciously adopt the image as one of my own favorites as well
(perhaps as an overlooked and undervalued image). That's the case here.
I exhibited this image in the Michael Lord Gallery which was at the time located in
one of Milwaukee's finest historic hotel buildings. A elderly couple from Chicago
was visiting town and wandered into the gallery on opening night to see what
was drawing so many people in the lobby. They ended up talking with me
about the image, a miniature silver gelatin print 3.5"x3.5" square in a
10x10" frame. They explained how the image invoked a strong
remembrance of their family summer gatherings in and around
Lake Michigan. They purchased the image that same night.
The point I'm trying to make is that if someone else likes an image, I become awakened to a level of
meaning I had never been able to identify within myself before. The feelings had to have been expressed by
others before I could see the image "though their eyes . . . the eyes of their heart.
(Again, the yogic sages tell us we are all connected; we all share the same
One divine Self, and it dwells in the heart of every human being.)
Obviously I liked the image well enough to frame and exhibit the image, but after that
interaction with the Chicago couple, my empathy to the image became increased a
hundred fold. I can never look at the image without that special remembrance
becoming awakened in me yet again.
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"The witnessing eye"
(a stone with a dark eye, on a snow covered wood plank, and a red plant limbs)
"The Eye of the Heart"
I have come to invest great importance to this image in part because my wife Gloria wanted a print of
this image so she could look at it while she/we did our Siddha Yoga practices in the bedroom.
I have changed the title of the photograph many times when I have used the image
in different projects of varying thematic titles. I came across the phrase
"Eye of the Heart" in a poem I read, and again in a published talk
Gurumayi had given. In Siddha Yoga, the Heart is the dwelling place of God,
the True Guru, the Supreme Self, Pure Consciousness. The Self is said
to be the witness of everything that happens because it is the
divine Presence which dwells in every human heart and
every created thing in the universe.
As a student of Siddha Yoga and Gurumayi Chidvilasanada (since 1987)
I have strived to use my meditation practices and my study of the Siddha Yoga teachings
as a means to getting access to a kind of meaning that can only be unveiled through the
power of grace and what I have call a True, living Symbolic Photograph. The radiance one experiences in
True Symbols is actually the grace of my Creative Process. And seeing with the Eye of the Heart is the only
way I know of making an image that is alive with the kind of meaning, a living presence
that transcends the limitations of the dualistic mind.
Hidden Gems #28 12x12"Inkjet Print Puddle with reflection and three (+) fallen leaves
As I was scrolling thought my collection of images for Book Nine of my 12x12" Inkjet Print project,
and came to this particular image, it occurred to me that the leaves look like they are falling
downward through space. In the title I used the term"fallen leaves" because I noticed
that the leaf in the puddle shows how at least that one leaf had already fallen and
landed in the puddle on the dark black top surface of our driveway.
That one leaf in the puddle, in sympathy with the three other leaves
(and a little part of a fourth leaf on the left edge of the frame)
constellate a rhythmic feeling of the way sometimes can be
seen falling from a tree back-and-forth in a kind of rocking
fashion before they finally reach a surface below.
I love the simplicity of this image, its graceful composition, the light that comes
out of the leaves and the puddle's water which reflects the sky and the
possible source of the fallen leaves.
This is a picture that really benefits from being seen in a dark viewing space, which is possible
(hopefully) if you click twice on the image.
A Vertical Diptych
"Three Birds"
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Hidden Gems #29A (Top image of the diptych) A 12x12" Inkjet Print
"Three Birds" : inside view, looking out and up through the morning misted window
and seeing three birds flying freely up and into the blue sky
"Three birds" : outside view, looking down and into the basement
seeing the birds on the window in the window's reflections
These two images provide an inside & outside view of the same one subject: a constellation
of three birds (decals) which had been placed on our basement window. I have always
enjoyed placing images next to each other in my photography projects, for I tend to
see the juxtapositions between images as a silent conversation within the overall
visual sequence of the project's collection of images. Thus, perhaps one could
understand what I am about to say: that the most meaningful image in this
diptych may be the one we cannot see, but has become manifest
within the sacred space of the Heart, or what Henry Corbin
has called the Imaginal World.
looking up, looking down; looking through, looking at.
The space between opposites offers an experience
of the unknown, a timeless meaning
the dual mind will never know but
which is visible in the Heart.
"The Hidden Language of Plants"
(a two-fold symmetrical image)
Some image can remains hidden (in meaning) to me even when I try to shine a light on it by
writing about it. I have come face-to-face with a mystery, in this image, and . . . the kind
of mystery I love to encounter in my Creative Process which is a divine Presence that
has been manifested by grace--the greatest mystery of all that is pervaded by the
Unknown, the Unsayable, the Invisible . . . that which provides a wonderful
glimpse at something which won't give itself away to the dual mind.
One of my definitions of a True, living Symbol is that its meaning is beyond
the limitations of human language, beyond saying.
This image has remained a mystery to me for a long time, even though I can feel it is
trying to say something to me. According to the great French poet Francis Ponge,
the Things of the world, have something they need to say to us.
This image, which looks to me like letters on a page, letters from an unknown language, is
indecipherable; the letter forms refuse to translate into words I can understand
even though I feel a certain degree of familiarity with what I am seeing, I
enjoy the rhythmic dance that unfolds across the picture's frame.
The subject matter I photographed--colorful plant forms in snow--are presented in two
mirroring parts. This is a two-fold symmetrical image.
Some images, and in particular those that are functioning for me
as True, living Symbols, must be slowly, silently absorbed
with a willingness to listen to what the image wants to
(or needs) to say to me. This process of listening
is called, in the yoga I practice,
The yogic teachings say that whatever exists in the outer world
originated from the inner world.
corresponding images, manifesting an Imaginal Unitary
Reality which unveils and celebrates
the Oneness of Being.
*
This project was announced on my blog's Welcome Page
October 1, 2025
Related Project Links
Welcome Page to The Departing Landscape website which includes the complete hyperlinked listing of my online photography projects dating back to the 1960's, my resume, contact information, and more.
