To me the act of photographing is a flow in which I forget about myself, my fears, and life situations, the past and future. I get completely immersed in what moves me, be it a tiny plant in the snow, the branches against the afternoon sun, the infinite variations of ripples on a creek, the vastness of space by the river, or people’s faces when most open and undefended. With the process of photographing, I am given the gift of floating in a space that feels soft and insubstantial. I am like a child, then, saucer-eyed, attentive, and playful. Often I meet the odd person who look baffled at my funny antics and intense attention at my choice of subject along these walks.

 

Without conceptualization, and by falling back on my intuition, I try to peel away the unnecessary, both within and without, while slowly resting my eyes and lens on what may hold an inspiration. I find there is often something immediate and spontaneous that occurs in moments of abandon and deep inner stillness, be it on a solitary walk or in unexpected encounters. If this immediacy begets a photo, it stems from a place beyond words and cognition, somewhere from the junction of the hidden chambers of the subconscious and the bright-filled expanse of the spirit, as it were.

 

Emptying myself of myself is the beautiful side-effect of this medicine (drug?) called photography. It is as though it were a double-edged sword I am obsessed by. I know it is a marvellous gift and an inner urge that propels me to go out and find a sense of mental quietude mixed with wonder, yet it cannot help bringing up the nagging question how I contribute to the world by this relentless and contemplative passion. When, however, someone tells me they find an exhibited or published shot moving, or with which they resonate deeply, my fears are assuaged. 

 

I often accompany my photographs with a haiku or a quote from a poem when I publish or exhibit them. I hope that they may form a symbiosis, and that my photos may give expression to my states of mind the way these quotes or haikus do with the written word.

 

I cannot say that I do “landscape photography” as it is not the landscape per se that I tend to capture but some elements thereof, with which I resonate—be it a twig in the snow or a sky by which I feel humbled. I often take photos not exactly knowing why, at first—all I know that I am drawn to what I see at the moment, without involving the mind in the process. Later, when it comes to revisiting them, I see that the resulting images in fact expressed either something that originated deep in the subconscious, or in a place beyond fears and concerns. In this sense, photography is also a continuing therapy and self-revelation for me. 

 

Winters have been a particular source of inspiration for me. The stripping down of underlying forms in the pristine, fresh snow (unfortunately rarer and rarer as the climate changes) creates not only graphic beauty but also coincides with my aesthetic of laying bare and expressing, as much as possible, the silence that envelops us all—trees, shrubs, frozen rivers and myself, waiting. The silence from which we come and to which we return.