Jingle Jangle

A portrait of the five of me . . . with a small school of fish swimming right in front of my face(s). Actually, only the large one in the center has my face; the others are my interior selves no one else sees. . . . I hear Jingle, Jangle.

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Jingle Jangle

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Blue Hole

This is not a reflection. I looiked up one day and was amazed at this formation in the sky. When I look at it now, I feel myself leaning back against the clouds, making the indentation that you see. This is the color of the month of May.

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Fred and Ginger

I took "Fred and Ginger" for reasons of motion. And keep in mind that everything I photograph is moving -- the water is moving at all times including the night I was waiting for the ferry at Woods Hole, where I stood watching the lights on the water of another boat. I watched them shimmer and move until they became dancers. When I felt myself doing the tango with them, I snapped.

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Uffizi

This is not a reflection. I took this picture at the Uffizi Gallery along the Arno River in Florence. I had just crossed the Ponte Vecchio Bridge ffrom the south side when I realized something had startled me on my right in peripheral vision. It happened so quickly that by the time I realized it, I had already walked past the source of my distraction. I scanned the crowd to see who else had noticed; surely, something so unignorable to me must have been seen by other people, yet no one appeared to have noticed but me.

I decided to retrace my steps to see if it would happen again. Looking straight ahead, not expecting it to occur, I began to walk. When it happened the second time, I stopped to determine the source. My sensation of an involuntary gestalt felt identical to my usual synesthesia -- the involuntary automatic response of color or sound elicited by an outside source -- only there was no color or sound in this case. What was the source and what did I feel?

I noticed that if I stood slightly to the right or left of that exact position, the feeling went away; so what was it about this confluence of shapes, this series of arches, that elicited the startle effect in me that felt identical to my synesthesia in a qualitative way? It is easier to tell you what I felt than why I felt it.

I remember the sensation of selfless abandonment, of suspension in perfect balance outside of the confines of time; the experience of ever-so-briefly being free of notions of quantity or measurement; indeed, of being beyond notions of any kind. It is a feeling I strive for in my art, though ironically, I can achieve it only if I give up striving all together.

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Layers of Meaning

This image perfectly represents what a layered thought looks like to me. When I see a word, a symbol,an icon or a number, I see additional versions or layers of meaning behind it -- and I mean that quite literally. I see a second or third version of the visible, although I also know that what I am looking at is not see-able to other people (at least, I know it as an adult).

In this image, the dark shape in front represents the visible while the white shape behind is equivalent to the version I automatically view on the otherside of consciousness. Even as I look at the additional layer, I understand that it is generated from the object in front of it. That is the reason the edges are indistinct and the shape ia amorphous, much like the nature of meaning itself.

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Red Siren

Initially, I was drawn to the sound of red, but once there, it was the plasticity I loved: I felt myself bend as the moving water changed the contours of the reflection. When I look at the image today, I see a mouth and nose.

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Painted Sky

Every time I look at "Painted Sky, I begin to squint in response to to the high afternoon sun in my eyes. Then I remember that the sun is not in my eyes, it is in the eyes of the fishing shack. Then I remember that fishing shacks don't have eyes, they have windows, of course . . . but by that time, I'm completely out of the trance-like state I go into when I am the house and take my pictures.

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Whiting Tree

I took this picture when I felt myself dissolve into and become the shadow.

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Sun In My Eyes, Venice

When I look at this image, I feel myself squint as if the sun is in my eye (instead of the window that is partly covered in shadow). I temporarily surrender my boundaries of self and become what I am looking at; I climb into and become that which I see. I don't know if there is a name for this process but this is an example of the product. When I take my pictures, I document the metamorphosis.

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The Big Stretch

I feel myself stretch when I look at this image

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