Intimacy with the Universe: A Study in Light
"The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe." – Albert Einstein
This quote sums up how I view my photography practice. Life bombards us with images suggesting that our universe is a hostile place. Yet we still have the fundamental choice of what our personal relationship to the universe will be, and that is how I focus my eyes.
Like Einstein, I watch light. I enter into worlds beyond the ordinary where nothing is solid. I stare at the sun, seeing how light moves in waves and curves. I play with explosions and fractals as they arise.
Light becomes my meditation, my medicine.
Through learning to view the world as a study in light, I make contact with an intimacy in consciousness that is deeply friendly.
When I was seventeen, my thirteen-year-old brother’s death delivered me to the great mysteries of the universe. Jay had predicted his death over a year in advance, down to the color of the car that hit him. My community shattered, as did my life.
Over the years, I collected that shattering and turned my attention toward the mysteries of the universe. I discovered I could ask of nature directly: what is this deeper world we live within, beyond this ordinary?
Read more of this story in my memoir, What My Brother Knew
As the digital camera became my constant companion, I dove into deep inquiry with nature, light, and relative motion. My photography glimpses into deeper worlds of space-time warping, waves radiating out of everything, and fractals spontaneously forming. By visually integrating our seemingly solid reality with the more fundamental world of light and mystery just below the surface, I meet a beautifully emergent world.
Click the various collections below to explore.
I never edit my photos in any way. When people see my work I’d like them to feel the possibility of just how close the mysterious universe is.