Tag Archives: Spirituality

Telephone survey

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I got a call a few minutes ago; the fellow was doing a survey of in-home use of broadband, cellular, long distance and cable service.  I’m not really the one to talk to since I don’t watch TV and while I have a cell phone, I still have to read the customer instruction manual to figure out how to use it.  I believe it does have a camera on it and that might get some use.  But I was the senior male in the household so I got tagged for the survey.


As I was answering his questions, typically by saying ‘that does not apply’, I was thinking about which images from today’s shooting at Fort Harrison State Park I would include in this post.  There were shots of trees but they didn’t seem to have the same impact as simple dead weeds do in the snow.


Or, for that matter, water flowing among snow-covered rocks.  I took several shots and they all are different because the patterns in the water keep changing.  Fascinating to watch.


I remember several years ago watching a movie (on TV) where a fellow put his foot through the screen.  That seemed a bit extreme at the time.  It doesn’t seem odd at all now.


I don’t advocate watching less TV.  If you enjoy it, more power to you.  My interests are just different.  Not better or worse, just different.


I’ll probably go back and shoot more tomorrow.  I know I missed a lot of good stuff.  Especially close to the ground.  And close to the water.

EcoLab at Marian University in Indianapolis

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Becky and I went to look at the EcoLab at Marian University this morning.  Last night someone brought a picture of a cedar waxwing to our camera club and was talking about what a good place the EcoLab is to go to see birds.  So we went.  We did hear a couple of birds but didn’t see any.  That didn’t matter in the least.  This place is well worth visiting for the general photography possibilities.


It was gently snowing and that only added to the charm of the place.



When I saw the scene below I thought of the caption ‘Three Points of View’.


We’ll be going back, I’m sure of that.

Nature in human hands or is it the other way around?

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Most of the photography trips I have taken around Indianapolis have been to state and city parks and other areas that were once wild but have since yielded to the human hand enough to make them easily accessible.  Sally and I went on a different kind of shoot today.  She lives north of the city and we went into the countryside.  Farm land.  Flat land and big sky.  I’ve been wanting to do this for some time.


What becomes immediately apparent is that the governing of this land is bicameral – the farmer brings great skill and talent but still relies to a large extent on luck because there is nature, the other branch which governs this land.  The farmer brings order to the land, planting corn or walnut trees in rows for easier tending.


Nature brings variations in temperature, snow, rain, wind.  Weather is fickle.  Even the best estimates of what is going to happen with the weather (The Old Farmer’s Almanac aside) are made only a few days in advance and then with a probability attached.  Nothing is certain here.  The human proposes and nature, or God, disposes.  All of which adds to the appreciation of what we see when we come here.


It is unlikely that the tree above was intentionally planted.  The one below probably was.


Both are beautiful in their own ways.  All things considered we humans do pretty well producing food and some of the beauty we need and enjoy.  But in the end, nature is the variable and always present factor.  When we are no longer able to work or if there is no one to take over, nature reclaims the land.


Where wheat, corn or grass once was once planted, nature takes over with its own plan.




If we think only within the perimeter of human activity, this might be seen as tragic; entropy has taken over and the chaos of nature has won.  But is it a contest, a war?  If it is, we humans are going to lose.  But if we see ourselves as part of a larger universe, it is all quite beautiful.  I’m thankful to be here, see it and be part of it.

A day in the snow

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It hadn’t snowed all that much, but there were about four inches of fresh snow on the ground and it was pulling several people – runners, sledders and a photographer – to Fort Harrison State Park on December 23, last Thursday.


Also some Canada geese.

I hadn’t been out shooting in a week and the feeling of being out in the open on a photogenic day can only be hinted at; I felt as if my soul were being fed.  I hadn’t gotten as far as feeling at one with what I saw but it was moving in that direction.


I tend to see my creative life as being BDP and IDP – Before Digital Photography and Into Digital Photography.  Being able to go out, shoot and get immediate feedback is doing a lot for me.  I would not claim that my experience is universal, but I do believe it is a good bet that total immersion in an avocation such as digital photography stimulates creativity and even nurtures mental health.


Through digital photography I’ve made new friends in the Photo Venture Camera Club, friends who share a passion for pointing a camera and doing something interesting with the result.  That also is a real plus.


Enough with the words.  I plan to go out again tomorrow morning.  I hope to see you there.

A trip to New Harmony

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Ellie and I recently spent a few days in New Harmony and enjoyed it immensely.  On the way down, as is her wont, Ellie needed to go to a quilt shop.  This is not something we do on every trip out the door but Ellie does comb her sources for these places and when we have time we stop.  This time the shop was The Village Mercantile in Boonville, IN.


As a seasoned escort to Ellie on these trips I know that I have to find ways of entertaining myself while she does whatever she does in there.  A camera is very useful in this respect.


The pigeons were wheeling about and that made a fine subject.  Ellie pronounced this a good quilt shop and we continued to New Harmony.

New Harmony is a beautiful and quiet place, excellent for meditating and sorting things out.  That’s the main reason we go there.


As you can see, there are birds there.  We were out for a walk along the Wabash River and I was composing a shot of the sweep of a bend in the river when Ellie exclaimed ‘There’s a bald eagle!’  ‘Where?’ I asked.  ‘Right over your head!’  Ellie doesn’t always speak with exclamation points but this called for them.  Sure enough, there was the eagle.


Continuing the bird theme,  they’ve added a metal sculpture of St. Francis and the birds behind the New Harmony Inn.  Here’s a night shot with a small chapel dedicated to St. Francis across the small lake.


Most of the lake had a thin coating of ice.


Photographic opportunities in the area are good any time of the year.

Highly recommended.


A special day: Afternoon

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When I got back from shooting yesterday morning there was a message waiting saying my friend Sally was ready to go shoot.  Was I ready?  Yes.  We went over to Fort Harrison State Park.  A World War II re-enactment was going on so we chose a different part of the park.


We walked up along Fall Creek and, as was the case in the morning, there were lots of opportunities.





I wonder what today will bring?

A special day: Morning

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We had our first decent snow of the year yesterday, I suppose it was three or four inches.  I got out to shoot three times.  The opportunities were so many that I am dividing this post into two parts.


I had gone to see my mother fairly early and stopped along the way home.  This was at the bark park where we take our dogs.  I like how the falling snow is angled parallel to the trunk of the tree.





All of these images will receive a lot more attention before they are ready to print.  I brought them in this morning to celebrate the season.   But wait, there’s more.

Don’t expect too much

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I find that it is best not to expect too much when I go out to shoot.  It narrows the focus and I almost never see exactly what I had hoped to see. 
I had gone out to shoot the emerging berries and ended up shooting mainly the leaves.  That was the other day and this is all I have to show for it.

Today was different.  I had no expectations and it was a more satisfying day.



Those are insects in there.  It went down to 23 degrees last night, the first hard frost of the year.  They may have survived.


The last three shots were done outside an orthopedic veterinarian’s office in Franklin.  I had driven a friend and her dog down there.  The dog, 12 years old, had torn a cruciate ligament chasing school buses (inside a fence while the buses were on the street).  She won’t be doing that anymore but the other day the dog went for a ride, saw a school bus from in the car and barked at it.  So now she has a car and a driver, no more running after the buses.


Today the berries look fine but the leaves are wilted.

And then there is this shot, entirely unexpected:


I guess that is what wondering is all about.  If I only saw what I expected to see, what would there be to wonder about?

The infinite in the finite

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A friend of mine, the one who got me started using the term ‘wondering around’, recently sent me a poem by Rabindranath Tagore, who was the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1913).  Here’s the poem:

There is a point where in the mystery of
existence contradictions meet;
where movement is not all movement
and stillness is not all stillness;
where the idea and the form,
the within and the without, are united;
where infinite becomes finite,
yet not losing its infinity.

About 10 years ago I took a workshop with Freeman Patterson.  In the course of the workshop, he made a point of talking with each participant and discovering something that was of particular interest to that individual.  It was in October and I said something about the upcoming  Spirit and Place festival in Indianapolis.  The day before the end of the workshop he gave each of us a photo essay assignment to be completed in 24 hours.  Mine was ‘Spirit and Leaves’.  Here are a couple of images from that trip:



Ever since then I have worked at finding external correlates to internal states.  Or, more to the point, I want to reflect states of being such as peace, stillness, reflection, spirituality etc. in photographs.

When my friend – I’ll call her S – sent me the Tragore poem I was moved to treat it as a source of ideas for photographs.  For example, what single image would best reflect what I was getting out of the poem?  I’m sure my answer to that will change over time and I will keep coming back to it because I love the poem.  Here’s today’s version of the image, I don’t know what I will think tomorrow.  The poem is repeated below the image.  You might try this exercise yourself.  Let me know you make out with it.

There is a point where in the mystery of
existence contradictions meet;
where movement is not all movement
and stillness is not all stillness;
where the idea and the form,
the within and the without, are united;
where infinite becomes finite,
yet not losing its infinity.

Thanks, Freeman, I’m still working on the assignment.