Photography has been a life-long love. Particularly beginning with the pandemic, it unexpectedly became a contemplative resource! How so?! Lockdown, looking out of windows I have looked out of for 30 years, but now with fewer places to go—slowly a whole new world began to unfold. I noticed the wind! My expectation was to see bare trees (winter), budding trees (spring), trees full of leaves (summer), and wonderful autumn colors. But such assumptions all too easily obscure the present. One way to stay in the present was to watch the wind “painting” the exact same scene in a time exposure. This enabled me to let go of expectations since the wind presented something quite unanticipated, constantly “painting” branches, buds, leaves, and colors in endlessly different ways entirely new to me, often quite stunning! Abraham Joshua Heschel suggests that to die is to cease to be surprised. These “new” visual experiences began to dovetail with my interests in the world’s diverse contemplative traditions—east and west—which so often focus on the “rite of the present moment.” 

The philosophical tradition of phenomenology helps me to see through my eyes rather than through my thoughts. Set aside expectations, anticipations, assumptions, schedules. Focus on sensations in the moment. This approach heightens awareness of my preconceptions and routines. This exhibit is thus an exercise in phenomenology, setting aside names like “tree,” and “flower,” to see what has always been in my perceptual field, but that to which I have been oblivious. This can result in arresting photos.