Recognizing Remarkable Beauty

In light of recent events I see how fragile our lives can become. I have always known how important it is to fill every living moment of my existence with something meaningful. One of the goals I learned to set a long time ago is to find something remarkable within each day. It doesn’t have to be a big something, it just needs to be something that you can take a moment and just recognize. For my self and others it begins with the aroma, taste, and pleasure of that first cup of coffee in the morning. It’s the relationship and love for those around us. It’s beginning to recognize these moments we may take for granted the begins the process of awaking our sense to the life that surrounds us and make us aware of how precious that life becomes. Sometimes we don’t recognize that remarkable beauty until it is gone.

It began early for me, when I first took up photography. I would spend hours photographing the same subject; different angles, different perspectives, constantly exploring my relationship to the subject. Sometimes I would be drawn to something and not ever know why; perhaps a texture, a tone, a feeling, or an emotion. I always respond to my gut impulse. When I am walking down the street and I suddenly connect to something, it becomes the hook. The creative process begins with curiosity and wonder. I begin to probe what is the root of this impulse. What within me triggers my attraction? A life of working in the theater, gardening, and studying classical art brings me to a greater geometric understand of balance, form, and structure.

I am drawn, like a painter, to that underlying geometric structure which creates shape and movement. The points of a triangle fascinate me. The movement of my eyes following the out line of the shape defining the contents of what the shape contains. I am also drawn to “S” shapes inverted or natural. To me there is a comfort in this subtle flow of movement and as it welcomes, draws me in, and excites me. Now that I have probably lost most of you, you may be asking how does this awareness of the substructure relate to reality? It’s everywhere; it becomes the foundation for everyday existence. The meandering of a stream, the structure of a building, the trees in a garden, the lines of a fence, the relationship between children playing in a park, the movement of an athlete. When you become aware of it these shapes begin to emerge everywhere and in everything. Suddenly you begin to pay a closer attention to the relationship between things in your ordinary environment. I am particularly drawn to it in the structure of the human form. Because it is the rawest, most basic, every changing form that surrounds me. Add light, emotional context, mood, tone, and the remarkable natural beauty begins to emerge. All of us are exceptional in some way. Many of us just cannot see what those remarkable qualities are. We are too afraid sometimes to look deep into the mirror of ourselves and allow others to become those mirrors for us. I am fearful when television becomes our only mirror and tells us how we should live our lives. We have to find trust within our selves in order to learn to adore that existence. I am far from perfect from doing this myself, and yes lead a life full of my own distractions. But if I can recognize a few extraordinary moments in each day, I am generally fairly content.

VIEW FULL IMAGE: Jeremy #910