Transformation

Photo©2014 Istvan Kerekes posted with kind permission

Behold, I Make All Things New

(Rev. 21:3-5)

Happy Day of Transformation!

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

Let’s Find a Way

Mindennapi Elet (Everyday Life) ©2012 Istvan Kerekes

Piglet's Song

Let's find a Way today,
that can take us to tomorrow.
We'll follow that Way,
A Way like flowing water.

Let's leave behind,
the things that do not matter.
And we'll turn our lives,
to a more important chapter.

Let's take the time and try to find,
what real life has to offer.
And maybe then we'll find again,
what we had long forgotten.
Like a friend, true 'til the end,
it will help us onward.

The sun is high, the road is wide,
and it starts where we are standing.
No one knows how far it goes,
for the road is never-ending.

It goes away,
beyond what we have thought of.
It flows away,
Away like flowing water.

~ Benjamin Hoff ~

(The Te of Piglet)

 

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.

Birdwings

"At Highgate Cemetary” ©2012 Louise Fryer

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 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 bird wings.

  ~Rumi

 

 ©2013 Louise Fryer

Photographer Profile: Louise Fryer

I first got into photography in May 2009, after spending some time experimenting in various different areas I found the subject that interested me the most was street photography. It is since January 2011 that I have been seriously concentrating on this area. I focus mainly on street portraiture, I try to capture sensitivity and feeling in my photographs. My inspiration comes from the people I see, my own empathy and feelings towards them. I feel a connection with some of the people I photograph due to my work and my life experiences.

“I see in black & white, colours just complicate things.” ~ Louise Fryer

Louise Hails from London and is a contributor to Shoot the Streets established to promote the art of street photography and increase the exposure of the many talented, and often unknown street photographers who live, breath and shoot the streets.

All photos are copyrighted and permission to use them was generously granted by Louise Fryer. All Rights Reserved.

Note: You may find Louise Fryer’s phenomenal Street Photography Here; Here and Shoot the Streets.

Eliott

Eliott from Aymeric Ayral on Vimeo.

The Last Supper

Portrait ©2012 Istvan Kerekes with kind permission

Here they are gathered, wondering and deranged,
Round Him, who wisely doth Himself inclose,
And who now takes Himself away, estranged,
From those who owned Him once, and past them
flows.

He feels the ancient loneliness to-day
That taught Him all His deepest acts of love;
Now in the olive groves He soon will rove,
And these who love Him all will flee away.
To the last supper table He hath led.

As birds are frightened from a garden-bed
By shots, so He their hands forth from the bread
Doth frighten by His word: to Him they flee;
Then flutter round the table in their fright
And seek a passage from the hall. But He
Is everywhere, like dusk at fall of night.

                     ~Rainer Maria Rilke

About the Photographer

Istvan Kerekes

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.

Linked to Postcards from Paradise at Recuerda mi Corazon

Has Anyone Seen the Boy?

Best Friends ©2012 Istvan Kerekes

Have you seen the boy?
"I had been looking for him for years...  I
remember him, full of love, generous heart, a
fiery passion." 
Some boys have a story to tell:
They get lost to us....

Has anyone seen the boy
who used to come here?
Round-faced trouble-maker,
quick to find a joke,
slow to be serious, red shirt,
perfect coordination, sly,
strong muscled,
with things always in his pocket:
reed flute, worn pick,
polished and ready for his Talent--
you know that one.
Have you heard stories about him?
Pharaoh and the whole Egyptian world
collapsed for such a Joseph.
I'd gladly spend years getting word
of him, even third or fourth hand.

There is a wonderful, magical energy in a
boy.  And the tragedy is that it can be so
easily lost.  It is a peculiar wildness of
heart. 
Have you ever met that wild heart?
He is so longed for and dearly missed.  Oh,
how we miss our boys.

~(Blue portion is from Rumi’s (Red Shirt))

Preface and Closing in gold taken from Here

Story of Red Shirt may be found here .

linked to Postcards from Paradise at Rebecca’s for Memorial Day

About the Photographer 

Istvan Kerekes

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/
Best Friends can be found on 1x.com
*Copyrighted images are posted with kind permission of the photographer.

Crow Moon (Video)

A flock of roosting crows, black as night themselves, are threatened by the advancing shadows at dusk. They need light for protection so with the help of the Raven Chief they take a piece of the sun and use it to save themselves from the darkness.

I made this short film in 2006 with BBC Scotland and National Lottery funding. The film took 8 months to create and was all hand drawn and painted onto cell and then filmed using a multi-plane and paint on glass. It has been screened at over 25 festivals worldwide so far and is still being requested now.

Crow Haiku

They end their flight

 one by one--

crows at dusk

~Buson


Linked to Recuerda mi Corazon

Questions that can make or unmake a Life

Street Portraits © 2012 Louise Fryer

Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest
breathing
like the ones
in the old stories
who could cross
a shimmering bed of dry leaves
without a sound,
you come
to a place
whose only task
is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests
conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.
Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and
to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,
questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,
questions
that have patiently
waited for you,
questions
that have no right
to go away.
~ David Whyte ~
(Everything is Waiting for You)

Linked to Postcards from Paradise at recuerda mi corazon

What is Supposed to Happen

©2012 Istvan Kerekes

When you were small,
we watched you sleeping,
waves of breath
filling your chest.

©2012 Istvan Kerekes

Sometimes we hid behind
the wall of baby, soft cradle
of baby needs.
I loved carrying you between
my own body and the world.

©2012 Istvan Kerekes

Now you are sharpening pencils,
entering the forest of
lunch boxes, little desks.

©2012 Istvan Kerekes

People I never saw before
call out your name
and you wave.

©2012 Istvan Kerekes

This loss I feel,
this shrinking, as your field of roses
grows and grows…

©2012 Istvan Kerekes

Now I understand history.
Now I understand my mother’s
ancient eyes.

~”What is Supposed to Happen”

by Naomi Shihab Nye

linked to Postcards from Paradise at Recuerda mi Corazon. Please visit rebecca’s blog to see other lovely postcards!

 

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.

The One who is Rightfully Yours

 

Convent Garden – 2012 © Louise Fryer

The True Love

There's a faith in loving fiercely the one who is rightfully yours
especially if you have waited years and especially if part of you never
believed you could deserve this loved and beckoning hand held
out to you this way.

Smile my heart~Smile © Louise Fryer

I am thinking of faith now and the testaments of loneliness
and what we feel we are worthy of in this world.
Years ago in the Hebrides I remember an old man
who would walk every morning on the gray stones
to the shore of baying seals, who would press his
hat to his chest in the blustering salt wind and say his
prayer to the turbulent Jesus hidden in the waters.

2012©Louise Fryer

And I think of the story of the storm and the people
waking and seeing the distant, yet familiar figure,
far across the water calling to them.
And how we are all preparing for that abrupt waking
and that calling and that moment when we have to say yes!
Except it will not come so grandly, so biblically,
but more subtly, and intimately in the face
of the one you know you have to love.
So that when we finally step out of the boat
toward them we find, everything holds us,
and everything confirms our courage.

Splash © 2012 Louise Fryer

And if you wanted to drown, you could,
But you don't, because finally, after all
this struggle and all these years,
you don't want to anymore.
You've simply had enough of drowning
and you want to live, and you want to love.

I’ll Find You There ©2012 Louise Fryer

And you'll walk across any territory,
and any darkness, however fluid,
and however dangerous

Bruges 2011 © 2011 Louise Fryer

to take the one
hand and the one life, you know belongs in yours.

~ David Whyte ~

 

linked to Recuerda mi corazon postcards from paradise

 

Photographer Profile: Louise Fryer

I first got into photography in May 2009, after spending some time experimenting in various different areas I found the subject that interested me the most was street photography. It is since January 2011 that I have been seriously concentrating on this area. I focus mainly on street portraiture, I try to capture sensitivity and feeling in my photographs. My inspiration comes from the people I see, my own empathy and feelings towards them. I feel a connection with some of the people I photograph due to my work and my life experiences.

“I see in black & white, colours just complicate things.” ~ Louise Fryer

Louise Hails from London and is a contributor to Shoot the Streets established to promote the art of street photography and increase the exposure of the many talented, and often unknown street photographers who live, breath and shoot the streets.

All photos are copyrighted and permission to use them was generously granted by Louise Fryer. All Rights Reserved.

Note: You may find Louise Fryer’s phenomenal Street Photography on at the following url’s: https://www.facebook.com/StreetPortraits and http://louisefryer.tumblr.com/;google+; and shoot the street.

Prayer in My Boot ~ Robert Larson Images

Prayer in my Boot
By Naomi Shihab Nye

For the wind no one expected

For the boy who does not know the answer

For the graceful handle I found in a field
attached to nothing
pray it is universally applicable

For our tracks which disappear
the moment we leave them

For the face peering through the cafe window
as we sip our soup

For cheerful American classrooms sparkling
with crisp colored alphabets
happy cat posters
the cage of the guinea pig
the dog with division flying out of his tail
and the classrooms of our cousins
on the other side of the earth

how solemn they are
how gray or green or plain
how there is nothing dangling
nothing striped or polka-dotted or cheery
no self-portraits or visions of cupids

and in these rooms the students raise their hands
and learn the stories of the world

For library books in alphabetical order
and family businesses that failed
and the house with the boarded windows

and the gap in the middle of a sentence
and the envelope we keep mailing ourselves

For every hopeful morning given and given,
and every future rough edge

and every afternoon
turning over in its sleep

~Naomi Shihab Nye

About The Photographer:

Robert Larson

A Journey To Haiti

“When I walk, I walk”~Jeanmary Michel

In January of 2010, I met a 27-year-old man in Port-au-Prince named Jeanmary Michel. We were strangers walking down the street together. It had been a difficult trip, and up to that point the reaction that most strangers had to my presence was hostile. This man simply looked at me, smiled and said “Whatsup?” He then continued on his way as if he had no desire to receive a greeting in return. I said hello, and asked where he was going. He said, “When I walk, I walk”.

I had traveled to Haiti in the days after the earthquake to photograph a historic moment for the world. I was in over my head. This stranger sensed my frustration and offered to show me whatever I’d like to see and to make sure I was safe. I agreed, and we spent the next 5 hours walking through the city on foot or riding in the back of taxis. I experienced more with him in 5 hours than I had in the last three days. We agreed to meet up the next morning and do it all over again.

We stayed in touch after I returned home to Los Angeles. In February of 2011, I received a grant from the Gilhousen Family Foundation to travel back to Haiti for two weeks and continue my photography project. This project had now been named Waiting for Haiti. I called Jeanmary, and we made arrangements for me to stay with him at his house so that I could experience the day-to-day life of a Haitian family. We emailed back and forth; composing a list of places that I would like to photograph, and he made a list of things he wanted me to see to better understand his country. Over the course of that last trip, Jeanmary and I became best friends. We had opposite backgrounds and perspectives, and we saw Haiti through each other’s eyes.

The more I learned about Haiti and the stronger our friendship grew, the more clear it became that these pictures meant a lot to both of us. One place that we repeatedly visited was the morgue at the General Hospital, in Port-au-Prince. Seeing the same decomposing bodies in the same place year after year and how they are carelessly stacked and slowly putrefying in the inefficient freezers; we felt deeply compelled to understand why the country functions the way it does. Jeanmary bought a notebook and began asking questions of his fellow Haitians, starting with the staff at the morgue. There were many places I could not go without him as a guide and translator. At the same time, having a foreigner by his side and a new sense of confidence opened doors for him that have always remained shut to the general Haitian population. We collected as many images and notes as we could in the short amount of time that we had.

In 2012 I will return to Port-au-Prince with the resources to help Jeanmary and myself share our story, his story, and Haiti’s story. Together with a talented and passionate production team, we will film Haiti in the way that it is. We will show the reality of a beautiful and mysterious country that has been left by the wayside. Through Jeanmary’s eyes, the film will show what a large natural disaster and subsequent flooding of foreign aid money really mean to an undeveloped and highly corrupt country. Haiti has a complicated story; its history is full of mistakes that many promise to never repeat. This project is an ongoing study of the country's future through the life of a man who calls it home.

Robert’s Website for this Project: Waiting for Haiti

Robert’s Other website:  robertlarsonphotography

All Photographs in this post are ©2011 Robert Larson All Rights Reserved. They were posted here with the permission of the Photographer. Thank you.

Yet They Behold The World

Simenfalva © 2011 Istvan Kerekes

My heart is so small
it's almost invisible.
How can You place
such big sorrows in it?

"Look," He answered,
"your eyes are even smaller,
yet they behold the world."

~ Rumi ~

 

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.

Someone Saved My Life Tonight

Someone Saved My Life Tonight ©2011 Thomas Hawk (some rights reserved)

 

Sweet Freedom Whispered in My Ear

You’re a Butterfly

and Butterflies are Free to Fly

Fly Away, High Away, Bye Bye

~©Elton John; Bernie Taupin (excerpt)

~~~

About the Photographer

Photo by Karen Hutton

Thomas Hawk

Introduction

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.

We all have but a short time on this earth. As slow as time can be it is also fast, swift, furious and mighty and then it’s over. Jack Kerouac is dead. Andy Warhol is dead. Garry Winogrand is dead. Lee Friedlander, Stephen Shore and William Eggleston are not dead yet, but probably will be at some point. Charles Bukowski once said that endurance was more important than truth. Charles Bukowski's now dead.

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.

Document, explore, lather, rinse, repeat. Photography for me then becomes a kind of hyperactivity, loosely arranged and presented. My work is less about individual images and instead more about the power of a massive amount of excessive and disjointed images where stories, characters and places sometimes stay and other times reappear or disappear entirely for no good reason at all.

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.

Pinned to Jack Kerouac's wall to inspire his writing:  "Art is the highest task and the proper metaphysical activity of this life." -Nietzsche

"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

The Way In ~ (Prayer For Amy)

Nyari Husito 1 © 2011 Istvan Kerekes

The Way In

Sometimes the way to milk and honey is through the body.
Sometimes the way in is a song.
But there are three ways in the world: dangerous, wounding,
and beauty.
To enter stone, be water.
To rise through hard earth, be plant
desiring sunlight, believing in water.
To enter fire, be dry.
To enter life, be food.
~ Linda Hogan ~
(Rounding the Human Corners)

Linked to Postcards from Paradise at Rebecca’s Blog 

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/

*image posted with kind permission of Istvan Kerekes

Hands of Love

 

Osszetartozunk 2 ©2011 Istvan Kerekes

Hands are Here

to Reach Out in Love

Osszetartozunk 1 ©2011 Istvan Kerekes

To Take Hold ,

in Constant Friendship,

When Support is Needed

Kep ©2011 Istvan Kerekes

To Faithfully Stand By and Wait,

Cherishing Each Moment,

Quietly Listening

Vigyazok Rad ©2011 Istvan Kerekes

To Remember

The Many Times

When They were Held

in Love and Protection

Ima © 2011 Istvan Kerekes

To Pray

to the One Who is Love and Compassion

Who Knows How Deeply All Our Hearts Need Healing

We Offer All that We Have

and All that We Are in Peace

for Our Friend Joe Spado (Spadoman).

©2011 Istvan Kerekes

And Carry Our Love To Him

On the Bright Wings of Hope

and Faithful Friendship.

 

~~

Linked to Recuerda Mi Corazon Circle of Love for Spadoman.