Rust

Like the gates
of Satis House,
the road beyond
is a lonely path.

Stake

What man stakes, nature reclaims

I've passed these giant pipes many times before but always without a camera. Today was different. These pipes remind me of my visit to the Angkor temples many years ago; where towering trees rise out of abandoned temples, diminishing man's vain pursuit of permanence.

Aeron

Picking up from where I left off last night.

Bargain with time over a piece
of the vanishing that hovers
unseen around us, an opening
to the invisible life

we enter only as ghosts
without our sandbags of fear,
our hearts unanchored to loss.
~Cyril Wong

Craftsman

Pasta with passion.

Crafting articles and artifacts from raw materials has become a novelty rather than the norm. I attribute this to our age of instant gratification, where patience has increasingly becoming a virtue. It is through this somewhat subtle shift that mankind has lost two traits that have distinguished us from beast; passion and the thought process.

Light

Morning shower

A ray of light
beautifies
the mundane.

Time

O let not Time deceive you, you cannot conquer Time.

We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming, or we recall the past as if to stay its rapid flight. We wander about in times that do not belong to us and do not thinking of the only one that does; so vain that we dream of times that are not and blindly flee the only one that is. The fact is that the present usually hurts.

Ordinary

Cascais, lunch.

If we are too young our judgment is impaired, just as it is if we are too old. Thinking too little about things or thinking too much both make us obstinate and fanatical. If we look at our work immediately after completing it, we are still too involved; if too long after, we cannot pick up the thread again. It is like looking at pictures which are too near or too far away. There is just on indivisible point which is the right place. Others are too near, too far, too high, or too low. In painting the rule of perspective decide it, but how will it be decided when it comes to truth and morality?
~Blaise Pascal

Mirror

Youth without youth

I met Mahmoud outside the old bazaar in Shiraz. It was nearing evening and the bazaar was winding down. As a bazaari Mahmoud was pretty much done for the day. After a day of heckling, bartering, bargaining and hauling goods about the bazaar he was unwinding at the chai khaneh near the bazaar gates. As I walked past he caught my attention and we started making conversation which was really a mishmash of dictionary pointing, gesturing and smiles. After chatting for a while, I asked him if I could take his picture and he seemed to gesture "sure why not". I snapped a couple of shots but I like this the best. In this frame, I felt I had captured the restless spirit of a youth; a mixture of curiosity and an eagerness to make a mark in the world. The bravado so often associated with youth is evident in the way he holds and attempts to smoke his pipe, as if it was a symbol of coming of age. I guess youth was our common stock, as Henri Cartier-Bresson once said about photography, "While my right eye is looking outward, my left eye is peering back into my heart"

Trash

Most surreal.

I like this photo. Although it was taken at night, the glow of the streetlamp does make it feel like it could have been taken in the day, but not quite. Not quite night and not quite day. I like black and white photography because of the shades of grey, the shades we inhabit in our daily lives. I think this colour photo has that same feature of a black and white, a composition of varying degrees. I think the subject matter makes it interesting too, the half peeling posters, the baskets, the dumpsters and what we would term in general to be rubbish. But our trash may be another's treasure. Not quite treasure and not quite trash, for most of us exist in the space in between a yes and a no.

Rain

Peek

I'm so glad it rained today.
After the rain the sun.

Nomad

S-Bahn, Berlin.

Yet another unfamiliar street name.
Yet another foreign train platform.
But somehow it all feels familiar.
Home is where the heart is.
But your heart has to roam

Flower

Hope springs eternal

Still on the prowl.
Looking for things not where they belong,
But wherever they may appear.

Louisiana

Giacometti and the Danish winter

I love the Louisiana. I've seen it in almost every season and for the Louisiana, the seasons matter; the changing seasons contrast the timelessness of the exhibits. I love a museum that is both about the inside and outside; a place cannot exist in a vacuum. It thrives in a context. But love, like the seasons can change too, albeit in a less predictable cycle.

"Museums, like lovers, can lose their charms. But the next time can always be the first time."
~Carlos Fuentes

Dusk

Lake Dal, Kashmir.

The sun sets and I watch
as the colours retreat.
It is hard to be still
when the road beckons.