Ten New
MAKOM, the Place
Inkjet Prints
August, 2026
(A 2026 Thematic Inkjet Print Project, WITH COMMENTARY)
Introduction
This project began as a way of fulfilling the ever-present need I feel to produce work--photographs that are visually meaningful and capable enough to calm my longing to be touched by the grace of my Creative Process. So, once again, I began digging deeper into my blog's digital archive to find some images that I felt should be printed, images that (usually) have been published in previous blog projects but have not yet been made into inkjet prints for my continually growing 2023-2026+ Inkjet Print Archive. I simply skimed through some of my digital file folders and pick out the images that jumped out at me until I ended up with a good number of images worthy of being seen together in a mini-project format I have been using since June 5, 2026. This project is the seventh in that series, and I have provided a list of all the other mini-projects at the bottom of this blog page, following my ten images and my Afterword.
At first I assumed this collection of newly printed photographs would be one of those "non-thematic" type collections. But for some unknown reason (which I believe is the best option available to me within my Creative Process) the ten images you will be seeing here ended up relating to each other in a thematic way I had not consciously recognized as I was choosing these images for printing.
The theme I eventually identified for this project is a word that comes from the Torah: MAKOM, which means in English the Place. But not just any place . . . but rather some essential or transcendent, Holy or Sacred Place in which the seer experiences That invisible divine presence which exits within every Human Heart.
(Note: this is the third MAKOM blog project I have published. If you visit this first link, it will take you to the second MAKOM project--an inkjet print project: and if you click on this link MAKOM (1st) it will take you to my first blog MAKOM project, which introduces you to a collection of gelatin print MAKOM projects. Both links includes a full explanation of the word MAKOM and how it has inspired me to produce what I consider to be many important pictures and projects.)
The way I usually proceed in my Creative Process is simply to trust instincts and intuitions and hope to experience a feeling that sparks an impulse to make a photograph. Working from an already conceived concept can be very stressful, and inhibiting. When I make an exposure based on a feeling it is always in hopes that the finished published or exhibited photograph will evoke in me (and others) a meaningful experience, some insightful revelation; an image that makes visible the feeling that had initiated the act of making the photograph.
Another way to say this: When I am photographing I am usually seeing in a way that could be described like this: "I am seeing outward things inwardly;" or "I am seeing inwardly outward things." In other words, I am "seeing intuitively," "I am seeing with the Eye of the Heart."
The Heart is the abode of the Truth. When you want to receive knowledge,
you have to enter that inner space. . . . Then wisdom arises
from deep within the great space of the heart.
Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, My Lord Loves A Pure Heart
In the language of the saints, it is when the inner eye opens, when the eye of the heart,
the subtle eye, becomes active, that a person truly begins to see, truly begins
to understand, truly begins to live in the light. The eyes
begin to fathom the mystery of the Truth.
Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, My Lord Loves A Pure Heart
*
When an image "works" for me, I sense an invisible radiance that pervades the image, a subtle kind of light, or energy which invokes a palpable feeling that seems to emerge from some deep place within me; a feeling best described as a divine or sacred presence. This kind of experience provides me --I believe--with what the great yogic sages have called "sacred Knowledge" or "Knowledge of the Self." Such experiences transcend intellectual understanding because, ultimately, this kind of experience, or "knowledge," is a gift of grace, otherwise referred to as shakti, the divine creative power of the Universe.
*
All of the pictures in this project have--for me--a strong visible presence of light--light that is unique to the Place (or object) I photographed, as well as That light which is too subtle to see with the physical eyes. What, then, you might ask, makes a photograph's picture-space a Holy or Sacred space?
The mystery of my Creative Process is that it's grace can (often) provide me with photographs that function for me as True, Living Symbols: visible images one can contemplate with the Eye of the Heart. For the Heart (not the physical heart, but the subtle Heart) is the Place where the divine, Universal Self dwells. The yogic saints tell us this Sacred Space, the Heart dwells within every human being, though in the yogic path I practice, it has many other names, such as the divine Self; the Supreme Soul.
"The Heart is the Hub of All Sacred Places. Go there and roam."
*The words of Bhagavan Nityananda a great yogic saint of the Modern Era.
* *
The Ten New MAKOM Inkjet Prints
~ printed in August, 2026 ~
#1 New Inkjet Prints, August 2026 Straight Photograph 18x18"
"MAKOM: the Place"
(Two bird-feeder hangers, two hooks, two drops of dew & two layers of morning fog over the N. meadow & pond)
#2 New Inkjet Prints, August 2026 Straight Photograph 18x18"
"MAKOM: the Place"
(Vermont Rainbow Light on a window screen)
#3 New Inkjet Prints, August 2026 Straight Photograph 12x12"
"MAKOM: the Place"
(Nocturne: A Bathroom's blue night light & a self-luminous towel ring)
#4 New Inkjet Prints, August 2026 Straight Photograph 12x12"
"MAKOM: the Place"
(Nocturne: House plants illuminated by a nearby lamp)
#5 New Inkjet Prints, August 2026 Straight Photograph 12x12"
"MAKOM: the Place"
(Nocturne: A Blue Bird suspended between two illuminated lamps & a rocking chair)
#6 New Inkjet Prints, August 2026 Straight Photograph 12x12"
"MAKOM: the Place"
(A Burst of light on two closet doors, a corner near our front door, a door knob, and one line of light)
#7 New Inkjet Prints, August 2026 Symmetrical Abstract Photograph 21x21"
"MAKOM: the Place"
(Source image: View through venetian blinds of office buildings on the other side of the street)
#8 New Inkjet Prints, August 2026 Symmetrical Photograph 12x12"
"MAKOM: the Place"
(Source image: Snow and leafless plant stems)
#9 New Inkjet Prints, August 2026 Abstract Symmetrical Photograph 18x18"
"MAKOM: the Place"
"Looking Through the Cracks In Maya's Veils"
(Source image: sheets of plastic with cuts and scratches)
Visit my project Maya's Veils
#10 New InkjetPrints, August 2026 Symmetrical Photograph 12x12"
"MAKOM: the Place"
from my project The Angels--Faces of Light
(Source image: snow covered leaves)
*
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Afterword
When you focus your mind on something, whatever it may be, absorb its qualities.
In a very real way, you take it into yourself. At the same time, you also
infuse it with your own energy. You give it life. It is your bhav,
your devotion, your deep feeling, that gives meaning to
everything. . . . The formless takes on
a form that you can relate to.
Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, My Lord Loves A Pure Heart
It seems to me, I should not give titles to photographs that function for me in terms of the MAKOM concept, the Place, because their meaning is essentially ineffable and, as such their meaning transcends that which is knowable or understandable to the human mind's limited intellect and language. Rather, their True meaning is a gift of grace and most probably will be received or perceived differently by each contemplator. However there is one thing that is required of the contemplator of True, Living Symbols, and in particular the MAKOM images: they must be perceived with the Eye of the Heart.
*
I feel the same way about my Four-fold Symmetrical photographs. By their very nature--that is to say, because they are constructed images--the source (or "straight") image used in the construction process usually undergoes a radical, surprising transformation--often so radical that a viewer's mind might shut down and become still, speechless . . . because it doesn't know what it is looking at. Such is the nature of all photographs that function for me as True, Living Symbols.
In regards to my having identified the image as a MAKOM image, which might be difficult for uninformed viewers to understand, I felt compelled to include under the "MAKOM" title, some information about the source image I used for the symmetrical image because the nature of the place or object photograph contributes in its own way to way a photograph means. So I will elaborate a little more about that in relation to the above symmetrical photograph.
I took the picture in a Georgia Woods in the winter of 1974. I had been working for nearly a year on a series of "leaf pictures for a project I was going to call "The Georgia Woods Photographs" and one of the negatives I made that winter--of snow covered leaves--was used as the source image for the above symmetrical photograph.
The transformation of a "straight" or source image used in the four-fold symmetrical construction process, usually changes--often in a radical way--how a viewer or contemplator can related to and understand the image being perceived. Indeed, I believe the transformed appearance of a symmetrical image can not be understood in terms of its source image and thus it becomes very difficult to know how to see or understand what is being perceiving. If we feel we must know what we are looking at, its unknown meaning may seem impossibly inaccessible to us.
When I don't know what I am seeing, sometimes I instinctually reach deep down into my Heart for a more intuitive insightful understanding. In other words I invoke the Eye of the Heart gain access to the way the picture is meaningful too me. And I do this through a very conscious process which I call Contemplation.*
The yogic saints tell us that the Human Heart is the most sacred space or place in this created Universe because it is the subtle but True dwelling place of our divine Self--the One God that pervades all created things and places, and most particularly, each and every Human Heart.
Because God is formless, invisible, ineffable and "unknowable" (to our mind's intellect), the divine Presence--which by Its very nature is perfectly silent and perfectly still--can nonetheless be experienced as a feeling; and it is That experience, That feeling which provides a contemplator with what is often referred to as Sacred Knowledge, the Truth.
Thus, when I come face-to-face with an image of an angel--or any True, Living Symbol--any visible form which invokes the feeling of the Sacred or the divine Presence within me--I will take that image inside myself, into my Heart, and allow its meaning, its feeling, to pervade my entire being. This contemplative experience is transformative; I am somehow changed by the experience, for it has put me in conscious touch with the grace of my very own Self.
"Don't be deluded.
Kabir says, O noble seeker, listen,
Gold exists in the mine, but you must dig in order to get it."
the words of the poet-saint Kabir, as quoted by Gurumayi in her book The Discipline of Yoga
the words of the poet-saint Kabir, as quoted by Gurumayi in her book The Discipline of Yoga
So you go deeper into yourself. You transcend yourself
to find gold, and that is the light of God, the Truth.
"Don't be deluded." Don't be infatuated with
words and with flattery. You must dig
within in order to find gold.
Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, The Discipline of Yoga
* * *
This project was published on my blog's
Welcome Page on August ??, 2026
It is Project #7 in an ongoing
series of mini Inkjet Print
Thematic Projects.
Here is the list of my 2026 mini Inkjet Print Thematic projects published so far:
"It Is Always ONE" June 5, 2026
"Seeing Things" June 19, 2026 =
~ The Spark ~ "A Flashing Forth! July 1, 2026
Seven Windswept Symmetrical Photographs July 19, 2026
"Nine Quirky Photographs" July 23, 2026
"Six Thing-Centered Photographs" with An Exercise in Reading Image Juxtapositions August 11, 2026
"Ten New Inkjet Prints, August 2026: a MAKOM project" August 24, 2026
Related Blog Projects:
Welcome Page to The Departing Landscape blog-website which includes the complete hyperlinked listing of my online photography blog projects dating back to the 1960's, my resume, contact information, Introductory texts, and more.
