"All is process. That is to say, there is ‘no thing’ in the universe. Things, objects, entities, are abstractions
of what is relatively constant from
a process of movement and transformation. They are like
the shapes that children like
to see in clouds."
— DAVID BOHM
What a delight it is to link to my youngest son's new website gallery! As I've written on my blog (see here and here), Josh picked up his first "real" camera c.2015. His evolution as a photographer since then has been nothing less than extraordinary. A new artist has emerged!
Sam Ilachinski - "Life, Beauty, Cosmos"
This site contains a sampling of (non-photographic) works by the man most responsible for instilling a lifelong love of art - any art - in me, my dad. Sadly, he passed away in 2002. But his art, passion, and vision live on.
Biography
My mom (who passed away in 2017) and I spent nearly a decade putting together my dad's retrospective/bio, and followed up with an expanded Russian edition (that contains about 25% more reproductions of his art works) a year later.
Apart from being a prodigiously gifted (and well published) photographer with decades of experience, Paul's aesthetic compass is anchored in Zen; you are as likely to be awed by his artful impressions of nature's hidden beauty as you are to be humbled by his quiet wisdom. Paul has both a blog that he regularly updates, and a magnificent web gallery.
Of my five main "photography mentors" - Ansel Adams, Wynn Bullock, Carl Chiarenza, Fay Godwin, and Minor White (none of whom, unfortunately, I have ever had the privilege of meeting) - the one closest to my own aesthetic and intellectual sensibilities is Wynn Bullock - just do a search for "Bullock" on my blog. Despite leaving the physical dimensions of existence in 1975, Wynn's legacy continues through the loving efforts of Wynn's second daughter, Barbara Bullock-Wilson.
Miriam's website - The Awakened Eye - is a vast treasure trove of everything in the nexus of art, creativity, and nonduality, along with a generous helping of Miriam's own extraordinary - and extraordinarily spiritually infused - art.
YouTubers - a Baker's Dozen
Here are my favorite photographers who post their work mostly in visual-narrative form on YouTube, listed in alphabetical order. Apart from the fact that they are all gifted photographers, they also share the gift for brilliant story telling and for expressing an obvious love of being out in nature and capturing its beauty. A few mini-reviews are split into part 1 and part 2.
Portfolios
Art Photo Index (API) - Black & White Magazine - Saatchi Art - Washington Project for the Arts
Workshop
Shanti Arts - Cultivating the Art of Simplicity in Photography
I organized two on-line workshops in 2017 and 2018 under the auspices of Shanti Arts. For those of you interested in exploring (perhaps even working through) the material I used for the 2018 version, here are the individual work sessions:
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Session 2: The “Eye” – Seeking Simplicity in the Environment
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Session 5: The Medium, Part II – Abstraction as simplification
Presentations
3-hr presentation of the basics of black and white fine-art photography
Photography, Physics, and Complexity: Strange Bedfellows or a New Aesthetic?
Slide presentation on the subject of photography, art, science, and the creative process (presented at Alexandria's historic Morrison House (Alexandria, VA), sponsored by the Torpedo Factory's Art Center
Science & Art: Self-Entangled Pathways Toward Inner & Outer Truths
2017 Humanities and Technology Association Conference, Newport, RI
Essays
Still Points Arts Quarterly, Fall 2016
Photography: An Eightfold Path Toward Self-Discovery
Luminous Landscape, September 30, 2015
Stone Voices magazine, Winter 2013