magnolia seed macro

magnolia seed macro, originally uploaded by zen♫.

Tonight, at the Westville pub (it was Lasagne night, hello), my dear sweet Helen uttered the phrase: Sexual insinuendo

i love her!

Scorndefraud

cabstract 4, originally uploaded by zen♫.

Scorndefraud

A pillar, she stated deep on his front engraved catfish sushi
and transgressions he perceived without opinions retained
O, Hath Omnipresence new bold such great work ordained!

He communicated his tiny airship talent with such searing speed that some guy Finley
worried it's vital mantle-seed and so owned his restricted model of being causing all
future speeches stunned by liquid enthusiasm!
The quest so easily solved by that indeterminate Hollywood.

So minded sienna overleaped comprehensive earthly bounds and ascended deep into Louisiana the soft endless track of a matrix cookie or some similar ability that only the fine weakness a knees-lover would violently be reading and not utterraise yet a single tattered MacGyver point.

But where was she for loss end life flagging pleasure overloved? Open up your brazen folds discover wide this Thursday truth.
Halt upriver your own actions to penetrate the ancient east,
that boring brightly by so much will it tend to probably increase.

Which Man’s polluting sin with taint hath shed in close recess our expeditious and
Suspect secret sat in conclave to our symbolic height of actions. For hence our rhetoric evil goes like ponies coming to more a mynah newsstand of some ding-dong speaker weighing high the swarms of capricious technicians giving some advantage to seismographic police.

And the availability of her old fashioned
Towboat tonic.

(this is an example of Spam-poetry that i do - which is just a culling of huge sections of the spamwords used to fool spam-detection programs, with editing from me to include line breaks, a bit of rearranging, some words crushed into the middle to give it flow and a dash of punctuation)

you are here on mt mitchell

you are here on mt mitchell, originally uploaded by zen♫.

Here in the east coast, we have comfortable mountains. Mountains like sofas and saddles that fit the ass and are a trusted friend. I was very dissapointed when out west to realize that what the western people called mountains were just huge rocks. Pretty when covered with snow, but not that inviting or much fun to hike on.

I have a friend from Colorado who hates it here in Western NC - he says our mountains are really just dense hills that conspire to confuse his naturally wonderful sense of direction. He prefers to see the world by being on top and looking over stuff while it turns out i just prefer to actually look at stuff.

I guess it's all in how you look at it! :)

calder tries hockney

calder tries hockney, originally uploaded by zen♫.

sometimes just playing around with graphics themselves is fun.

standing there reflection tub

standing there reflection tub, originally uploaded by zen♫.

i've never been very good at maintaining one thing: one vision, one format, one method of creativity even. This weekend Helen and i went to the Grovewood Gallery which had an outdoor jewelry/craft component of tents and vendors and i marvelled at the wonderous works of others, but also at the singleness of mind they have to be able to channel themselves exclusively to stained glass or woodworking small velvet-lined boxes or just silver contemporary rings.

I feel lucky that i've stuck with photography so long, but haven't felt like i have even the remotest 'theme' that i can discover (or maybe, naturally, it's hidden from me), except perhaps the lack of people in my photos.

the whimmy-whams

picture travel - baywhale and kangan, originally uploaded by zen♫.

when i first wake up and cast my eyes around the room, it seems as if my eye muscles haven't attached properly yet (i don't fear they won't). And so my eye both tries to fall back asleep and hold an object steady in its gaze simultaneously - neither of which really win. I usually roll my eyes around, following the lines and corners of the room until i gain some measure of control over my vision.

what sound looks like

what sound looks like, originally uploaded by zen♫.

Overheard today: It sounds like we're making a lot of noise! Well, it would have to... right?

vaca-tion, cowness

coming back from vacation in florida and my mind is all akimbo. In only a week and a few days my routine has been crumbled like a saltine cracker. I can't think straight nor make enough sense to start thinking straight.

We listened to David Sedaris' new collection on CD on the way down and that man had us laughing hard and me wanting to write (Like on Stephan). Or at least finish the writing i've started such as "Birthday Kiss."

I also find that my 'photographic eye' didn't exactly translate well on vacation - the things i go for, think about, and meditate upon while photographing just didn't happen in Florida. It felt that something was amiss because of the heat, or the light was different, or the towns we visited were touristy and didn't have the grit, the trashiness that i think i photograph well. But the truth is, something was missing from me - either a desire or a muse or a divine spark of some kind.

I wanna think about that and see what i photograph back home in Asheville.

in florida

.

I'm in Florida and i've forgotten the power adapter to my laptop. So, i'm sort of going thru a withdrawal of being able to download and post photos to Flickr. I feel like i've been left in the car. I know i'll be home, but the lack of being able to process - which i'm guessing is a crutch of sorts, a perceived need leaves me feeling kinda small. And maybe more determined to understand what it is i do when i have those things with me.

Maybe it's good for me. Maybe.

dreamsicle moth

dreamsicle moth

my inspiration is ultimately nature. what nature does to man's things, what nature shows in growth, development or accident - i love it.

This is the Rosy Maple Moth, Dryocampa rubicunda, unphotoshopped.

the DaVinci Code debates

Those who know the truth have - by definition - stopped looking for it.

grafitti decaying on wooden door

There's something fascinating about graffiti that is nearing the end of its informative (or decorative) life. Graffiti is by nature temporary because it is both unwanted by the greater society and placed on materials that are either already in decay or deliberately rescoured by people who want to eradicate it or maintain a different, usually cleaner, image.

Fresh Graffiti can be vivid and poignant, but when old and transitional it appeals to me because it feels to me like it is being reabsorbed into the fabric of our life, like nutrients reused by living things in general.

his master's shade of yellow

just down the road from me.

the balance of objectivity

or the last couple of days i have been volunteering at the Botanical Gardens at Asheville as part of their annual "Day in the Gardens" where we sell plants and allow vendors of native plants to come sell for the weekend. It's been fun, hard, and very social, but i've had no time to view my friends' Flickr photos.

Lots of wonderful friends and Helen and i got the chance to share the good news about our engagement.

Above is a photo of the BGA's payment tent with our Office Specialist Claire (O'Dare as i call her) looking thoughtful.

she said yes!

she said yes!, originally uploaded by zen♫.

Last night we had Helen’s sisters over, Rebecca and Carolyn. Helen made a beautiful salmon and spinach meal which we ate outside on the porch with birds singing. After dinner, during the talk of childhoods and laughter, I got on my knees next to Helen’s chair and told her how much I adored her and then asked if she’d marry me. Her sisters bolted upright and thought I was kidding, but I was offering sweet Helen this ring.

Helen was not expecting it at all and was still ogling the ring when I continued, “But wait! If you act now, we’ll throw in this pearl necklace, pearl earring and bracelet set,” and put the Zales boxes in front of her. I would’ve thrown in Ginsu Knives if that’s what it took, but she kissed me and told me she loved me, and “yes.”

aerosol detail

aerosol detail, originally uploaded by zen♫.

downtown is a wonderful place to look for abstracts. urbanscape's lines and straightness makes anything organic seem to jump out and demand my attention. This is a closeup of a stenciler's art with paint dripping from some other source.

under the voting tent

sky view
Originally uploaded by zen♫.

yesterday spent several hours helping helen man the district information tent (democrat). The idea was to provide people with information on the Judges, which few knew anything about and the Mountain Express didn't much cover. Most people we saw went into the school to vote and came back out and asked us for literature/discussion/guidance. We had some information, but not much except how the progressive democrat should vote. Judges are by nature non-partisan.

It was a good day with my sweet helen and got a few photos in on a mostly warm mostly sunny day.

abstracts

Not too long after getting my first digital camera (an apple quicktake 150 with a whopping 8 photos of 640x480 before filling up), i starting loving the image for the image's sake. The play of pattern, color, shape, of light without regard to subject. To me it's no more or less art because its undefined, it's just more varied, more visual to me.

The first shot on the right is a shot of a solarium panel where the protective coating has been baked by the sun and started to peel. It looks interesting enough to me that even i - knowing what it is - don't try too hard to process its 'thingness.' I enjoy the moments within it.

I think that was the beginning of moving away from taking photos of people. Too object-ive. We as viewers and me as photographer are too anxious to process the face as object, to see the person or the personality of faceness. I may get back to that one day, but for now my vision is filled with lack of objects.

I still take photos of things, flowers especially. And it's odd in that i really like, or perhaps need to know what it is i'm photographing. Name it. Objectify it.

And i tend to define abstract rather loosely. It's not so important that the subject matter not be known; it's more important that the viewer is faced with the pattern more predominantly than the subject.

With all that i fully admit i don't know what i'm doing other than practicing my types of 'seeing.' Seeing hopefully in a way of knowledge as Carlos Casteneda frames it.

implied triangle

implied triangle
Originally uploaded by zen♫.

i'm not altogether sure what i'm doing with a blog. Like this photo i want to define things by their absence, to discover patterns of seemingly unconnected things, to recognize myself in a crowd of other regular people and know that without them, i'm not complete either.

So i'll continue to take photos, abstracts and mix the meaningful and the meaningless together in a way that is in tune with my heart's beat, and see what progresses.

This is a stone sculpture at Beaverlake north of Asheville. I actually had to get 'inside' the sculpture and look up to get this shot, but the object d'art is intended to be interacted with as far as i can tell.

boxelder bug

the original uploaded by zen♫.

insects are so other. hard to think of them as related to us, and closer to us than the tree they are eating. weird breathing methods, bones on the outside, adults with no mouthparts, multifaceted eyes, tongues on the ends of their feet, chemical signals, responses and defenses... it's all so amazing physically and spiritually.

i wish i felt poetic

the original uploaded by zen♫.

the truth is i see many things as areas of light or color or shades of things and frequently have no emotional attachment to them. I only partially compose usually with not much intent to a subject matter, only framing to keep out the unwanted and emphasize some part that, for the moment, i'm interested in. In this case the texture on the wall, warm and contrasted to the cold blue of space to black.

candle of the season

squared circle rusted furnace, via Flickr by zen♫.

looking thru the napa valley of rusted furnaces

standing there charlotte airport

standing there charlotte airport, via Flickr by zen♫.

seems i'm always looking down. Or at least my camera with the heavy lens (sony F828) is always pointing down when around my neck and i frequently have the LCD on - sometimes i see my next mission in this shot - especially those 'standing there' ones.

our pilot peeks out disapprovingly

our pilot peeks out disapprovingly, originally uploaded by zen♫.

well, he seemed pretty apprehensive about us. Is that sweat on his brow?

charlotte from the plane - early morning

charlotte from the plane - early morning
Originally uploaded by zen♫.

This from my trip with Diane for ZBD. It was early morning, fog setting in, and i was definitely blocking her view!

Flickr

i post exclusively with, a photofolksonomy.