Chicago's Filter Photo Festival 2011

Chicago's very own Filter Photo Festival is the creation of photographer Sarah Hadley. It its third year, it promises to offer something for everyone. There are wonderful lectures, workshops (one of which I will be teaching titled Developing your Personal Vision), portfolio reviews and exhibitions. If you haven't considered attending a portfolio review before, this might be the time! There is a great line up of reviewers and it provides invaluable feedback on your work.

August 9 ~ Morning Light

There will also be a juried exhibition called "Beginnings." The jurors are
Barbara DeGenevieve, Photography Professor, School of the Art Institute and
Christy Karpinski, Editor of F-Stop Magazine.

Surely you have something you can submit!

ON REVERIE by Raphael Enthoven

I am not sure if you saw the article On Reverie in the New York Times yesterday but it is too good not to share. I have posted an excerpt but you can read the full essay online HERE.

August 8

"Imagination, knowing and dreaming into the heart of the matter."

August 6, 2011, 12:46 PM
On Reverie
By RAPHAËL ENTHOVEN

"It’s a sweet drug that plays with fire. A wasteland — forest of ruins or paved-over jungle depending on whether wakefulness or sleep tips the scales. An old city where the shadows still hold a trace of vanished occupants, where detailed buildings, patiently reconquered by nature, suddenly still are there, sand castles. Through the dreamer’s kaleidoscope where the absence of desire is taken as reality, birds slash through the twilight, cypress trees dive into the pool, stars sparkle in the sea, clouds take on shapes, water lilies bloom in the sky, plans become flexible, the limit to how far things can go relaxes, thought dances, light is lit by shade, opposites are juxtaposed, merge and become linked in a prelude to beauty: reverie is contemplation’s prehistory, the education of the gaze by the eyes of the soul.

Suddenly, the world before concepts.

Daughter of consciousness and sleep, reverie blends their realms. Like intoxication, reverie is lucidity without an object, an activity but one that’s passive, a search that begins by giving up and lets itself be dazzled rather than looking...."

Happy Birthday President Obama

August 3, 2011 ~ image by Mr. Brainwash

Today is President Obama's birthday. He is my hero and I am going to see him tonight along with Herbie Hancock, OK Go, and Jennifer Hudson at the Aragon Ballroom, just a stones throw from home. It was disappointing to wake up to the morning newspaper headlines saying he has suffered politically from the financial fiasco in Washington. Running this country with so many fundamentalists is no easy task. Change is not easy and compromise a challenge.

I watched the movie Invictus this past weekend and it was truly inspiring. After 27 years in jail, Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) is released in 1990. His immediate challenge is "balancing black aspirations with white fears", as racial tensions from the apartheid era have not completely disappeared. The title of the movie comes from a poem by William Ernest Henley, that was the spiritual cornerstone and support of Nelson Mandela's 27 year imprisonment.

"Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul."

I couldn't help but see the parallels between what happened in South Africa and the divide that is deepening in this country.
Fear and misunderstand abound.

We must try to understand the other side, and at times compromise in an attempt to create wholeness.

The Underpass

The 365 photos project continues to be a challenge. Some days I am really into it. Other days it feels like an imposition and/or a stretch.

The Underpass ~ August 2


I took this photograph after having been attracted to the space for many years. Because of the project, I made myself stop and shoot it with my iphone. Who knew I would be adding the text. I guess one just needs to be open to whatever arrives at your doorstep.

Monday Morning Gift

July 25

I am just starting to feel grounded again, after much traveling. I have much to assimilate and sort thru. I am happy today is Monday and just returned from my morning walk. Today I decided to take my iphone with me on the walk...just in case I couldn't resist taking a photograph. What was supposed to be a fast clipped walk became more of a stroll with lots of imaging making. I just couldn't resist.

Marigolds

I just love marigolds...and I am not alone. In Mexico they are the primary flower in their Day of the Dead celebrations and in India they are often used for sacred rituals in their temples and along their rivers.

July 23

Today 64 marigold plants were lovingly placed in compost rich garden beds in anticipation of a Day of the Dead Salon and fund raiser we are hosting for Ragdale, one of my very favorite places that supports artists in their creative endeavors.