Never Give Up Hope

Miami Beach Sunrise, Old Lyme

There is always something special about the light in Old Lyme.  It's why the American Impressionists settled here.  Often, in the middle of broad daylight, the light is often softer here.  It is its own presence.  Always a palpable element of my experience here and something that gives me hope.

This morning I decided to go for a walk.  There are lots of changes on the horizon for me, as has been the case for so much of the past five years.  I love the earth so much.  It has been so healing for me to be in nature, after years of working in banking and being caught up in the rat race that is often sold to us as life.  Yet, as I walked, I realized there was a lot of security in holding a job with benefits and retirement.  I didn't have to think every day about what I was going to do or how I was going to sell my efforts or any of that.  Decisions were made for me. I suppose that is why lots of people do what they do. Security is very enticing.

Of course, it is too late for me to turn back and really, when I thought more about that, a lot of this security was false then and is even more of an illusion now.  Corporations aren't people and they can't care about their employees, who are let go so easily these days.  With a myopic focus on three month profit horizons, all stability in the environment and the economy is threatened because sustainability is not a consideration.  There is no more womb to tomb, and so much of what big business does destroys the very fabric of our lives.  Our food supply is threatened by GMO's, antibiotics, fertilizers, and chemicals.  So many people are developing sensitivities to what they eat and breathe, and our water supply is polluted and dwindling. There is no security on the planet right now, if we continue on the path we are on.  Holding onto that myth only makes matters worse.  The only choice as a sentient being is to take a risk and try to shake things up.  

The sky, earth, water and air of our planet are so beautiful.  To feel the faint drops of rain, to listen to the waves softly break on the beach, to feel my feet in the sand, and to delight in the incredible colors of a sunrise, these are gifts that should be cherished.  Seen in this light of hope, I suddenly knew that though I may be taking a very large risk in dedicating my life to sharing this beauty and attempting to inspire people to care about our planet, giving up dreams of changing the world is not as crazy as giving up hope.

Seeing What Lies Beneath the Surface

The Spiral Path to My Heart ©Lynne Buchanan

More and more I have been veering away from using my camera and my art as a way of objectively recording some place in time and instead have been focusing on my emotional response to the connections I form with all of life when I am in nature.  These connections are more felt than seen, so using the camera in its traditional mode was starting to feel a bit limiting to me and not fully authentic.  When you press the shutter button you are in essence capturing a slice of life.  Yet, capturing merely a slice is just as artificial as manipulating images because it removes the moment from the flow of life.  In addition to making traditional images, I have begun experimenting with in camera techniques of blurs and combining multiple exposures, as well as post processing techniques such as focus stacking, panoramas, etc., to maintain more of the context of my experience.  The element of chance is also quite exciting.  In addition to photography, I am also now studying multi media and incorporating painting into my images.  The further down the spiritual path I am traveling, the more I want to see if I can access my unconscious and the collective–sources of enduring and transcendent images.  When I am working lately, I have no idea what will happen.  Never have I given myself the license to play like this before.   My work of recording rivers and pristine wilderness in our country to create healing images and to educate the public about the importance of saving these areas before it is too late continues, but to feed my soul and keep my creative juices flowing I am also diving into new approaches that allow my feelings to surface more–especially the ones that lie just beneath the surface of my awareness.

Today I was gathering together a group of images for Dewitt Jones' Healing Images program.  Of course being somewhat allergic to filing and in desperate need of an assistant, I had to go hunt for the master files for a few.  In the process of looking for some images I made in Portland, Oregon last fall, I came across this image that I had forgotten all about.  At one of Jack Graham's workshops, a fellow participant showed me how to do multiple exposures in camera to create unusual images that might be interesting in themselves or possibly useful as backgrounds for other projects.  This is one of the images I made after he explained the process.  It was created by pointing the camera at trees with fall color and then rotating it around in a circle while having it in a rapid exposure mode.  I was thrilled to see that the center of this image formed a heart and the red leaves formed a spiral leading to the heart, the spiral being another image I am drawn to.  I also loved how many of the paler leaves were preserved in full detail, almost like ghosts floating on the vibrantly colored arrangement, little stepping stones on the way to the heart of the image.  In order to more clearly delineate the heart and bring out more of the texture in the background, I worked a lot within the selective color mode, as well as with curves and levels.  To me, the finished image expresses my heart orientation to the world and how spirals and elegant patterns in nature allow me to experience a deeper connection with a power greater than my limited mind.