Beautiful Thoughts (I feel Beautiful)

Zion Meadow-from the "Humanlandscapes" portfolio

"Zion Meadow" is an image created just outside Zion National Park in southern Utah. The Park is aptly named, as one of the meanings of the word is heaven or utopia, and this magnificent park is a little of both. Zion park lies near the town of Springdale, Utah, with it’s B&Bs and camp grounds. If you are fortunate enough to find yourself here, be sure and take in the IMAX theater in town and view the really fine movie about the park and its surroundings. You then can proceed to enjoy this massive slot canyon. Zion was created by the flow of the Virgin River, carving its path through the Navajo Sandstone with vertical walls nearly half a mile deep. The stream bed of the Virgin River through this cleft is called “The Narrows” and can be hiked in the Summer and Fall when the river flow is low. To be in the “Narrows” when the sun is reflecting off of the canyon walls is to be in an open air cathedral, and is simply a religious experience. To be here, or in the Yosemite Valley at sunrise or sunset is the definition of beauty. My advise is to spend some time here and let the beauty sink into your soul, and it will if you are still alive. Hike to Angel’s Landing as well to get a birds view of the valley.

Waterholes Canyon-From the “Humanlandscapes” portfolio

Waterholes Canyon” is another image fron northern Arizona and the slot canyons on the Navajo Nation. Todays note is some thoughts on beauty.

….there is a silent language of our whole being which yearns for art and the beauty from which art comes.—Rollo May

The relationship between art and beauty is one of ongoing controversy, but I believe that when we create beauty, we add to the light of society. Beauty is uplifting, and if we look at the artifacts from all cultures, beauty has always attracted our attention. When we seek to understand other cultures and look to history for answers, it is the art that defines the past and it is the beautiful art that speaks to our soul. I have always been fascinated by beauty, and it is the magnet that draws me to Yosemite and Yellowstone, ZionNational Park and Kings Canyon. I find that in photography, I am not drawn to documentary images as much as to simply capturing beauty. This pursuit of beauty started with landscape photography, but as I found in my medical practice that many women did not view their body as beautiful, I chose to focus my images on a presentation of the body as a beautiful part of a larger created universe.

Waiting For You-From the "Humanlandscapes" portfolio

"Waiting For You" - shifts the focus from the beautiful landscape to the body as the object of beauty as introduced in my last blog. I believe it captures the essence very well, as the body is presented against a black and featureless background that isolates it in space. The title–“Waiting For You”–sets the mood as well. The image says, my body is beautiful and I am presenting myself to you for your/my pleasure and enjoyment. I am not ashamed of my body, or of it’s beauty and the pleasure it brings me. Every part is well designed and works to bring me everything I need. It is a good body and I love it. This image is the first of the presented images to be made in a studio, and moves the focus from the body as a part of nature to a presention of the body as a sensual being. All of our senses are gifts that allow us to experience the world in many different ways. Our bodies are who we are in the world and define us for all of out friends. Our senses bring the world to us and our responses to those stimuli define our life experiences.

Travel Photography-Venice, Italy

Venice is being reclaimed by the very waters that protected her in centuries past. Joined to the mainland by an elevated railway, there are no cars in venice, and everything and everybody move either by foot or by boat. The “freeway” through town is the Grand Canal in the photo where taxi boats, commercial boats, and gondolas all ply the waters like cars on a LA freeway. The famous Rialto Bridge, St Marks Cathedral, and most of the old palace buildings line the Grand Canal and are susceptible to flooding as time, gravity, and a rising sea attack their foundations.