Noname Creek ~ Addendum

Poppi as she may appear to passing fruit rats, racoons, and possum.

Poppi at Night

We may well live in a universe of parallel worlds. Addendum worlds, so to speak. Parallel worlds do exist right next to us, just beyond range of our senses at this moment. The invisible life existing right on top of our skin as well as inside our bodies confirms these possibilities. Our worlds are interlocking.

Thusly, this feline portrait cannot exist in a world of its own. 

Any Photoshop-born vision is easily accessible by millions, if not billions, of eyes each day. This image will make its debut on the viewing stages of at least hundreds of human beings. Each viewing will give it a new life and extend its possibilities. 

The very appearance of Addendum Vision represents only a minor shift in the bandwidth of human vision. Yet, photo-technology dramatically extends our sensations and our imaginations; it presents us with views of otherwise invisible worlds. Addendum Vision allows us to witness Poppi, the huntress, in this way. 

Parallel worlds may be colliding these days. So how do we measure realities outside of the hologram?

~ ~ ~

Noname Creek

It's almost year's end and I still have file cases full of photographic negatives and transparencies to edit. This morning I finally awoke to discover my desk and desktop were also buried in photo cds. Then there are all the electronic files in my former workroom.

This photo management project has not been an easy nut to crack. I've been avoiding the job for 50 years. The problem? I only seem to understand creative naming and filing. And I'm lazy. So, who knows where specific pictures are located and what are they named?

Poppi Popsalotaus

I have long recognized file management as a major life problem without a hint or hope for resolution. Until today...  Today I decided to think differently about this problem and any need of a firm hand to control. 

This problem has now been renamed Noname Creek, a tributary of the Photographic River. And I have decided to jump into the creek only to recreate and then only where most convenient and when it feels best. Solution attained.

I love my cat like Egyptian Pharaohs loved the feline protectors of their souls.

~ ~ ~

Left Coast of Florida

The Gulf of Mexico is a shallow, warm and placid sea that draws millions of Yankee tourists and retirees to Southwest Florida. The tourist industry counts on warm winters and placid waters. Tourists from all over the world imagine they will soak up the sun on sand white beaches when they make their Florida reservations. 

Left Coast of Florida

But perception is not always reality. This month the weather is cool enough (near freezing at night) to send residents into their bottom drawers for long sleeved shirts and sweaters. Only shivering tourists run around in short pants and shirts these days.

Still Yankee tourists laugh at annual residents for our thin blood and December sweaters. But I've spent a lifetime shivering in Minnesota's cold and I contend that Florida summers are a real test for true grit. If you can make it through hurricanes and heat and humidity for a few Florida summers, you will keep your sweaters handy and you will be welcomed by the rest of us wearing long pants in December.

~ ~ ~

Green Leaves

Some times we see things too clearly. We see the colors and the forms, the shadows and the light. And seeing all these things without discriminating can be too much.

That's what my little Kodak does: it sees too much. The light meter averages the fall of light into the picture frame. It makes average scenes non-spectacular.

The averaging meter turned the original of this shot into something pretty, but unremarkable. The shot lacked color saturation. Since color played a big role in attracting me to the original shot, the photo results should speak loudly to color.

Photoshop to the rescue. A few PS tricks allowed me to show full color saturation in the leaves and the flowers. I was also able to to separate the foreground leaves from the background flowers by softening the flowers. The results? Something much closer to the scene that attracted me in the first place.

~ ~ ~

Florida Java Script

Am trying, at the moment, to recall the circumstances surrounding this collage, made in 2002. Many facts get lost in creation, get absorbed into the stuff of self and become inseparable from the long line of doings since then.

Florida Java Script

Now, I can't even recall which version of Photoshop I was working with at the time. I recall seemingly endless hours of revising nautical charts, staring into a CRT monitor until the rounded eye of the photographer flattened like a pancake. Color and form got the nod on a 2-dimensional surface when the positions of buoys changed and new channels widened. 

Somehow I came across a few historic views of Florida orange groves, nostalgic in their early postcard colors and rustic, groomed landscape. Colors and forms acquire magical possibilities in Photoshop-driven minds. Photo realities explode. Experimentation becomes not only fun, but renewing. Breaking rules of nautical geometries became an elixir for my tired eyes and overlays of formerly segregated materials brought me a curious sense of satisfaction.

So how did Florida orange groves become united with java script in this collage? Perhaps the answer is as simple as proximity; the two materials happened to cross my desk with my interests. But I won't worry about the how, although the how does peak some curiosities. 

I  just like the results.

~ ~ ~

Lido Tower: Form and Structure

Lido Tower Stairs

Early morning light at the old Lido diving tower, Lido Beach, Sarasota, Florida. The perfect setting in which to realize the relationship between light and form.

Lido Tower Heights

The lifeguard, a photo student, was about to go on duty. We took a few minutes to examine the Lido Tower structure.

Legs At Rest

Just three examples of why I love black and white photography.

Three Redish Images

Spaceship Red Pepper 

Red Door

Erotic Red Orgy

Love Eggs

   There is a dark room in my house that's filled with treasures and junk. It has become a store room for things that once occupied my attentions.  It's filled with things which are waiting for me to do something mysterious with them. At least that's what it feels like when I acknowledge the things that I am.

Love In, Los Angeles, 1968

Some items in my dark room are iconic; I need only glance at them to relive the essence of past experiences. These I call my Soul Treasures.

Making Up

Without thinking, I am inclined to understand that all my things are personal and life-sustaining. That's our culture. We love things. Most of the time it's most difficult to detach from things. That's life.  

Sleeping Alone

Finding this last image recently was a real (suh!) slap-in-the-head for me. I had lost it amongst my junk. I had forgotten that this was one of the first images made during a life long photo theme I called Searching for Anima. 

~ ~ ~

Reviewing the Universal Egg

Universal Egg

Today I am attempting to gather more eggs from amongst the things that I am. MY problem is one faced by every hoarding personality: these rare eggs are countless and ubiquitous and ... Who's in charge of this filing system, anyway?

I can't find them all because I don't want to throw any eggs away. Let other things find their way into my personal mulch pit, I say.

"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."  Wayne Dyer

These eggs had been gathering themselves throughout the years ... so that we could play with them, question them, and lose them again.

~ ~ ~

Anima Eggs

   In continuing the search for eggs around the ovum that is my home, my eyes and my heart fall upon objects that have mapped a journey toward anima. Amongst the many image objects I find, some lie in storage drawers as prints, others rest in frames on the walls; still others fill my hardrives, while some travel as protons flying about in cyberspace.

Rabiana

I understand that Dante descended into the depths of hell. Having no life in this direction, anima must move from the head to the human heart to be fully acknowledged. It can be, like Dante's journey, a terrible distance to travel.

Amatao (I Love)

Love, too, can be a struggle. But is love a necessary path to discovering anima or animus? When did you first fall in love? With whom and how did it go?  Enraptured like Narcissus, many of us have found the road to completion strewn with boulders and carrion.

Gesture 13

Who does not identify with cave art? Its primitive beauty is as ageless as the Sirens of Desire.

Anima Rising

Now, I cannot confidently say that I have come into my stage of Jungian completion, but sometimes it feels like progress has been made. During times like this, it feels like anima is rising and all is well in the world.

~ ~ ~

Gathering Eggs

From the Dualities Series, 1998 - 2003

What is in a look?

I am naked

Crossed Heart

These images are not the egg. They only point toward the egg and that gathering of light.

These three images are what remains.

~ ~ ~

First Eggs

It's been two weeks since my cardio stress test and I have received a cardio blessing: no reason to cut my heart out for mending purposes.

This news provokes me to look around. I am considering my home as ovum. Thus, my estate is a good place to find evidence of the original egg that I am. (Play along with me and consider the possibilities that You are your own ovum and You are your Things.)

I didn't have to go far to find a 30 year old version of an egg that I can call my own amongst my things. This print was made early in my Searching for Anima series of photographs. The Jungian notion of coming into completion depends upon finding a balance between anima and animus. It is a notion that has sustained me through the years.

We can never be assured that such enlightenment or completion has arrived.  Once found, enlightenment seems to prove itself an illusion of the left brain and the ego. This, of course, is not enough to stop the seeker; in fact, finding and losing enlightenment only fuels the seeking. 

So, I look elsewhere amongst my things. Looking close at hand I recognize clues as to what kind of an egg I am becoming. But what I usually see is the mess that I must eventually clean up.

This picture is not me; it merely points toward me. Of course, this photo cannot present culminating evidence, only small measurements of activities that have supported my search for anima. Oh, yes, she keeps growing, changing, showing new colors and forms.

So here we find ourselves again this morning, starting another day in my home as ovum searching for anima. And all is well!

~ ~ ~

Morning Glories

Morning Glories at the end of 39th Street

I didn't think anyone left alive

loved her more than I

And then you showed up

and you and you 

and you and you

All of us showering in the golden rain

~ ~ ~
© gerryzeck, 2010

Selby Gardens

Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota, Florida begs to be photographed. Orchids, epiphytes, Koi and a Buddha-favored Bo Tree are the exhibitionists. Tropical and semi-tropical plants fill the gardens on Sarasota Bay.

click to enlarge

Selby Gardens: A perfect place for a perfectly delightful stroll 

on an excellent day at the beginning of October.

~ ~ ~

Home As Egg

Yesterday I resurrected my old interests in the Universal Egg with a posting of photos and considerations of my home as a metaphoric egg.

Today, freshly returned from a cardio stress test, I fell into a fried-egg sandwich for a break-fast lunch, tempting the fates and sating a long neglected appetite  (It's been at least a year between fried-egg sandwiches).

Eggs are moving again here at home.

Next, I popped into Facebook and found that my friend Deborah, a movement teacher who "lives, breathes, eats, and travels to work in the area of somatic education", had posted a most interesting reference book: the wonderfully illustrated Anatomy of the Human Body.

Figure 3. 

The Human Ovum

Henry Gray (1825–1861).  Anatomy of the Human Body.  1918.

My first, random click into the illustrations showed me nothing other than the egg again, the human ovum above. There I am, that's me (or you!) swimming in albumen inside the original little house. Ha! A perfectly rendered, instructively simple lesson for we Home As Egg metaphorists.

I've got to love This Egg. It's a symbol of containment with a promise. Its re-appearance provides another sampling of Jungian Synchronicities. Time to reassess my current metaphoric Eggdom. Time to re-evaluate everything.

~ ~ ~

Crack in the Egg

Several years ago I worked on a series of photo collages as explorations united by a common theme: the Universal Egg. I was searching for the crack in the egg.

Dream Maker One

The ancient Upanishads refer to the Universal Egg as "the Soul of the Universe", or "the Golden Womb" and "Brahman". My interest lies in the essence of the thing.

Today I'm curious about Home as a metaphoric womb, especially as it relates to personal creativity.

The Entry Way

Earthy Mexican tiles, red door, aqua-green walls, brown door mat, doorstep and leaves; all elements at the entry to the egg of my home. Here is where I begin to feel colors pressing into my mood and my step. It is a measure of our attachment, the house and me.

On most days I carry a little Kodak digital camera with me with the intent to document those scenes that bring me various pleasures. I find many of those scenes right around the place I call home.

Saint Asparagus

When I do comply with the urge to compose, I pull out my little Kodak and together we discover and reflect on what we really appreciate around home. 

Unlikely Couple

You are your things, they say. Whatever could they mean? 

I puzzled on that one until I decided to photo record those things of mine that brought delight.  I decided to record them WHEN that delight was burning most strongly within. Praises to the easy Kodak.

Florida Q-Tips

Things from my table-top-studio suggesting I am my Q-Tips, I am my things. 

Table Top Home Studio

~ ~ ~

Kitchen Art

Sometimes I just have to stop what I'm doing, pull my little Kodak out of my pocket, and make a picture of what I see. Many of these photo stoppages occur in view of very ordinary scenes, for which I am most grateful. Beautiful sights abound in the kitchen.

Vegetarians close your eyes.

As a photographer one learns to compose a subject within the photo frame. One learns that a Formal composition reveals "the whole" subject while Informal compositions keep some subject matter outside the frame.

My interests range from Formal to Informal to Beyond Formalities of the lens. For example, a Beyond Formality composition might include reasons the photographer made the picture, or the forces that brought the photo subject within range of the camera. These forces are often emotionally-loaded and usually remain the sole property of the picture-maker. 

Vegetarians may open their eyes now.

I'm not certain about the appeal of this kitchen scene. It may simply relate to an inborn voyeurism. I call this a Formal-Familiar Composition; it's all in the bag. And I find the cohabitation of Jalapeno and Red Onion most attractive and suggestive of taste treats to come. Hence, the image reaches Beyond the photo frame, within the realm of my senses.

For eyes that hear and see and smell and taste.

Informal and Beyond portraiture it is: onions and peppers in olive oil beseeching the camera to arrest this stove-top process. What the scene does not show is the trail that led the camera to it; the intense promise of the delicious. 

Please humor me: I cannot promise to refrain from posting more food photos in the future.

Chow!

 ~ ~ ~

Backyard Summer Pix

This Florida summer has been hotter and moister than usual. Not a cool, northern kind of summer here; consequently, the back yard needs attention badly.

Earlier in the summer, an umbrella was installed next to the frog pond in the hopes of slowing algae growth. A few baby gold fish and a bottom feeder were added to the pond.

The weeds surrounding the pond have not been harvested yet. Foot stones and flagstones around the pool have not yet been replaced. Much work to do ... when it gets cooler.

Yet, this back yard summer has been good to us. I didn't have to single-handedly rebuild the ancient wooden fence; my neighbor built a better one! Wow! And the new fence changed our back yard aesthetics. 

Bear witness to modest industry, please: one of many concrete "weed barriers"  removed from beneath the old fence. The old fence wood was recycled and given a new home. 

Piles of concrete currently awaiting recycling decisions.

This concrete cairn commemorates the old, 1957, wooden fence. A few weeds await their final resting place while the Beach Sunflowers enjoy the return of summer rains. 

Not everything is perfection here. Yet the spotted grapefruit tree provides a camouflage canopy for aluminum ladders. And the birds are singing daily.

A few old grapefruits were recently found, like Easter eggs, hiding in recycling piles. Hummm, you noticed too: lots of piles around here.

Now, with the umbrella's shade, the hungry fish, and hurricane season winds, the water is cooling and clearing. 

Soon the Tennessee Sandstone will be relaid and paths renewed.

And life will be perfect again.

~ ~ ~