The Spirit of Christmas ~ Haiku My Heart

©2011 Thomas Hawk – The Spirit of Christmas – Alameda CA  (some rights reserved)

The Soft Glow of Lights

The Scent of Sweet Pine Branches

The Warmth of Friendship.

-Noelle Renee

Linked with Rebecca’s Blog at Recuerda mi Corazon

~~

About the Photographer

Thomas Hawk Sometimes I like to think of myself as a photography factory. I see my photographs mostly as raw material for projects that might be worked on at some point later on in life. When I'm not taking or processing the pictures I'm mostly thinking about the pictures. I'm trying to publish a library of 1,000,000 finished, processed photographs before I die. The absurdity of my obsessive compulsive view on photography is not lost on me. But it is the absurdity of life that I find most beautiful of all. Where Sisyphus had his stone I have my camera and a bag full of lenses. Most of my images are Creative Commons licensed, non commercial with attribution.  If you'd like to use any CC licensed images for non commercial or personal purposes feel free.  If you'd like to use any of my images commercially, please contact me. "Don't think about making art. Just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they're deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol

Birdwings ~Rumi

Birdwings

Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror

up to where you’re bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,
here's the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.

~Jalaluddin Rumi

Excerpt from an Online Essay by Margaret Lottridge July 2004

Jalaluddin Rumi (Mawlana) 1207-1273

http://www.towerpoetry.ca/talk-lottridge.html

Jalaluddin Rumi, Persia’s best known lyrical poet and mystic, was born circa September 30, 1207 A.D. in Balkh, Central Asia, in what is now modern Afghanistan. Eighteen years later his family fled from invading Mongols, settling for a time in Laranda, Central Anatolia (present-day Karaman, Turkey) where Jalaluddin married Jawhar Khatun. His father, Baha’uddin Valad, the “Sultan of the Learned," moved the family to Konya (modern Turkey) in 1228 and founded a school of Islamic philosophy and theology.

Jalaluddin Rumi became a teacher and theologian who wrote scholarly articles. His traditional education was enhanced by the guidance of his father, a mystic and theologian, and through initiation experiences with his first teacher, Sufi master Sayyid Burhanuddin Muhaqqiq of Termez (a former student of Baha’uddin). Upon his father’s demise in January of 1231, Jalaluddin Rumi inherited the school and took over the responsibilities of guiding its students.

Rumi’s theoretical knowledge of divine principles was transformed by his relationship with Shamsuddin Muhammad of Tabriz. Shams, an enlightened being, a wandering dervish with an existential initiation and teaching style, was searching for someone to receive his knowledge – “someone whose soul was as wide and deep as his own.” Rumi, with his open, questioning mind, found in Shams the perfect mirror of his own soul – his Beloved – the Friend in much of his poetry.

Rumi and Shams met on a street in Konya in the fall of 1244.
Various accounts of their first encounter illustrate that the bond between Shams and Rumi was immediate and life-changing. In one account, Shams falls to the ground in a faint at Rumi’s replies to his introductory queries. Another account has Shams throwing Rumi’s treasured books into a fountain and telling him to begin to live what he’s been reading. He says the pages will be dry, as they were, if he lifts them out. Rumi leaves them in the water and they begin the first of many mystical retreats together. This is when Rumi’s scholarly writings took on the wings of poetry….

~Margaret Lottridge 2004

Father's Day: The Gift ~ Li-Young Lee

To pull the metal splinter from my palm

my father recited a story in a low voice.

I watched his lovely face and not the blade.

Before the story ended, he’d removed

the iron sliver I thought I’d die from.

I can’t remember the tale,

but hear his voice still, a well

of dark water, a prayer.

And I recall his hands,

two measures of tenderness

he laid against my face,

the flames of discipline

he raised above my head.

Had you entered that afternoon

you would have thought you saw a man

planting something in a boy’s palm,

a silver tear, a tiny flame.

Had you followed that boy

you would have arrived here,

where I bend over my wife’s right hand.

Look how I shave her thumbnail down

so carefully she feels no pain.

Watch as I lift the splinter out.

I was seven when my father

took my hand like this,

and I did not hold that shard

between my fingers and think,

Metal that will bury me,

christen it Little Assassin,

Ore Going Deep for My Heart.

And I did not lift up my wound and cry,

Death visited here!

© 2012 Istvan Kerekes 

I did what a child does

when he’s given something to keep.

I kissed my father.

Li-Young Lee, “The Gift” from Rose. Copyright ©1986 by Li-Young Lee.

About Istvan Kerekes

Photographer

In His Own Words

I have been a photographer since 2007. My favourite subject is The Man. I would like to show the souls behind the faces. Everyone has feelings, everybody loves and breathes. My subjects are usually ordinary people. My main aim is to show their personalities through my images. One of William Albert Allard’s thoughts on photos and photography is just like mine, I truly believe in it: “the good portrait is about the eye, the look, since the human soul is reflected in it the most purely.”When taking photos it is my heart that leads me. After I have tuned to the subject I act instinctively.

~Istvan Kerekes

Istvan’s website: http://www.kerekesistvan.hu/

*Copyrighted images are posted with kind permission of the photographer.

Heartbeat

 

©2013 Louise Fryer ~ Heartbeat

“Memory was that woman on the train. Insane in the way she sifted through dark things in a closet and emerged with the most unlikely ones - a fleeting look, a feeling. The smell of smoke. A windscreen wiper. A mother's marble eyes. Quite sane in the way she left huge tracts of darkness veiled. Unremembered.”
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

Chiaroscuro

Chiaroscuro from Vitùc on Vimeo.

Shot with iPhone and Hipstamatic App / Tinto 1848 + D-Type Plate
Italy 12.2012

Music composed by David Ianni
Prayers of Silence - Rosa Mystica I
http://davidianni.com

“The Lit Angel We Desire”

Istvan Kerekes ©2013 Feeling

What is precious
inside us does not
care to be known
by the mind
in ways that diminish
its presence.

What we strive for
in perfection
is not what turns us
into the lit angel
we desire,

what disturbs
and then nourishes
has everything
we need.

~David Whyte

Excerpt from “The Winter of Listening”

“The Back of the Hand to Everything”

 

©zoriah/www.zoriah.com ~ Residents of Breezy Point comfort each other amidst the rubble of what was once their homes.

Hurricane

It didn't behave
like anything you had
ever imagined. The wind
tore at the trees, the rain
fell for days slant and hard.
The back of the hand
to everything. I watched
the trees bow and their leaves fall
and crawl back into the earth.
As though, that was that.

©zoriah/www.zoriah.com ~The devastation of hundreds of homes in the wake of a fire caused by Hurricane Sandy in Breezy Point New York

This was one hurricane
I lived through, the other one
was of a different sort, and
lasted longer. Then
I felt my own leaves giving up and
falling. The back of the hand to
everything.

©zoriah/www.zoriah.com ~ Residents of Breezy Point Queens haul salvaged belongings from their homes.

But listen now to what happened
to the actual trees;
toward the end of that summer they
pushed new leaves from their stubbed limbs.
It was the wrong season, yes,
but they couldn't stop. They
looked like telephone poles and didn't
care.

©zoriah/www.zoriah.com ~A young girl stands inside of a wet store that was destroyed by the water that breached New York City’s East Village.

And after the leaves came
blossoms. For some things
there are no wrong seasons.
Which is what I dream of for me.

MARY OLIVER

A Thousand Mornings
The Penguin Press

 

About the Photographer

Zoriah is an award-winning photojournalist whose work has been featured in some of the world’s most prestigious galleries, museums and publications. Zoriah's clients have included The BBC, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, ABC News, NPR, Focus and many others. With a background in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Aid, Zoriah specializes in documenting human crises in developing countries. His vitae not only lists photographic achievements and study, but also the in-depth training and experience necessary for working under extreme conditions in some of the world's harshest environments.

Back in Mind (film)

Back in Mind from Ben on Vimeo.

Sometimes you will experience something beautiful and then you are happy to capture it. It’s snowing heavily and I decide to go for a ride on my bike, to capture some snowy landscapes with the GOPRO3 mounted on my bike. (the blurry spots on some images are snowflakes) I also made some shots with the Panasonic HDC-SD10 under a bridge, because of the snow. And then suddenly………… This video is about a meeting with a hare in the snow. And on my way home, I could only think about that special meeting. I’ve tried to show that feeling in this video “Back in Mind”.

ferrie = differentieel made a beautiful soundtrack, did the audio and gave me a lot of feedback on the images. Thanks a lot Ferrie!

The soundtrack is a variation on the composition La habitación de Philip en Baltimore (2° versión) by Luis Rojas copyleft 2007
https://soundcloud.com/#luisrojas2011/la-habitaci-n-de-philip-en

Luis Rojas:
facebook.com/luisrojas.bahia
soundcloud.com/luisrojas2011

ferrie = differentieel:
http://dailym.net/2013/02/back-in-mind/
http://audio.dailym.net/2013/02/soundtrack-back-in-mind/

2013 Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0

Karst Country ~ Infra-red Timelapse footage

Karst Country - infra-red timelapse from Glen Ryan on Vimeo.

This is the motion component of the recent Karst Country exhibition shown at the BAC in Canberra ACT. This infra-red time-lapse footage features the limestone landscapes near Wee Jasper NSW - which were the focus of the Karst Country exhibition's other prints and paintings - see http://www.karstcountry.com

This is only a very short section of a much larger project - in scope, duration and resolution (4K) - that I am currently working on with emerging cloud wrangler James van der Moezel.

The edit and music on this version were influenced by the unique constraints of public display in the specific gallery space - as well as the specific theme of the exhibition and it's other elements. The evolution of this project will see a final completed piece which will probably vary somewhat in its content and music. We are just starting on this really - and this is the start of the start.

Technical stuff : RED Scarlet / Epic cams... Nikon glass ... IR filters (R72) ... CS6.

Music by David Lawrence.

Still working on this ... more stuff soon :)

In One Kiss

An American Wedding by Thomas Hawk November 12, 2010

“A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.”
― Alfred Tennyson

A Boy and His Dog

©2013 Istvan Kerekes  posted with kind permission

 Boy and His Dog
Edgar Guest 

A boy and his dog make a glorious pair:
No better friendship is found anywhere,
For they talk and they walk and they run and they play,
And they have their deep secrets for many a day;
And that boy has a comrade who thinks and who feels,
Who walks down the road with a dog at his heels.

He may go where he will and his dog will be there,
May revel in mud and his dog will not care;
Faithful he'll stay for the slightest command
And bark with delight at the touch of his hand;
Oh, he owns a treasure which nobody steals,
Who walks down the road with a dog at his heels.

No other can lure him away from his side;
He's proof against riches and station and pride;
Fine dress does not charm him, and flattery's breath
Is lost on the dog, for he's faithful to death;
He sees the great soul which the body conceals--
Oh, it's great to be young with a dog at your heels!

About the Photographer

Istvan Kerekes

In His Own Words

I have been a photographer since 2007. My favourite subject is The Man. I would like to show the souls behind the faces. Everyone has feelings, everybody loves and breathes. My subjects are usually ordinary people. My main aim is to show their personalities through my images. One of William Albert Allard’s thoughts on photos and photography is just like mine, I truly believe in it: “the good portrait is about the eye, the look, since the human soul is reflected in it the most purely.”When taking photos it is my heart that leads me. After I have tuned to the subject I act instinctively.

~Istvan Kerekes

Istvan’s website: http://www.kerekesistvan.hu/

*Copyrighted images are posted with kind permission of the photographer.