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About Roger Passman Photography by: Roger
March 15, 2009, 09:58
Roger Passman is a professional photographer located in Gilberts, Illinois. He concentrates on family portraiture and commercial images. His studio work refle…
- Terms and Conditions by: Roger
  August 9, 2009, 09:40
  Standard terms and conditions for assignment and event photography 1. Definitions "The Photographer" means Roger Passman Photography, PO Box 243, Gilberts, IL…
- Privacy Policy by: Roger
  August 9, 2009, 09:41
  Privacy Policy Your Privacy Is Important to Us Rogerpassmanphotography.com is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. If you volunteer to provid…
Portfolio by: Roger
August 20, 2009, 11:17
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Products Page by: Roger
August 4, 2009, 15:18
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Checkout by: Roger
September 30, 2009, 08:09
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- Transaction Results by: Roger
  September 30, 2009, 08:09
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- Your Account by: Roger
  September 30, 2009, 08:09
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Downloads by: Roger
September 29, 2009, 14:20
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Contact Us by: Roger
March 30, 2009, 06:57
Roger Passman Photography PO Box 243 Gilberts, IL 60136 847.494.3557 voice 877.362.9833 fax www.rogerpassmanphotography.com info@rogerpassmanphoto…
Site Map by: Roger
November 2, 2009, 06:39
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- black & white (61)
  - Anticipation ~ Spring 2010 by: Roger
    March 1, 2010, 14:48
    Not to make light of Descartes' dualistic insight I might be tempted to say, "I see therefore I exist!" But that would be disingenuous, so I won't go there. Lea…
  - Battlefield Trees at The Hermitage ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 28, 2010, 07:19
    Making photographs, especially those made as self-assignment works, always is a statement of deep commitment to one's subject. These photographs are made to be …
  - Leaning Cyprus at The Hermitage ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 27, 2010, 07:20
    What is it about a photograph that causes people to think of an image as somehow acting in place of the reality of that which has been photographed. The notion …
  - Directions, Franklin, Tennessee ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 26, 2010, 08:08
    Learning to see the ordinary, to not overstate or understate, to select a frame from a wide array of possible frames that re-presents that which was but is no l…
  - Near Desert View Grand Canyon ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 25, 2010, 07:15
    Hanging just above the trees that protect a gift shop near Desert View by the Grand Canyon the nearly full moon sparkled in the sky. I stopped for a second, set…
  - The Other Side at The Hermitage ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 24, 2010, 07:23
    There are two great mistakes made by those first entering the field of photography. The first is to overrate the value of one's equipment while the second is th…
  - Water Barrels at The Hermitage ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 23, 2010, 06:43
    Images are always there hiding in plain sight. Most are missed, even by those with a strong sense of vision. Sometimes, however, images sometimes seem to jump o…
  - Fence Line at The Hermitage ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 22, 2010, 07:08
    I made this photograph outside of Nashville while there for a funeral of a relative. It at moments like these that one realizes how small one's world really is…
  - Horse Head, Tombstone Arizona ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 15, 2010, 07:08
    Point of view is something developed over time. It comes from practice, the rejection of more images than one decides to keep, and the application of that exper…
  - Tombstone Mine Compressor ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 14, 2010, 08:43
    Things ask me to take their pictures. When I am out in the world intending to make photographs I am generally moved by something visually screaming for me to ma…
  - Wupatki Citadel Ruin ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 13, 2010, 14:34
    Kavanagh's quip is not only demeaning to policemen (as well as any others who work for a living) but it debases art. Shakespeare wrote, not for the nobility, ra…
  - New Mexico Highway ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 12, 2010, 05:50
    An old proverb reminds us that wherever you go, there you are. There is no escape from the presence of the self. Often this bit of folk wisdom is shared when on…
  - Salinas Pueblo Missions Ruins at Quarai No. 2 ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 11, 2010, 07:22
    I make photographs because the making of images helps me understand my place in the universe. Making photographs as art is a unique way of thinking about space,…
  - Salinas Pueblo Missions Ruins at Quarai ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 10, 2010, 07:44
    Ralph Haber claims that one remembers what one saw in a photograph after the photograph is no longer there. I am not so sure that one remembers specifically wha…
  - Gathering Storm Loveland, CO. ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 8, 2010, 08:13
    Photography, any visual art for that matter, but photography in particular is about learning to see. Everyone looks but not everyone sees. What is the differenc…
  - Wupatki National Monument Backcountry No. 2 ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 6, 2010, 22:21
    On one count, and one count only, Goldsmith, while not entirely wrong, is far too bombastic for my taste. The camera does not lie, the camera is the photographe…
  - Palm Trunk Detail ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 1, 2010, 07:06
    In late December I was in Phoenix visiting my 11 year old grandson. He has an interest in photography and asked me to help him learn something about making pict…
  - Winter Storm, Loveland Colorado ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 29, 2010, 05:43
    Every photograph is a manipulation of, an interpretation of its origins. The very idea that a photograph is not manipulated, that it is a true rendering of some…
  - Into the Canyon at Yavapai Point ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 20, 2010, 06:27
    How does one dissect a place so large as the Grand Canyon, a place so vast that one is bound to be awestruck at every turn of every corner on the trail? When fa…
  - Storm in the Rockies ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 17, 2010, 07:41
    Photographs re-present a story in a single frame. Not wanting to wait for the story to be played out in full, the photographer brings a restless fraction of a s…
  - Snow on Boulders ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 12, 2010, 08:55
    While driving along the Bear Lake Road in Rocky Mountain National Park during a snow storm I noticed these boulders framed by two bare aspens. I drove on storin…
  - Ingersoll-Rand No. 1 ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 11, 2010, 07:57
    Tombstone, Arizona: Standing just outside of the meeting place for the mine tour of a now worked out silver mine, this Ingersoll-Rand skeleton that once was the…
  - Long Pier ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 21, 2009, 07:23
    251 km North of Adelaide, South Australia, outside of Port Germain, SA, a wooden jetty, booked as the longest pier in South Australia is now an attraction for t…
  - Western Nebraska ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 15, 2009, 04:57
    During the colonizing march West, the history books call it Manifest Destiny, and before the transcontinental railroad changed the nature of travel for nearly 1…
  - Fence Line No. 2 ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 10, 2009, 06:24
    The core of Levinas' work turns on the ethical imperative of responsibility for the Other, the ethics that requires one to make no excuses, conger no alibis, to…
  - Funk's Grove Old Route 66 ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 2, 2009, 07:05
    Henri Cartier-Bresson called it the decisive moment, that instant when everything converges into the perfect image; that is it instant in which one must release…
  - Route 66 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 30, 2009, 05:30
    Surrealism is destructive...the same can be said about photography when the image interrogates the limitations of one's taken-for-granted's, one's closely held …
  - Little Rock ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 27, 2009, 07:43
    Berenice Abbott is nearly half correct. The photographic image re-presents an always already disappeared present, one that was captured in a fraction of a secon…
  - Eggs No. 1 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 21, 2009, 06:43
    How does one encounter a photographic image? After all, the image is visual, contains no words, no sentences, no paragraphs, no linguistic structure, yet, the o…
  - Bare Branches No. 1 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 20, 2009, 05:37
    The weather is turning. Leaves that only a few weeks ago were bright orange, red, yellow and brown have fallen to the ground leaving the branches of the trees b…
  - Flag ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 16, 2009, 06:48
    Good photographs, like good writing, like good arguments, pose questions. There is nothing straightforward about the photographic image. In each instance, when …
  - Repeats ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 3, 2009, 04:16
    Today I stop working for a few hours. This morning I will undergo prostate surgery that, if successful, will clear a blockage that in the most polite terms make…
  - Lone Tree No. 3 ~ Fall 3009 by: Roger
    September 24, 2009, 06:11
    The blink of an eye is longer than the moment of existence, the existential moment that is infinitely small, unable to be measured, and constantly replaced. Yet…
  - Barn Door by: Roger
    September 16, 2009, 08:15
    As I write this, it is nearly Autumn and the birds continue to sing among the flowers. To walk among the flowers, to see the butterflies flit from bloom to bloo…
  - Board of Trade Building ~ Summer 2008 by: Roger
    August 5, 2009, 07:05
    In a departure from recent posts (but not from the overall theme of this blog) the image in this post is of an iconic building in Chicago, the Board of Trade bu…
  - Harley by: Roger
    July 3, 2009, 05:40
    As one symbol of a free spirited life the Harley Davidson is one of the most recognizable icons of the American psyche. The image of the free spirit riding down…
  - Clearwater by: Roger
    June 29, 2009, 08:49
    Returning from the quite windy Fountain Square Art Festival in Evanston, IL, I find myself thinking about the funny questions people ask or comments they make. …
  - Hawker Hotel by: Roger
    June 26, 2009, 05:29
    Somewhere deep in the Australian outback the Hawker Hotel can be found serving the likes of bangers and mash, Fosters and warm berry pies. Like a set from a Hol…
  - Lunch Room by: Roger
    June 12, 2009, 04:54
    Not withstanding the fact that not in the too distant past this roadside lunch room and, most likely gas station, thrived along a well trafficked highway, the i…
  - Old Barn, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 15, 2009, 02:57
    This barn no longer functions. It is part of what remains of an abandoned farm in unincorporated Kane County between Gilberts and Pingree Grove. It stands as a …
  - Chimney Rock, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 11, 2009, 06:54
    The story is told that when asked why he didn't shoot in color Ansel Adams replied, "Black and white is the color of photography!" Whether the story is true or …
  - Split Rail Fence Spring 2009 by: Roger
    April 25, 2009, 09:53
    Along the Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park one comes across this split rail fence marking the edge of a parking turn-off at thismagnificent scenic poi…
  - Rocky Mountains Spring 2009 by: Roger
    April 24, 2009, 07:43
    I recently finished reading 'No Country for Old Men' (the book is better but not by much). As I looked out over this landscape I kept recalling the codes of Sug…
  - West Texas Highway 2009 by: Roger
    April 23, 2009, 13:16
    Near the Davis Mountains this empty road seems to go on forever. Located in the heart of the Chihauhaun Desert, the Davis Mountains (Named after Jefferson Davis…
  - Wolf Creek Pass ~ Spring 2008 by: Roger
    April 7, 2009, 05:37
    The American West represents the border between good and evil in the American psyche. Thanks mostly to Hollywood oaters, white hat cowboys always triumph over b…
  - Reduction by: Roger
    April 5, 2009, 07:18
    Two tracks merging into a single track at the point of decision. Moving in the direction of the image two reduce into one but if a train were coming at the view…
  - Abandoned by: Roger
    April 4, 2009, 06:50
    Once an out-building on a thriving Illinois farm, this shack is left to return to the earth from which it came. The farm, long since abandoned, is returning to …
  - So Many Boundaries by: Roger
    April 3, 2009, 05:25
    Wherever we look, whatever we see around us, someone created a demarcation of space or time. Days are divided into hours, hours into minutes, minutes into secon…
  - Barn ~ Gilberts, IL by: Roger
    April 2, 2009, 04:52
    Another relic of a soon to be lost past, this barn is located on the edge of a bankrupt subdivision that was to have added another 300 to 400 houses to Gilberts…
  - Layered Boundaries by: Roger
    April 1, 2009, 05:00
    The footpath protects the fence which in turn guards the woods which in turn marks the edge of the forested land. So many edges, so many boundaries. The footp…
  - Property Line ~ Kane County, IL by: Roger
    March 31, 2009, 04:56
    Jacques Derrida wrote about boundaries. He wrote about the fragility of definitions such as citizenship and place definitions, about the need to protect and fee…
  - Castillo de San Marcos, St Augustine, FL by: Roger
    March 30, 2009, 06:26
    The Castillo de San Marcos is also a monument to the penetrating fear of the other that human beings possess. Imposing artificial boundaries of stone and mortar…
  - Colorado, Spring 2008 by: Roger
    March 29, 2009, 07:36
    The image suggests a solitude, perhaps desolation, that emerges from boundaries, both real and imagined. What is on the other side of the fence that seems to go…
  - Elevator Lobby, State of Illinois Building by: Roger
    March 28, 2009, 05:46
    Looking down from the second floor, the open shaft of the elevator lobby (this is the rear) I found the converging horizontal and vertical lines irresistible. O…
  - Roosevelt Hotel by: Roger
    March 27, 2009, 09:30
    Located off of Hollywood Blvd., just West of Johnny Depp's sidewalk star, this building just jumped out at me. I immediately thought of film noir, Sam Spade, Bo…
  - Shave and a Haircut--2 Bits! by: Roger
    March 26, 2009, 04:54
    The nostalgia evoked by this country barber shop complete with the barber pole almost makes me want to sing Down by the Old Mill Stream in 4 part harmony. No p…
  - Stormy Day by: Roger
    March 25, 2009, 05:15
    A break in the rain opened a window to this old barn located in McHenry County. The clouds hung like a layered blanket across the grey sky momentarily holding b…
  - Barn near Huntley, IL by: Roger
    March 23, 2009, 08:51
    When I first moved to the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago I merely had to drive around 1 mile to be surrounded by dairy farms, corn or soybean fields, and dirt roa…
  - Spring Foliage by: Roger
    March 20, 2009, 05:44
    This image was shot in a Kane County Forest Preserve in early spring. Leaves that were just days ago hidden buds are reaching out to the sun for light. The for…
  - Dome Ceiling--Chicago Cultural Center by: Roger
    March 19, 2009, 05:35
    The dome in the Preston Bradley Hall at the Chicago Cultural Center is a magnificant example of a decorative glass dome.
  - Push Cart by: Roger
    March 18, 2009, 05:45
    I was walking around downtown Geneva, Illinois on Saturday when I spotted this well used lumber cart standing outside a storefront. I liked the texture of the …
- bokeh (34)
  - Barrel Cactus ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 9, 2010, 07:24
    There is a tone of arrogance in Grossman's words. The assumption that only photographers understand the world around them rubs me the wrong way. What Grossman m…
  - Web and Dew ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 11, 2009, 04:52
    The photographic image captures a present that is always already gone. I have said that time and time again. The image I show here re-presents just that idea. T…
  - Tall Grass No. 1 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 8, 2009, 04:52
    If you are not confused you are not trying hard enough. Penetrate confusion with understanding and compassion and peace remains. Zen Meditation There is a…
  - Regeneration ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 5, 2009, 06:13
    The meadow is rapidly changing now. Flowers that bloomed so brightly are now turning to seed preparing to regenerate themselves in the Spring. Leaves are turnin…
  - Goldenrod No. 2 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    September 30, 2009, 07:59
    I often photograph the mundane, found images in nature that, of themselves, are nothing special. I look for images that represent the ordinary and capture them …
  - Violet No. 12 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    September 29, 2009, 08:18
    Learning how to live in the moment, in that immeasurably short instant of time, the time that is timeless, is a step in the direction of stripping one of ego, o…
  - Yellow No. 25 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    September 28, 2009, 07:25
    One day as a Zen Master stood outside the gate, the Buddha called to him, "Sir, why do you not enter?" The Master replied, "I do not see myself as outside. Wh…
  - Milkweed Pods No. 3 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    September 27, 2009, 07:22
    A few short months ago this milkweed plant was blooming, displaying aromatic violet buds, attracting monarch butterflies and bees. In a few short weeks from now…
  - Yellow No. 24 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    September 25, 2009, 08:32
    Perhaps as one should see the sound one must also hear the colors. When the colors sing to you have you heard the colors? Is the metaphor correct? All perceptio…
  - Milkweed Pods No. 2 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 20, 2009, 07:10
    True believers, those who know the Truth, those who insist that, since they are in sole possession of what they know to be true, are a danger to both themselves…
  - Yellow No. 23 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 15, 2009, 08:44
    I am a child of the '60's. Growing up with the fear and apathy of the 1950's with its Great Red Scare, the world changed suddenly with the force of the Civil Ri…
  - Stiff Goldenrod No. 1 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 14, 2009, 09:27
    I am allergic to goldenrod this time of year. My eyes itch and water and my nose runs. If I complained I would miss the absolute beauty and rich diversity of th…
  - Violet No. 11 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 12, 2009, 05:47
    The immediate is. What one finds directly in one's path is what needs doing. When faced with a problem a solution is called for. When one is experiencing the mo…
  - Goldenrod No. 1 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 11, 2009, 08:40
    There are, for me, two lessons in this Zen Koan. The first deals with what is truth. The second suggests how one responds to the ethical imperative of service, …
  - Violet No. 10 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 10, 2009, 11:57
    If one truly lives in the existential moment then the only constant is that nothing is forever. While generally unpredictable, change is absolute. I keep a sign…
  - Yellow No. 22 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 9, 2009, 06:29
    In thinking about light reflecting off of a yellow flower growing on a meadow in the late Summer amid a field of grasses, wildflowers, plants gone to seed, and …
  - Yellow-No. 21 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 8, 2009, 10:39
    As the seasons turn, I again turn to an examination of time as a human experience. Levinas points out that before and after life experience the idea of time is …
  - Red No. 3 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 7, 2009, 08:01
    This line from The Star Spangled Banner coupled with a grand fireworks show at the end of a Kane County Cougars baseball game gave me pause. As everyone knows, …
  - Meadow No. 2 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 6, 2009, 06:41
    The ragweed is interlaced with the Queen Ann's Lace this time of year as Summer gives way to Fall. Forecasters will soon be providing ragweed counts along with …
  - Milkweed Pods ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 5, 2009, 06:54
    And so the seasons predictably turn. Earlier in the Spring I shot images of the milkweed flowers, some with bees harvesting nectar from the plants. Now, as Autu…
  - Yellow No. 20 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 27, 2009, 04:31
    I learned from Emmanuel Levinas that to lay my ego aside and be of service to others is the ethical imperative, the most important obligation I have as a human …
  - Violet No. 9 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 26, 2009, 06:51
    I believe, as Levinas suggests, that there is no predestination. If there were one would, of logical necessity, have no possibility of what the religious tend t…
  - Red No. 2 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 25, 2009, 04:54
    I recently wrote, "Learning to appreciate the difference is, it seems, a way of suggesting a larger universe comprised of diverse elements surviving in a comple…
  - Sunflower No. 1 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 24, 2009, 06:32
    Once again I travel no further than my own front yard to capture this image of a sunflower shedding its pollen. Searching the world over for something that is a…
  - Yellow No. 19 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 23, 2009, 05:51
    Ishmael makes this prayer at the end of a rather lengthy dissertation on how long it took to build cathedrals in Europe, how many people were engaged in the bui…
  - Ragweed ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 22, 2009, 09:02
    And so it goes. Wasting time on that which one cannot control is what gets one in serious trouble. Life is lived in the context of the local, the people with wh…
  - Purple No. 5 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 21, 2009, 07:39
    It has been said that one cannot set foot in the same river twice, nor can one standing in the river be at one place in the river. Streaming water is a metaphor…
  - Everything but the Bear ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 19, 2009, 05:53
    Walking through Burnidge Woods yesterday morning I came upon a stand of what appeared to be blueberries ripening on a bush. I was taken by the shapes and repeat…
  - Yellow No. 18 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 18, 2009, 06:37
    We have two dogs at home. The younger, Mazel, is a 20 pound, four year old Cockapoo. It is the older one, Simin, a 50 pound Labradoodle that I want to write…
  - Purple No. 4 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 17, 2009, 11:26
    Only yesterday I learned that a friend of mine has late stage cancer. Last week I learned that another friend lost his job of 20 years due to cutbacks and, beli…
  - Purple No. 3 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 16, 2009, 08:21
    The image in this post, as are many others posted to this blog, is categorized as Bokeh. The main component of Bokeh (Japanese for fuzzy) is that large segments…
  - Queen Ann's Lace No. 1 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 15, 2009, 07:20
    Kinsella left out the fact that nearly every other sport (perhaps cricket is the exception) is subject to a time limit. Not baseball. Innings and outs measure t…
  - Yellow-No. 13 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 21, 2009, 06:10
    I can't tell you how many times in Sheboygan I was asked, "What kind of camera do you use?" I restrain myself and respond with the following: "My workhorse came…
  - Orange No 1, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    June 2, 2009, 04:46
    Today is the anniversary of my birth. Sixty-six years ago I took my first breath in Chicago, Illinois. The probability that a single sperm united with a particu…
- close-up (72)
  - Barrel Cactus ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 9, 2010, 07:24
    There is a tone of arrogance in Grossman's words. The assumption that only photographers understand the world around them rubs me the wrong way. What Grossman m…
  - Palm Trunk Detail ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 1, 2010, 07:06
    In late December I was in Phoenix visiting my 11 year old grandson. He has an interest in photography and asked me to help him learn something about making pict…
  - Dirt Road - Loveland Colorado ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 4, 2009, 06:43
    Every setting conveys a thousand realities and the joy of photography comes with emphasizing the dimensions that bring personal choice to bear. A still scen…
  - Web and Dew ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 11, 2009, 04:52
    The photographic image captures a present that is always already gone. I have said that time and time again. The image I show here re-presents just that idea. T…
  - Fallen Leaves No. 1 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 9, 2009, 05:22
    When faith replaces reason tyranny is sure to follow. When reason replaces faith wonder ceases to exist. The key in anything is to balance faith and reason,…
  - Tall Grass No. 1 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 8, 2009, 04:52
    If you are not confused you are not trying hard enough. Penetrate confusion with understanding and compassion and peace remains. Zen Meditation There is a…
  - Regeneration ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 5, 2009, 06:13
    The meadow is rapidly changing now. Flowers that bloomed so brightly are now turning to seed preparing to regenerate themselves in the Spring. Leaves are turnin…
  - Meadow No. 3 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 1, 2009, 04:56
    Human beings are a solitary/social species. We can only exist in the moment in which we exist and, because we are centered in the moment of existence even when …
  - Goldenrod No. 2 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    September 30, 2009, 07:59
    I often photograph the mundane, found images in nature that, of themselves, are nothing special. I look for images that represent the ordinary and capture them …
  - Violet No. 12 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    September 29, 2009, 08:18
    Learning how to live in the moment, in that immeasurably short instant of time, the time that is timeless, is a step in the direction of stripping one of ego, o…
  - Yellow No. 25 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    September 28, 2009, 07:25
    One day as a Zen Master stood outside the gate, the Buddha called to him, "Sir, why do you not enter?" The Master replied, "I do not see myself as outside. Wh…
  - Milkweed Pods No. 3 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    September 27, 2009, 07:22
    A few short months ago this milkweed plant was blooming, displaying aromatic violet buds, attracting monarch butterflies and bees. In a few short weeks from now…
  - Yellow No. 24 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    September 25, 2009, 08:32
    Perhaps as one should see the sound one must also hear the colors. When the colors sing to you have you heard the colors? Is the metaphor correct? All perceptio…
  - Milkweed Pods No. 2 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 20, 2009, 07:10
    True believers, those who know the Truth, those who insist that, since they are in sole possession of what they know to be true, are a danger to both themselves…
  - Barn Door by: Roger
    September 16, 2009, 08:15
    As I write this, it is nearly Autumn and the birds continue to sing among the flowers. To walk among the flowers, to see the butterflies flit from bloom to bloo…
  - Yellow No. 23 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 15, 2009, 08:44
    I am a child of the '60's. Growing up with the fear and apathy of the 1950's with its Great Red Scare, the world changed suddenly with the force of the Civil Ri…
  - Stiff Goldenrod No. 1 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 14, 2009, 09:27
    I am allergic to goldenrod this time of year. My eyes itch and water and my nose runs. If I complained I would miss the absolute beauty and rich diversity of th…
  - Violet No. 11 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 12, 2009, 05:47
    The immediate is. What one finds directly in one's path is what needs doing. When faced with a problem a solution is called for. When one is experiencing the mo…
  - Goldenrod No. 1 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 11, 2009, 08:40
    There are, for me, two lessons in this Zen Koan. The first deals with what is truth. The second suggests how one responds to the ethical imperative of service, …
  - Violet No. 10 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 10, 2009, 11:57
    If one truly lives in the existential moment then the only constant is that nothing is forever. While generally unpredictable, change is absolute. I keep a sign…
  - Yellow No. 22 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 9, 2009, 06:29
    In thinking about light reflecting off of a yellow flower growing on a meadow in the late Summer amid a field of grasses, wildflowers, plants gone to seed, and …
  - Yellow-No. 21 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 8, 2009, 10:39
    As the seasons turn, I again turn to an examination of time as a human experience. Levinas points out that before and after life experience the idea of time is …
  - Red No. 3 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 7, 2009, 08:01
    This line from The Star Spangled Banner coupled with a grand fireworks show at the end of a Kane County Cougars baseball game gave me pause. As everyone knows, …
  - Milkweed Pods ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 5, 2009, 06:54
    And so the seasons predictably turn. Earlier in the Spring I shot images of the milkweed flowers, some with bees harvesting nectar from the plants. Now, as Autu…
  - Yellow No. 20 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 27, 2009, 04:31
    I learned from Emmanuel Levinas that to lay my ego aside and be of service to others is the ethical imperative, the most important obligation I have as a human …
  - Violet No. 9 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 26, 2009, 06:51
    I believe, as Levinas suggests, that there is no predestination. If there were one would, of logical necessity, have no possibility of what the religious tend t…
  - Red No. 2 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 25, 2009, 04:54
    I recently wrote, "Learning to appreciate the difference is, it seems, a way of suggesting a larger universe comprised of diverse elements surviving in a comple…
  - Sunflower No. 1 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 24, 2009, 06:32
    Once again I travel no further than my own front yard to capture this image of a sunflower shedding its pollen. Searching the world over for something that is a…
  - Yellow No. 19 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 23, 2009, 05:51
    Ishmael makes this prayer at the end of a rather lengthy dissertation on how long it took to build cathedrals in Europe, how many people were engaged in the bui…
  - Ragweed ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 22, 2009, 09:02
    And so it goes. Wasting time on that which one cannot control is what gets one in serious trouble. Life is lived in the context of the local, the people with wh…
  - Purple No. 5 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 21, 2009, 07:39
    It has been said that one cannot set foot in the same river twice, nor can one standing in the river be at one place in the river. Streaming water is a metaphor…
  - Everything but the Bear ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 19, 2009, 05:53
    Walking through Burnidge Woods yesterday morning I came upon a stand of what appeared to be blueberries ripening on a bush. I was taken by the shapes and repeat…
  - Yellow No. 18 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 18, 2009, 06:37
    We have two dogs at home. The younger, Mazel, is a 20 pound, four year old Cockapoo. It is the older one, Simin, a 50 pound Labradoodle that I want to write…
  - Purple No. 4 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 17, 2009, 11:26
    Only yesterday I learned that a friend of mine has late stage cancer. Last week I learned that another friend lost his job of 20 years due to cutbacks and, beli…
  - Purple No. 3 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 16, 2009, 08:21
    The image in this post, as are many others posted to this blog, is categorized as Bokeh. The main component of Bokeh (Japanese for fuzzy) is that large segments…
  - Purple No. 2 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 14, 2009, 06:15
    I am doomed to act, to make the ethical choice and act as if my actions may change the world for ever and ever. When I choose to not act, to be passive, to let …
  - Violet No. 8 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 13, 2009, 06:21
    Traveling Illinois rural highways this time of year one is sure to come across the wild Violet, a plant that blooms in late July through August reminding us tha…
  - Purple No. 1 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 12, 2009, 06:10
    Back to Burnidge Woods for a new go round with the meadow's wildflowers. Still Summer but the milkweed flowers have turned to pods, the Blackeyed Susans are far…
  - Violet No. 7 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 8, 2009, 07:37
    Sometimes it simply doesn't pay to stray far from one's own backyard. The image in this post was captured in a split second while walking counterclockwise in my…
  - Green No. 2 by: Roger
    August 7, 2009, 08:00
    The burst of color from the center, succulent leaves exploding out away from the center, reminds me to release my ego by stepping outside of myself and being of…
  - Yellow No. 17 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 3, 2009, 07:10
    Emmanuel Levinas argues at great length for a rather simple concept; one has one absolute ethical obligation, to be responsible for the other even at the expens…
  - Yellow No. 16 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 1, 2009, 06:40
    Reaching toward the sky, this grouping of wildflowers spreads petals toward the warmth of the sun. Yellow set against the rich blue of a clear, cloudless sky, t…
  - Yellow No. 15 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 30, 2009, 04:53
    Perhaps the sub-title of this piece might be "Flight of the Bumble Bee." I caught the bee in flight between the two yellow blossoms as he was going about the bu…
  - Water Lilly No. 3 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 29, 2009, 06:25
    There is a Zen story that goes something like this. A young novice found enlightenment elusive. He went to his master complaining about his ineffectiveness. The…
  - Violet No. 6 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 28, 2009, 06:28
    In my backyard I have a patch of garden that seems to be a haven for wild flowers. They are overtaking the plants I planted making me wonder a bit about how muc…
  - Cattails ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 27, 2009, 07:28
    The other day I was photographing wild flowers when I came across this stand of cattails on the banks of a pond. There they were, tucked in amongst their leaves…
  - Violet No. 4 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 26, 2009, 06:13
    If all I can rely upon to know is my own experience, what counts as experience? This question was addressed by John Dewey over 100 years ago and he concluded ba…
  - Violet No. 5 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 25, 2009, 06:26
    I have a relationship with wildflowers. I developed this relationship recently mainly due to the fact that I live quite close to a forest preserve/prairie in No…
  - Rosebud ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 24, 2009, 06:10
    I had breakfast yesterday morning with a friend of mine who is beginning an undergraduate degree in photography. She shared a number of images with me, each of …
  - Water Lilly No. 3 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 23, 2009, 04:52
    The story is told that the Zen novice was unable to find enlightenment. Try though he might enlightenment simply eluded him. One day he went to his master and c…
  - Yellow No. 14 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 22, 2009, 15:13
    Photographing flowers as landscape presents one with an opportunity to discect, to cut away the whole, to explore the parts. Using a wide open lens (in this cas…
  - Yellow-No. 13 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 21, 2009, 06:10
    I can't tell you how many times in Sheboygan I was asked, "What kind of camera do you use?" I restrain myself and respond with the following: "My workhorse came…
  - Milkweed and Bee No. 1 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 20, 2009, 07:04
    I returned late last night from a very successful show at the Midsummer Festival of the Arts at the John Michael Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, WI. The weathe…
  - Tall Grass No. 1 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 17, 2009, 05:31
    What is the distinction between a photograph as art and a snapshot taken by someone out in the park for an afternoon? In this post I want to briefly address two…
  - Yellow-No. 11 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 16, 2009, 04:54
    So the other day my wife asked me if I was a landscape photographer or a flower photographer. So is there a difference, I questioned. I don't think so. What int…
  - Violet No. 2 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 14, 2009, 08:06
    What is it about the natural world that I find so fascinating? Why am I drawn to nature, from landscapes to close-ups of flowers, for my image making? I was for…
  - Water Lilly No. 2 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 13, 2009, 11:32
    After reading my artist's statement in which I touch on the philosophical notion that the moment is infinitely small and baiscally immearurable period of time, …
  - Yellow No. 10 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 12, 2009, 07:45
    I am constantly amazed by the questions people ask when I am showing work at a fine art festival. My absolute favorite is the perfectly inane question, "Did you…
  - Yellow No. 9 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 11, 2009, 04:50
    Technically this is an HDR image. It is made from three bracketed exposures that are then combined into a single image. The technique allows one to expose for s…
  - Water Lilly No. 1 by: Roger
    July 10, 2009, 06:39
    What remains of the moment is only a remembered representation of that moment, a representation that fades with the passage of time. As a photographer, my respo…
  - Rainbow ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 6, 2009, 05:20
    While walking around the Chicago Art Institute gardens the other day I came across this mutli-colored blooming flower. The light was flat but the flower was the…
  - Preston Bradley Hall Ceiling Detail by: Roger
    July 5, 2009, 05:42
    Let me take you back in time for a brief moment; to a time when the Tiffany Ceiling in Preston Bradley Hall was an integral component of the Chicago Public Libr…
  - Harley by: Roger
    July 3, 2009, 05:40
    As one symbol of a free spirited life the Harley Davidson is one of the most recognizable icons of the American psyche. The image of the free spirit riding down…
  - Red No. 1 by: Roger
    June 28, 2009, 03:18
    When art became an academic discipline art became separated from function. When what experts claim as art is housed in a museum, in exclusive galleries, in the …
  - White No. 1 by: Roger
    June 27, 2009, 02:59
    Publishing an image creates a certain vulnerability through the "I" of the signature. Yet, even as the image is signed one is separated from the creative act of…
  - Green No. 1 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    June 25, 2009, 02:53
    A Buddhist monk goes to a hot dog stand and says, "Make me one with everything." He hands the vendor a $20 bill. The hot dog arrives, he eats it and waits for h…
  - Purple Flower No. 1 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    June 24, 2009, 04:21
    If one understands an image as text, albeit visual text, then it is not difficult to understand that image/text as existing outside of time. The issue is one of…
  - Bee No. 2 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    June 21, 2009, 07:34
    Just who is the author of a photograph? Is the one affixing a signature to an image the same person as the one who earlier created that image? Is the one who ea…
  - Gathering Nectar ~ Summer, 2009 by: Roger
    June 20, 2009, 06:56
    Image making exists only in the trace; it is an existential act of remembering the moment captured by the increment of time as the shutter snapped, first open, …
  - Horizontal No. 1 ~ Summer, 2009 by: Roger
    June 19, 2009, 07:19
    The ability to integrate the trace of experience into memory is dependent on the prior existence of an horizon, a way of seeing/visualizing/experiencing the wor…
  - Brown Butterfly Green Leaves, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    June 6, 2009, 05:41
    The frozen butterfly, wings spread perched on the green leaves, stands as a reminder of the moment of capture. Surely I did not physically capture this innocent…
  - Orange No 1, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    June 2, 2009, 04:46
    Today is the anniversary of my birth. Sixty-six years ago I took my first breath in Chicago, Illinois. The probability that a single sperm united with a particu…
- color (242)
  - Sunrise, Mather Point ~ Spring 2010 by: Roger
    March 10, 2010, 07:21
    I arrived at Mather Point around thirty minutes prior to the precise moment the sun crept above the horizon. In the twilight of the early dawn the sky changed f…
  - Sentinel Tree, Grand Canyon ~ Spring 2010 by: Roger
    March 7, 2010, 06:30
    The dualism, the split personality of the photographer, the one working alone, in fractions of seconds, exposing that which one believes to be compelling at th…
  - Sunrise at Mather Point ~ Spring 2010 by: Roger
    March 4, 2010, 08:24
    The camera is the instrument that brings the inner passion and the outward event into harmony with one another, this linking, or, rather, this coincidence, is s…
  - Late Afternoon near El Tovar ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 16, 2010, 09:41
    There are places on this earth that I never tire of, whether I am merely looking or actively photographing. The Grand Canyon is one of those places. The richnes…
  - Barrel Cactus ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 9, 2010, 07:24
    There is a tone of arrogance in Grossman's words. The assumption that only photographers understand the world around them rubs me the wrong way. What Grossman m…
  - Watchtower at Desert View ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 6, 2010, 05:07
    Before photography there was only memory to make impressions on one's mind. There was the place and, if one was fortunate enough to see such a place, there was …
  - Main Pueblo Ruins at Wupatki National Monument ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 5, 2010, 06:32
    Photographs now speak in an eloquent way about the nature of vision itself. The philosophical implications of sight, of being able to see the world in three-dim…
  - Mather Point at Sunrise ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 4, 2010, 07:21
    Making photographs is, to a large extent, a visual compromise between the origins and the print. Technique will only take one so far; an internalization of the …
  - Indian Garden from El Tovar ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 3, 2010, 07:24
    When I first began seriously making images I shot everything I could find in my viewfinder. A roll of PlusX lasted but minutes; I knew when I was finished becau…
  - Moon over Yavapai Point Sunrise ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 2, 2010, 08:49
    Learning to see in a photographic sense means that one has acquired skills that lead directly to what Cartier-Bresson called the decisive moment. One must learn…
  - Mid Afternoon Yavapai Point ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 31, 2010, 08:47
    I have been making photographs since I was 13 years old, some 53 years ago, when I discovered magic in the darkroom as images appeared as negatives on film and …
  - Long Shadows at El Tovar ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 30, 2010, 10:23
    Photography has developed my ability to see, to look at, to gaze, to directly experience the moment of existence that confirms the exteriority of the Absolute O…
  - Sunset at El Tovar Indian Garden ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 28, 2010, 06:32
    Photography is reductive, compressive in the sense that photographic images reduce the four-dimensional universe into a flat two-dimensional re-presentation of …
  - Mather Point Sunrise ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 27, 2010, 07:15
    Whenever I can I make a pilgrimage to the American Southwest for the purpose of making photographs. Ever since I was very young I have been fascinated by the la…
  - Grand Canyon Sunrise ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 26, 2010, 05:24
    Photographs appear to be realistic visual presentations of what was right there in front of the camera's lens. Nothing is further from the truth. Photographs ar…
  - Sunrise at Mather Point facing Northeast ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 25, 2010, 06:07
    I often hear from people visiting my exhibit booth at art fairs, "I took that exact same picture...Only yours is better!" This comment used to raise the hair on…
  - Bright Angel Trail seen from Yavapai Point at Sunrise ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 24, 2010, 08:00
    When I read a book I always have a yellow highlighter in my hand. I highlight passages so as to remember, to return to at a later date and probe for more. When …
  - Colorado River at Desert View ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 23, 2010, 05:16
    Landscapes, macro landscapes and micro landscapes, are my muse. The image of the Colorado River at Desert View was photographed in mid-morning on January 1st. I…
  - Sunrise Yavapai Point ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 22, 2010, 09:03
    Very little motivates me to get up in the morning before the sun rises on a bitterly cold Winter morning than the anticipation of making an image at or nearly a…
  - Pinon at Grandview Point ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 21, 2010, 08:46
    Bazin seems to be arguing that photographs, because they re-present the real are somewhat purer examples of that which was photographed than the subject (in nat…
  - Wupatki National Monument ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 19, 2010, 06:07
    The taint of age can be very beautiful. The wreckage of man-made objects is something more beautiful than the new. Rust and weathering adds a patina of . . . …
  - Mather Point Grand Canyon No. 2 ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 18, 2010, 06:04
    Mather Point Grand Canyon No. 2 ~ Winter 2010 Mather Point Grand Canyon No. 2 ~ Winter 2010 You're suddenly seeing the coherence and the interconnectedn…
  - Horse No. 1 ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 16, 2010, 07:10
    If what appears to be a life lived is, in truth, a series of remembrances and projections, a series of traces that bind temporality into a more or less cohesive…
  - Moon over El Morro ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 13, 2010, 07:17
    Two days after the December 31st Blue Moon while driving toward El Morro National Monument in Western New Mexico I spotted the nearly full moon hovering over th…
  - Sunset at El Tovar ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 10, 2010, 07:30
    I know people who keep secrets, who bottle up their thoughts so tightly that letting go of them seems to force an explosion of doubt among those that surround t…
  - Mather Point Grand Canyon No. 1 ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 9, 2010, 08:39
    Waiting for the precise moment when the sun cast a ribbon of light across the North Rim of the Grand Canyon is the essence of making landscape photography work.…
  - Salt River Canyon No. 2 ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    January 8, 2010, 16:02
    The Salt River Canyon in Eastern Arizona, along Route 60 past the Superstition Mountains heading toward Holbrook and Show Low, cuts through the Fort McDowell an…
  - Capital Rotunda, Springfield, IL ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 7, 2010, 14:45
    I expected to return home today after spending the past two weeks making Winter images at the Grand Canyon and elsewhere in the Southwest but, as luck would hav…
  - Windows ~ Merry Christmas by: Roger
    December 25, 2009, 06:19
    A photograph is neither taken nor seized by force. It offers itself up. It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos. Henri Cartier-Bresso…
  - YMCA ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 24, 2009, 05:27
    Living in the ordinary world, the stuff of living both in the present and locally. One does not live in the world, one lives in this world, the world that surro…
  - Rocky Mountains ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 23, 2009, 07:02
    Reality is dependent upon the observer not the observed. Point of view is dependent on one's proximity to an object being observed as well as the angle of obser…
  - Pantheon No. 1 ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 22, 2009, 08:35
    How much does a camera have to do with the photograph. At once, everything and nothing. The camera is the instrument that captures the image either on film or, …
  - Great River Road near Hannibal, MO ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 20, 2009, 08:00
    When Frampton says that the photograph is taken out of the infinite cinema, is he suggesting that the photographer, through some secret of alchemy, somehow remo…
  - Covered Bridge No. 2 ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 19, 2009, 08:18
    Because the camera as tool allows one to capture clarity, a sharpness of focus of the object being photographed, does not translate into a clarity of subject ma…
  - Huntley Barn ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 18, 2009, 08:03
    I began photographing barns in Northeastern Illinois because they are rapidly disappearing from the landscape. As cities expand, as bedroom communities surround…
  - Sonoran Rock Face ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 17, 2009, 06:37
    I invite you unconditionally to look at my photographs, at the images I create because I am absolutely passionate about what I choose to photograph and wish to …
  - Sonoran Desert ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 16, 2009, 06:45
    I photograph landscapes. A long time ago I made the thoughtful decision to avoid photographing those iconic images that have been shot once by a master photogra…
  - Covered Bridge ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 14, 2009, 06:14
    Photographs document the existential moment, or, at least as close as one can come to documenting the existential moment., Photographic images preserve a simula…
  - Red Rocks near Phoenix ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 13, 2009, 06:29
    Leith raises several interesting questions, not the least of which is the question: What is the way the world is? I believe photographers have a decided advanta…
  - Bridge No. 1 ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 12, 2009, 06:04
    Emmanuel Levinas taught that the existential life, the lived experience, the ontic life, is one sandwiched between two infinities, two timeless infinities in wh…
  - Snow in the Foothills ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 11, 2009, 09:17
    Another reason not to think of the photographic image as realism. If the photograph is understood as symbolic, as a trace of a trace of an always already gone o…
  - Foothills, Loveland Colorado ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 9, 2009, 07:12
    When is the present? It is always already past, leaving a trace, an incomplete memory of the existential moment that re-presents the impossibility of the presen…
  - Castle Rock State Park Ground Fog ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 8, 2009, 06:26
    For those who believe in photographic realism, the idea that the camera captures precisely what is there, nothing more and nothing less, I argue that such a bel…
  - Devil's Backbone ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 7, 2009, 06:29
    Photography is naturally reductive. The photographer works in the four dimensional world (I include space-time as a dimension especially because I work in snipp…
  - Long's Peak at Sunset ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 6, 2009, 07:54
    Observing and photographing nature makes me realize who is truly in control, and believe me, it's not us humans. Michael Garth Michael Garth makes two err…
  - The Rockies ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 5, 2009, 06:47
    A photograph does not speak, it does not smell, it makes no sound, it does not move, it is just a two dimensional piece of paper, but a good photograph can …
  - Foot Bridge White Pines State Park ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 3, 2009, 05:59
    Hospitality begins with an acknowledgment of the infinite, the timelessness exterior to the existential lived experience that both bookends the lived experience…
  - The Olgas ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 1, 2009, 06:31
    In general terms, I appear to be an atheist. I would not be so bold as to announce to the world that I was an atheist for that claim establishes a binary opposi…
  - Castillo de San Marcos No. 2 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 29, 2009, 06:19
    The ethics of hospitality, according to Levinas, requires one to respond to the welcome of the other; a welcome that may or may not be offered. The readiness to…
  - Pompeii Street No. 1 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 28, 2009, 05:52
    Photographing in Pompeii is something of a paradox, a conundrum. If, as I have argued, photography captures an instant in time then walking through this dead, d…
  - Castillo de San Marcos ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 26, 2009, 05:46
    When interrogating an image, as one constructs meaning from the contents of the four corners of that image inward, one must not forget to look at the margins a…
  - The Beach ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 25, 2009, 06:38
    Photography is an art that captures an instant of temporality on the pretense that one is capturing what is real, what is there when, in fact, what the photogra…
  - Salt Marsh ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 24, 2009, 07:32
    Photographic images contribute in two ways to the making sense of the world. Both are highly contextual fully dependent on embedded experience. For the photogra…
  - Symmetry ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 23, 2009, 04:53
    The difference between Buber's "I" and "thou" is, according to both Derrida and Levinas, much the same as the difference between the ego and the other existing…
  - Marsh Fog at Sunrise ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 22, 2009, 06:21
    An illusion of reality? Arnold Newman is on the right track. Another way to look at this idea is that the photograph is a supplement for the origins it is attem…
  - Rock River Autumn Morning ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 19, 2009, 06:38
    I would not go so far as Dave Lee by arguing that a photograph re-presents the photographer's truth as an absolute function of the notion of truth. Rather, I wo…
  - Sunrise Near McHenry Dam ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 18, 2009, 06:00
    Photographs capture that which the photographer attempts to capture. The creative experience is one in which one attempts to re-present a spontaneous or origina…
  - Sonoran Desert No. 4 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 17, 2009, 07:06
    Photographs do not re-present the real. As a photographer I frame a shot, convert what I see in three dimensions into two dimensions, removing all that I consid…
  - Flag ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 16, 2009, 06:48
    Good photographs, like good writing, like good arguments, pose questions. There is nothing straightforward about the photographic image. In each instance, when …
  - Wind-Power ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 15, 2009, 09:06
    Located subjectively somewhere between the absolute moment of existence, the moment that is always already gone, removed from presence by the remembrances of th…
  - Canada Goose ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 14, 2009, 05:44
    The photographic image carries with it an assumption of Truth in the sense that the camera records that which is presumed to actually be present in the frame. O…
  - Where are they Biting ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 13, 2009, 05:41
    If you didn't get a picture of it, it never happened. James Finley In what way does a photograph document an event, a place, a time, an era? Photographic…
  - Three Boats ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 12, 2009, 06:09
    If I knew how to take a good photograph, I'd do it every time. Robert Doisneau In the end, does it matter that I may have technical competence in photogr…
  - Web and Dew ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 11, 2009, 04:52
    The photographic image captures a present that is always already gone. I have said that time and time again. The image I show here re-presents just that idea. T…
  - White Pines No. 1 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 10, 2009, 06:58
    Agents of Death? What could Barthes mean? Let me see if I can make any sense of this obscure reference. For some time now I have been arguing that the photograp…
  - White Pines No. 2 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 9, 2009, 07:21
    Much of image making is intuitive. Because, as a photographer, I attempt to capture a moment corresponding to the existential moment, a moment that is always al…
  - Early Morning Haze ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 8, 2009, 07:16
    How do I describe what I saw with mere words? Language, especially spoken language, is as fleeting as the moment in which it exists. Say something and that some…
  - McHenry Dam No. 7 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 7, 2009, 06:41
    Photography occurs in fractions of seconds; by photographing something the photographer both creates a visual text thereby preserving something of the object be…
  - Fox River Sunrise ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 6, 2009, 07:04
    In Rex's Blues, songwriter Townes van Zandt wrote, There ain't no dark 'till something shines. Meaning is dependent on the difference between the light and the …
  - Moraine Hills Tree ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 5, 2009, 04:59
    Riboud is only partly right. Photography is evidence of a specific moment in time modified by the photographer's point of view, intent, skill, and experience. S…
  - McHenry Dam No. 6 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 4, 2009, 04:47
    The photographic image is the reflection of the photographer's vision, his or her passion. By printing an image the photographer makes public that vision and pa…
  - Sugar Maple ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 2, 2009, 06:43
    I often hear people comment when looking at my work something to the effect that "I took a photograph just like that once, only yours is better." Now I don't me…
  - Forest Sunrise ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 1, 2009, 04:48
    Photographs are not rational in the sense that they are something to be talked about, reduced to language. No, they are to be experienced at every level of enga…
  - Morning Frost ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 31, 2009, 08:25
    The photograph is an artifact of an existential event, not the event itself. The image re-presents a moment frozen in time, a moment that can only occur once, …
  - Apple River Canyon No. 3 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 30, 2009, 06:50
    The instant the shutter snaps the image in the photographer's viewfinder is already gone, replaced by an infinite number of new images that, while appearing the…
  - Solitude No. 4 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 29, 2009, 06:37
    I tend to photograph landscapes alone, walking trails that mark particular journeys that sometimes inspire great awe and other times simply leave me flat. While…
  - Fall Colors No. 3 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 28, 2009, 04:33
    Just what is "that other reality" Uelsmann is talking about? That other reality begs the question of what is reality in the first place. So let's begin this bri…
  - Apple River Canyon No. 2 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 27, 2009, 07:28
    I photograph nature. My motivation is simple, straightforward. By photographing nature I meditate on the nature of the self as a participant in a lived experien…
  - Lake La-Aqua-Na ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 26, 2009, 05:35
    The image in this post was made at Lake La-Aqua-Na State Park just outside of Lena, Illinois. Trees exploded into bright Fall colors and the lake was calm and i…
  - Ground Fog ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 25, 2009, 07:05
    The very act of looking changes perception, the subject, the context, everything. Looking at something changes the way one thinks about that which is observed. …
  - Rock River ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 24, 2009, 05:53
    Photographing the landscape (or anything else for that matter) is about the awe engendered by scratching the limits of the infinite without crossing over into t…
  - Fall Morning Haze ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 23, 2009, 06:40
    Photographs, by their very nature, rub up against the infinite. The photograph itself is made in the briefest span of time, freezing a moment that will never oc…
  - Apple River ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 22, 2009, 07:20
    I have argued that the photograph captures the simulacrum of the existential moment, that moment always already gone that implants trace memory to provide the i…
  - Morning Haze ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 21, 2009, 06:40
    Frozen moments, artifacts of existential time, photographs open the door to the infinite by holding time still. The photographer's stock in trade is his or her …
  - Fog Lifting in the Valley ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 20, 2009, 05:28
    Photography freezes moments that will never, ever be repeated. Moments are like fingerprints, each one is totally unique falling within a generalized structural…
  - Sunburst No. 1 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 19, 2009, 05:21
    Knowing where to stand comes, it seems to me, right after knowing where to go so that one's stance will be right. Additionally, knowing when the light is right …
  - Early Fall Morning ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 18, 2009, 04:16
    Not long ago while exhibiting at an art fair, a visitor to my booth remarked, "Wow, I took a picture exactly like that!" She paused briefly and added, "Only you…
  - Fall Colors No. 2 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 17, 2009, 07:53
    What secrets? Why layered one upon another? Who knows less and about what does one ask questions leading to more questions? If my experience as a photographer c…
  - Lone Tree No. 4 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 16, 2009, 06:09
    It is not that I don't shoot people...that is not the point. The point that Adams makes is that there is always a maker of the image and a viewer of the already…
  - Solitude No. 3 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 15, 2009, 05:58
    Solitude should not be confused with loneliness or sadness or isolation or abandoned or unwanted or outcast or desolate. Solitude, while generally reckoned as a…
  - Solitude No. 2 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 14, 2009, 05:56
    Human beings are a solitary/social species. We are trapped in our own perceptions, in our own visions. We can only know the world through our own eyes, our own …
  - Solitude ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 13, 2009, 06:34
    Solitude is painful when one is young, but delightful when one is more mature. Albert Einstein If it were not for the early morning sun in a partly clou…
  - Fall Colors No. 1 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 12, 2009, 06:40
    Where does one discover the spirit of the work? I believe the answer is simple. The spirit of the work is found in the act of doing; an act that can only take p…
  - McHenry Dam No. 1 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 11, 2009, 04:49
    For Levinas, a philosopher of some reputation, the ultimate philosophical act is to render service to the other, the widow, the orphan or the stranger, even at …
  - Volo Bog No. 1 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 10, 2009, 05:08
    In 1840 Illinois had over 22 million acres of tall grass prairie. Today barely 2500 acres remain pristine examples of the tall grass prairies that flourished ac…
  - Fallen Leaves No. 1 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 9, 2009, 05:22
    When faith replaces reason tyranny is sure to follow. When reason replaces faith wonder ceases to exist. The key in anything is to balance faith and reason,…
  - Tall Grass No. 1 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 8, 2009, 04:52
    If you are not confused you are not trying hard enough. Penetrate confusion with understanding and compassion and peace remains. Zen Meditation There is a…
  - Bridge ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 7, 2009, 05:44
    I appreciate the ebb and flow of the seasons. I like to walk through Midwestern woods and meadows looking at the changes that occur each year. For me these walk…
  - Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore No. 1 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 6, 2009, 06:40
    The past and future are constructions of what appears to be the continuum of linear time. They are respectively traces of memory that remain from the moment of …
  - Regeneration ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 5, 2009, 06:13
    The meadow is rapidly changing now. Flowers that bloomed so brightly are now turning to seed preparing to regenerate themselves in the Spring. Leaves are turnin…
  - Baseball ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 4, 2009, 10:01
    Does one exist in time or is one's existence measured in traces of memory? I have been writing lately about the infinitely small, immeasurable moment of time th…
  - Cactus No. 2 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 3, 2009, 05:36
    The moment, that elusive split second of time that cannot be measured and is always already gone, disappeared from existence except as a trace of memory, is the…
  - Meadow Apples ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 2, 2009, 04:53
    Still gripping onto the apple tree, the apples are worm eaten and rotten at this untended apple tree. Some have fallen to the ground making food for small mamma…
  - Meadow No. 3 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 1, 2009, 04:56
    Human beings are a solitary/social species. We can only exist in the moment in which we exist and, because we are centered in the moment of existence even when …
  - Goldenrod No. 2 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    September 30, 2009, 07:59
    I often photograph the mundane, found images in nature that, of themselves, are nothing special. I look for images that represent the ordinary and capture them …
  - Violet No. 12 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    September 29, 2009, 08:18
    Learning how to live in the moment, in that immeasurably short instant of time, the time that is timeless, is a step in the direction of stripping one of ego, o…
  - Yellow No. 25 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    September 28, 2009, 07:25
    One day as a Zen Master stood outside the gate, the Buddha called to him, "Sir, why do you not enter?" The Master replied, "I do not see myself as outside. Wh…
  - Milkweed Pods No. 3 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    September 27, 2009, 07:22
    A few short months ago this milkweed plant was blooming, displaying aromatic violet buds, attracting monarch butterflies and bees. In a few short weeks from now…
  - Stop by: Roger
    September 26, 2009, 05:37
    Stop and smell the roses, take in the flowers, the colors, the scents. Rushing around with no place to go takes one away from the very moment of existence, from…
  - Yellow No. 24 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    September 25, 2009, 08:32
    Perhaps as one should see the sound one must also hear the colors. When the colors sing to you have you heard the colors? Is the metaphor correct? All perceptio…
  - State of Illinois Building No. 3 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    September 23, 2009, 08:37
    When I was in graduate school I learned the definition of an expert as one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing. …
  - Hayfield in Fall ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    September 22, 2009, 06:54
    Everyday life is the path. This is something akin to the Jewish notion of practice as opposed to faith. Doing that which is right and proper, following the rule…
  - Natchez Trace ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    September 21, 2009, 09:33
    Running from Nashville to Natchez Mississippi, the Natchez Trace Parkway preserves an ancient trail used by both animals and native people for thousands of …
  - Milkweed Pods No. 2 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 20, 2009, 07:10
    True believers, those who know the Truth, those who insist that, since they are in sole possession of what they know to be true, are a danger to both themselves…
  - Lone Tree No. 2 by: Roger
    September 18, 2009, 06:03
    Mary Travers died yesterday at the age of 72 of leukemia. On Sunday the 25th anniversary of the death of singer-songwriter Steve Goodman is observed. Both of th…
  - Lone Tree No. 1 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 17, 2009, 04:48
    Woods on one side and the other, the farm land layered with wheat and soybeans in repetition, and the lone tree sitting in the middle of this field in the early…
  - Yellow No. 23 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 15, 2009, 08:44
    I am a child of the '60's. Growing up with the fear and apathy of the 1950's with its Great Red Scare, the world changed suddenly with the force of the Civil Ri…
  - Stiff Goldenrod No. 1 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 14, 2009, 09:27
    I am allergic to goldenrod this time of year. My eyes itch and water and my nose runs. If I complained I would miss the absolute beauty and rich diversity of th…
  - Violet No. 11 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 12, 2009, 05:47
    The immediate is. What one finds directly in one's path is what needs doing. When faced with a problem a solution is called for. When one is experiencing the mo…
  - Goldenrod No. 1 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 11, 2009, 08:40
    There are, for me, two lessons in this Zen Koan. The first deals with what is truth. The second suggests how one responds to the ethical imperative of service, …
  - Violet No. 10 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 10, 2009, 11:57
    If one truly lives in the existential moment then the only constant is that nothing is forever. While generally unpredictable, change is absolute. I keep a sign…
  - Yellow No. 22 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 9, 2009, 06:29
    In thinking about light reflecting off of a yellow flower growing on a meadow in the late Summer amid a field of grasses, wildflowers, plants gone to seed, and …
  - Yellow-No. 21 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 8, 2009, 10:39
    As the seasons turn, I again turn to an examination of time as a human experience. Levinas points out that before and after life experience the idea of time is …
  - Red No. 3 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 7, 2009, 08:01
    This line from The Star Spangled Banner coupled with a grand fireworks show at the end of a Kane County Cougars baseball game gave me pause. As everyone knows, …
  - Meadow No. 2 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 6, 2009, 06:41
    The ragweed is interlaced with the Queen Ann's Lace this time of year as Summer gives way to Fall. Forecasters will soon be providing ragweed counts along with …
  - Milkweed Pods ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 5, 2009, 06:54
    And so the seasons predictably turn. Earlier in the Spring I shot images of the milkweed flowers, some with bees harvesting nectar from the plants. Now, as Autu…
  - Wisconsin Capitol Dome Detail by: Roger
    September 4, 2009, 06:26
    Like many public buildings, the Wisconsin State Capitol is built to impress. No expense was spared on marble work or fine wood work or mosaics. The building rad…
  - Montreal Roof Line by: Roger
    September 3, 2009, 07:56
    Predictable patterns leave room for individual differences; it is just the way that it is. In the macro world, the world as seen from an objective distance, one…
  - Coliseum by: Roger
    September 2, 2009, 05:32
    Melville seems to predict the postmodern stance that places a greater emphasis on the process, the close reading leading to interpretation unique to the reading…
  - Sydney Opera House No. 1 by: Roger
    September 1, 2009, 07:40
    I have nothing if not questions for which I have very little to show in terms of knowing something for certain. It is not that I doubt, rather, I have a strong …
  - Uluru by: Roger
    August 31, 2009, 04:58
    Revered by the local Aboriginal people, Uluru (Ayer's Rock) is a magnificent rock formation emerging from the red sands of the Australian center. This reverence…
  - St. Peter's No. 1 by: Roger
    August 30, 2009, 05:17
    In a sense, the absolute and overwhelming alterity of the Absolute Other, the ineffable, that which is beyond all definition, reason and knowledge is translated…
  - State of Illinois Building No. 2 by: Roger
    August 29, 2009, 08:29
    If time is an illusion of instants or moments of existence, each instant exists without the ability to predict the next, each one exists with no past and no fut…
  - Cloud Gate No. 3 by: Roger
    August 28, 2009, 07:06
    The moment of awareness, exclusive of all other moments of awareness, is the instant in which one is obligated to escape from the self and join the material wor…
  - Yellow No. 20 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 27, 2009, 04:31
    I learned from Emmanuel Levinas that to lay my ego aside and be of service to others is the ethical imperative, the most important obligation I have as a human …
  - Violet No. 9 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 26, 2009, 06:51
    I believe, as Levinas suggests, that there is no predestination. If there were one would, of logical necessity, have no possibility of what the religious tend t…
  - Red No. 2 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 25, 2009, 04:54
    I recently wrote, "Learning to appreciate the difference is, it seems, a way of suggesting a larger universe comprised of diverse elements surviving in a comple…
  - Sunflower No. 1 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 24, 2009, 06:32
    Once again I travel no further than my own front yard to capture this image of a sunflower shedding its pollen. Searching the world over for something that is a…
  - Yellow No. 19 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 23, 2009, 05:51
    Ishmael makes this prayer at the end of a rather lengthy dissertation on how long it took to build cathedrals in Europe, how many people were engaged in the bui…
  - Ragweed ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 22, 2009, 09:02
    And so it goes. Wasting time on that which one cannot control is what gets one in serious trouble. Life is lived in the context of the local, the people with wh…
  - Purple No. 5 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 21, 2009, 07:39
    It has been said that one cannot set foot in the same river twice, nor can one standing in the river be at one place in the river. Streaming water is a metaphor…
  - Meadow No. 1 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 20, 2009, 08:58
    Walking through the Burnidge Woods meadow I could not help but quite myself. I realized that I was removed from the life outside, the politics, the inflated imp…
  - Everything but the Bear ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 19, 2009, 05:53
    Walking through Burnidge Woods yesterday morning I came upon a stand of what appeared to be blueberries ripening on a bush. I was taken by the shapes and repeat…
  - Yellow No. 18 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 18, 2009, 06:37
    We have two dogs at home. The younger, Mazel, is a 20 pound, four year old Cockapoo. It is the older one, Simin, a 50 pound Labradoodle that I want to write…
  - Purple No. 4 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 17, 2009, 11:26
    Only yesterday I learned that a friend of mine has late stage cancer. Last week I learned that another friend lost his job of 20 years due to cutbacks and, beli…
  - Purple No. 3 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 16, 2009, 08:21
    The image in this post, as are many others posted to this blog, is categorized as Bokeh. The main component of Bokeh (Japanese for fuzzy) is that large segments…
  - Queen Ann's Lace No. 1 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 15, 2009, 07:20
    Kinsella left out the fact that nearly every other sport (perhaps cricket is the exception) is subject to a time limit. Not baseball. Innings and outs measure t…
  - Purple No. 2 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 14, 2009, 06:15
    I am doomed to act, to make the ethical choice and act as if my actions may change the world for ever and ever. When I choose to not act, to be passive, to let …
  - Violet No. 8 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 13, 2009, 06:21
    Traveling Illinois rural highways this time of year one is sure to come across the wild Violet, a plant that blooms in late July through August reminding us tha…
  - Purple No. 1 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 12, 2009, 06:10
    Back to Burnidge Woods for a new go round with the meadow's wildflowers. Still Summer but the milkweed flowers have turned to pods, the Blackeyed Susans are far…
  - Chimney Rock Bluff and Tree No. 3 by: Roger
    August 11, 2009, 06:08
    Who is responsible for capturing this image? I sign my name to the image, copyright the image, own the reproduction rights to the image so why would I ask such …
  - Nebraska Windmill by: Roger
    August 10, 2009, 06:51
    Before wind was used to convert its energy into electrical power it was used to pump water from the ground to water cattle and irrigate crops. The windmill turn…
  - Chimney Rock Bluff and Tree No. 2 by: Roger
    August 9, 2009, 09:02
    The Chimney Rock area marked a landmark along the Oregon Trail. The rock itself is an imposing spire rising above an otherwise flat prairie. According to the ex…
  - Violet No. 7 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 8, 2009, 07:37
    Sometimes it simply doesn't pay to stray far from one's own backyard. The image in this post was captured in a split second while walking counterclockwise in my…
  - Green No. 2 by: Roger
    August 7, 2009, 08:00
    The burst of color from the center, succulent leaves exploding out away from the center, reminds me to release my ego by stepping outside of myself and being of…
  - Sonoran Desert No. 3 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 6, 2009, 12:19
    The more one tries to control something the more it seems to tumble out of control. The solution is a simple one, let go of the results of actions, just do the …
  - Trees No. 4 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 4, 2009, 04:51
    This is the third in a series of seasonal images. The idea was to capture and document the same place in three different aspects in order to demonstrate change …
  - Yellow No. 17 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 3, 2009, 07:10
    Emmanuel Levinas argues at great length for a rather simple concept; one has one absolute ethical obligation, to be responsible for the other even at the expens…
  - Pond Edge ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 2, 2009, 06:39
    The image of the pond in this post was shot as an HDR image around one mile from my home in the early morning. I like exploring landscapes that are often overlo…
  - Yellow No. 16 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 1, 2009, 06:40
    Reaching toward the sky, this grouping of wildflowers spreads petals toward the warmth of the sun. Yellow set against the rich blue of a clear, cloudless sky, t…
  - Trees No. 3 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 31, 2009, 08:44
    Last Fall I decided to document this particular stand of trees in Fall. Winter, Spring and Summer. I have now nearly accomplished that process. The only ima…
  - Yellow No. 15 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 30, 2009, 04:53
    Perhaps the sub-title of this piece might be "Flight of the Bumble Bee." I caught the bee in flight between the two yellow blossoms as he was going about the bu…
  - Water Lilly No. 3 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 29, 2009, 06:25
    There is a Zen story that goes something like this. A young novice found enlightenment elusive. He went to his master complaining about his ineffectiveness. The…
  - Violet No. 6 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 28, 2009, 06:28
    In my backyard I have a patch of garden that seems to be a haven for wild flowers. They are overtaking the plants I planted making me wonder a bit about how muc…
  - Cattails ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 27, 2009, 07:28
    The other day I was photographing wild flowers when I came across this stand of cattails on the banks of a pond. There they were, tucked in amongst their leaves…
  - Violet No. 4 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 26, 2009, 06:13
    If all I can rely upon to know is my own experience, what counts as experience? This question was addressed by John Dewey over 100 years ago and he concluded ba…
  - Violet No. 5 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 25, 2009, 06:26
    I have a relationship with wildflowers. I developed this relationship recently mainly due to the fact that I live quite close to a forest preserve/prairie in No…
  - Rosebud ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 24, 2009, 06:10
    I had breakfast yesterday morning with a friend of mine who is beginning an undergraduate degree in photography. She shared a number of images with me, each of …
  - Water Lilly No. 3 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 23, 2009, 04:52
    The story is told that the Zen novice was unable to find enlightenment. Try though he might enlightenment simply eluded him. One day he went to his master and c…
  - Yellow No. 14 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 22, 2009, 15:13
    Photographing flowers as landscape presents one with an opportunity to discect, to cut away the whole, to explore the parts. Using a wide open lens (in this cas…
  - Yellow-No. 13 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 21, 2009, 06:10
    I can't tell you how many times in Sheboygan I was asked, "What kind of camera do you use?" I restrain myself and respond with the following: "My workhorse came…
  - Milkweed and Bee No. 1 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 20, 2009, 07:04
    I returned late last night from a very successful show at the Midsummer Festival of the Arts at the John Michael Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, WI. The weathe…
  - Tall Grass No. 1 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 17, 2009, 05:31
    What is the distinction between a photograph as art and a snapshot taken by someone out in the park for an afternoon? In this post I want to briefly address two…
  - Yellow-No. 11 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 16, 2009, 04:54
    So the other day my wife asked me if I was a landscape photographer or a flower photographer. So is there a difference, I questioned. I don't think so. What int…
  - Yellow-No. 12 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 15, 2009, 07:21
    Often I am asked what camera(s) I use or how many megapxels I have at my disposal. I'm not sure why this is important but I can count on the fact that no matter…
  - Violet No. 2 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 14, 2009, 08:06
    What is it about the natural world that I find so fascinating? Why am I drawn to nature, from landscapes to close-ups of flowers, for my image making? I was for…
  - Water Lilly No. 2 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 13, 2009, 11:32
    After reading my artist's statement in which I touch on the philosophical notion that the moment is infinitely small and baiscally immearurable period of time, …
  - Yellow No. 10 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 12, 2009, 07:45
    I am constantly amazed by the questions people ask when I am showing work at a fine art festival. My absolute favorite is the perfectly inane question, "Did you…
  - Yellow No. 9 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 11, 2009, 04:50
    Technically this is an HDR image. It is made from three bracketed exposures that are then combined into a single image. The technique allows one to expose for s…
  - Water Lilly No. 1 by: Roger
    July 10, 2009, 06:39
    What remains of the moment is only a remembered representation of that moment, a representation that fades with the passage of time. As a photographer, my respo…
  - Sydney Harbor Bridge by: Roger
    July 9, 2009, 13:49
    The Sidney Harbor Bridge is one of the most recognizable landmarks in the world. Landmarks serve to mark the memory of places seen even prior to one's visiting …
  - The Kotel (The Western Wall) by: Roger
    July 8, 2009, 05:02
    On this site multiple, seemingly impossible, borders are drawn. The Western Wall of the Jewish Temple, one of the holy places for Jews stands in the shadow of t…
  - Reflections by: Roger
    July 7, 2009, 05:20
    Where does one draw the line between the real and the representation? Here we have an image which, in itself, is a representation. In the case of this image, it…
  - Rainbow ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 6, 2009, 05:20
    While walking around the Chicago Art Institute gardens the other day I came across this mutli-colored blooming flower. The light was flat but the flower was the…
  - Hagia Sophia by: Roger
    July 4, 2009, 07:55
    Nothing lasts forever say the old men in the shipyards, turning trees into shrimp boats, hell I guess they ought to know. Guy Clark
  - Cloud Gate No. 2 by: Roger
    July 2, 2009, 15:44
    Another image of Cloud Gate (The Bean to Chicagoans) continues to question just who owns the rights to art. The artist creating this massive piece of public art…
  - Ozark Bridge ~ Spring 2009 by: Roger
    July 1, 2009, 09:12
    The bridge in this image is eroding at the edges. Pieces of concrete falling from the bridge are in evidence on the valley floor. Built in the 10930's as a WPA …
  - Butterfly No. 4 ~ Spring 2009 by: Roger
    June 30, 2009, 05:21
    There's no assured essence of 'literature' or 'philosophy'. They're unstable categories with no guarantees. If they seem secure and natural, it's because they'r…
  - Red No. 1 by: Roger
    June 28, 2009, 03:18
    When art became an academic discipline art became separated from function. When what experts claim as art is housed in a museum, in exclusive galleries, in the …
  - White No. 1 by: Roger
    June 27, 2009, 02:59
    Publishing an image creates a certain vulnerability through the "I" of the signature. Yet, even as the image is signed one is separated from the creative act of…
  - Green No. 1 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    June 25, 2009, 02:53
    A Buddhist monk goes to a hot dog stand and says, "Make me one with everything." He hands the vendor a $20 bill. The hot dog arrives, he eats it and waits for h…
  - Purple Flower No. 1 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    June 24, 2009, 04:21
    If one understands an image as text, albeit visual text, then it is not difficult to understand that image/text as existing outside of time. The issue is one of…
  - The Bean No. 3 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    June 23, 2009, 05:45
    I have seen pictures of unicorns but I have not, nor can I ever see a live unicorn. Does this mean that unicorns are non-existent? In the image in this post a r…
  - Door County Sunset ~ Summer 2008 by: Roger
    June 22, 2009, 05:04
    Do the empty chairs suggest absence or potential? Does the setting sun suggest abandonment or potential? Do the chairs represent a promise of comfort and the se…
  - Bee No. 2 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    June 21, 2009, 07:34
    Just who is the author of a photograph? Is the one affixing a signature to an image the same person as the one who earlier created that image? Is the one who ea…
  - Gathering Nectar ~ Summer, 2009 by: Roger
    June 20, 2009, 06:56
    Image making exists only in the trace; it is an existential act of remembering the moment captured by the increment of time as the shutter snapped, first open, …
  - Horizontal No. 1 ~ Summer, 2009 by: Roger
    June 19, 2009, 07:19
    The ability to integrate the trace of experience into memory is dependent on the prior existence of an horizon, a way of seeing/visualizing/experiencing the wor…
  - Devil's Backbone ~ Spring 2009 by: Roger
    June 18, 2009, 02:53
    The sun has just retired behind the foothills near Loveland, Colorado. The light is warm and the shadows are long. The Devil's Backbone rises up from the hills,…
  - Red and Green by: Roger
    June 17, 2009, 06:03
    Landscapes are sometimes natural, sometimes found, and sometimes created. Red and Green is a made landscape, a kitchen-scape if you will. The image is created f…
  - Prickly Pear, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    June 16, 2009, 08:10
    Knowing something, anything, is dependent on the remembered trace. The re-membered, the reconstruction of the trace that often is experienced as a prog…
  - Dome Detail by: Roger
    June 15, 2009, 10:33
    In the recent past the Tiffany glass dome and lamp were restored. In the more recent past I photographed that dome. In the even more recent past I edited the im…
  - White Trees by: Roger
    June 11, 2009, 02:53
    Having written about the trace in prior posts, it is time to expand on its place in the creative process, to point out how the trace is related to but is not qu…
  - Yellow No. 8, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    June 10, 2009, 05:42
    I want to apply this idea to the visual artist. By substituting photographer for writer and image for language and viewer or observer for reader, one may begin …
  - Horizontal Cactus by: Roger
    June 9, 2009, 07:08
    The moment of experience can be viewed as existential time, the time of experience. Visual representations exist outside of existential time finding their place…
  - Yellow No. 7, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    June 8, 2009, 07:32
    Knowing depends on the remembered, the trace of memory left behind, the result of the infinitely short experience. Knowing, in this sense, is a construction, a …
  - Three Butterflies, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    June 7, 2009, 05:23
    Emmanuel Levinas once argued, "My manner of approaching the question is, in effect, different. It takes off from the idea that ethics arises in the relation to…
  - Brown Butterfly Green Leaves, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    June 6, 2009, 05:41
    The frozen butterfly, wings spread perched on the green leaves, stands as a reminder of the moment of capture. Surely I did not physically capture this innocent…
  - Brown Butterfly Yellow Flower, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    June 5, 2009, 05:38
    Emmanuel Levinas asks, "Is it righteous to be?" Does being represent the ethical response to existential absurdity? Is being, existing, finding one's self alive…
  - Yellow No. 6, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    June 4, 2009, 05:07
    The photograph captures an image in an unimaginably short, yet fixed, time span. This image, for example, was shot at 1/6400th of a second, less time than it ta…
  - Yellow No. 5, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    June 3, 2009, 04:34
    What is being photographed? Is it the central flower, the one in focus or is it, perhaps the out of focus tan stems and leaves in the background? All are presen…
  - Orange No 1, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    June 2, 2009, 04:46
    Today is the anniversary of my birth. Sixty-six years ago I took my first breath in Chicago, Illinois. The probability that a single sperm united with a particu…
  - Yellow No. 4, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    June 1, 2009, 08:03
    Several people that visited my booth at the Deerfield Festival of Fine Art asked rhetorically, "You sure travel a lot!" even when half of what I bring to the sh…
  - Branch, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 30, 2009, 04:47
    As a photographer I am concerned with finding moments that resonate with an imitation of the infinite. This is not so obtuse as it sounds at first glance. Let…
  - Chameleon, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 29, 2009, 03:43
    The student approached the Zen Master complaining he could not achieve enlightenment. The Zen Master reminded his student that he must be patient and just do as…
  - Violet, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 28, 2009, 02:51
    I often hear people making the following comment, "I took a picture just like that only yours is better than mine." This is especially true for photographs made…
  - Butterflies, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 27, 2009, 04:55
    Fresh orange slices are set out to attract butterflies. It works. The butterflies flock to the oranges. Its what they do. There is no stopping them. The butterf…
  - Yellow No. 3 by: Roger
    May 26, 2009, 08:01
    Words in print are much like photographs...they both preserve and imitate moments that no longer are. The writer of words perhaps intends to preserve thoughts, …
  - Devil's Backbone, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 25, 2009, 07:54
    In the foothills of the Rocky Mountains near Loveland, Colorado is the Devil's Backbone formation. This shot, taken as the sun was setting nearly directly behin…
  - Cactus Rose, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 24, 2009, 04:47
    I have been thinking lately about the Zen koan about the novice who approached his master complaining that he was not able to reach enlightenment. The master as…
  - Thistle, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 22, 2009, 07:08
    I was exploring the Salt River Canyon on US 60 (see earlier post) on a pull-off on the Southern edge of the canyon. I shot the wider vistas, the river, the cany…
  - Yellow No. 2, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 20, 2009, 05:48
    Macro landscapes afford a different look at the world we occupy. Looking closely requires a division of space and place that both challenges and expands ones vi…
  - Yellow No. 1 by: Roger
    May 19, 2009, 08:17
    Looking at the landscape goes beyond the broad, sweeping scenic turnoff on the interstate or the points in national parks where parking lots are strategically p…
  - Graduation, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 18, 2009, 04:40
    Landscapes are connected to journeys, to those places and events that mark important time yet represent a timelessness that is appreciated by all who bear witne…
  - Ocotillo Flowers, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 16, 2009, 02:52
    Spring on the Sonoran Desert is a time of great renewal, a rebirth like no other on earth. In this dry, parched desert habitat colors resonate all around. From …
  - Prickly Pear, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 14, 2009, 05:03
    While in Saguaro National Park East I came across this prickly pear with buds that will soon turn into a food-source for anyone who knows. This image, made in t…
  - Red Flowers, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 13, 2009, 07:03
    Landscapes are not always big vistas. Sometimes, as this image illustrates, getting closer allows for an intimacy that is without equal. Moments of capture nar…
  - Sonoran Desert Trail, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 12, 2009, 10:09
    Photographic images capture brief snippets of time carved out of the infinite now but extending beyond the singularity of the moment by placing parentheses arou…
  - Fort Davis Officer's Quarters, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 10, 2009, 16:09
    It is, of course, quite interesting that it is necessary for an invading force to create "defensive" outposts to keep the native inhabitants of the land from en…
  - Organ Pipe Cactus, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 6, 2009, 14:14
    Organ Pipe Cactus exists only in a small part of the Sonoran Desert, mainly in Southwestern Arizona on the border with Mexico and in Mexico proper extending to …
  - Ranch Gate, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 5, 2009, 08:58
    Gates are designed to keep something in or out simultaneously. This gate stands guard on a small pasture for grazing horses in rural Colorado. So functionally, …
  - Infinity, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 4, 2009, 06:38
    Nearing sunset, the peaks of the Rocky Mountains layer in the distant landscape. The sun glows through the gathering clouds that blanket the mountains as they s…
  - Prairie Grass, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 3, 2009, 06:24
    Something of a departure from seeing larger vistas, this closeup of a clump of prairie grass in the heart of the American grasslands represents 1/800th of a sec…
  - Nebraska Bluffs near Chimney Rock, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 1, 2009, 08:16
    The narrative told by the historical story of the Oregon Trail is one that represents a very short period of the American story, one that glorifies the notion o…
  - Salt River Canyon, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    April 29, 2009, 08:02
    The Salt River Canyon is located between Globe and Show Low Arizona along US 60 cutting through Apache Nation land. One of the most beautiful landscapes in Ariz…
  - Chimney Rock, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    April 28, 2009, 14:41
    Along the Platte River in Western Nebraska, about 1/3rd into the journey along the Oregon Trail, lies one of the most reliable landmarks along the trail. Not fa…
  - Sonoran Desert, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    April 27, 2009, 09:55
    Located between the Chihuahuan and the Mohave Deserts, the Sonoran is, in comparison, a rich, lush environment filled with vegetation including the great saguar…
  - Fort Davis Church Ruins, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    April 26, 2009, 07:18
    Fort Davis, located in the Chihuahuan Desert between El Paso and Fort Stockton, in Texas' Davis Mountains is a reminder of just how temporary the works of man a…
  - Istanbul Street by: Roger
    April 14, 2009, 13:29
    Levinas teaches that one must act for the benefit of others before oneself. My friend Lenny told anyone who would listen that he only found his true nature when…
  - Sonoran Desert ~ Spring by: Roger
    April 6, 2009, 05:49
    People think of the desert as rolling sand dunes dotted with a palm laden oasis or two appearing as if from a dream. Not the Sonoran. This desert is filled with…
  - Rocky Mountain High by: Roger
    March 24, 2009, 05:46
    Spring in the Rocky Mountains is a mix between returning vegitation and snowcapped peaks. This is an image of the eastern slope of Sierra Blanca in March. This…
  - Thistle near Poplar Creek by: Roger
    March 22, 2009, 06:22
    Surviving the Winter snows, this lone thistle waits for the Spring to be reborn. Shot in the mid-afternoon, between 3 and 4 PM, the shadows bisect the flower wh…
  - Tree Waiting for Spring by: Roger
    March 21, 2009, 05:58
    Standing alone near Poplar Creek, this tree waits patiently for Spring to appear. Surrounded by tall prairie grass with distant cousins far behind, this lone se…
- Double Exposure (1)
  - Sunrise Near McHenry Dam ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 18, 2009, 06:00
    Photographs capture that which the photographer attempts to capture. The creative experience is one in which one attempts to re-present a spontaneous or origina…
- food (1)
  - Eggs No. 1 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 21, 2009, 06:43
    How does one encounter a photographic image? After all, the image is visual, contains no words, no sentences, no paragraphs, no linguistic structure, yet, the o…
- High Dynamic Range (HDR) (113)
  - Sunrise, Mather Point ~ Spring 2010 by: Roger
    March 10, 2010, 07:21
    I arrived at Mather Point around thirty minutes prior to the precise moment the sun crept above the horizon. In the twilight of the early dawn the sky changed f…
  - Sentinel Tree, Grand Canyon ~ Spring 2010 by: Roger
    March 7, 2010, 06:30
    The dualism, the split personality of the photographer, the one working alone, in fractions of seconds, exposing that which one believes to be compelling at th…
  - Sunrise at Mather Point ~ Spring 2010 by: Roger
    March 4, 2010, 08:24
    The camera is the instrument that brings the inner passion and the outward event into harmony with one another, this linking, or, rather, this coincidence, is s…
  - Near Desert View Grand Canyon ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 25, 2010, 07:15
    Hanging just above the trees that protect a gift shop near Desert View by the Grand Canyon the nearly full moon sparkled in the sky. I stopped for a second, set…
  - Late Afternoon near El Tovar ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 16, 2010, 09:41
    There are places on this earth that I never tire of, whether I am merely looking or actively photographing. The Grand Canyon is one of those places. The richnes…
  - Gathering Storm Loveland, CO. ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 8, 2010, 08:13
    Photography, any visual art for that matter, but photography in particular is about learning to see. Everyone looks but not everyone sees. What is the differenc…
  - Mather Point at Sunrise ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 4, 2010, 07:21
    Making photographs is, to a large extent, a visual compromise between the origins and the print. Technique will only take one so far; an internalization of the …
  - Indian Garden from El Tovar ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 3, 2010, 07:24
    When I first began seriously making images I shot everything I could find in my viewfinder. A roll of PlusX lasted but minutes; I knew when I was finished becau…
  - Moon over Yavapai Point Sunrise ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 2, 2010, 08:49
    Learning to see in a photographic sense means that one has acquired skills that lead directly to what Cartier-Bresson called the decisive moment. One must learn…
  - Mid Afternoon Yavapai Point ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 31, 2010, 08:47
    I have been making photographs since I was 13 years old, some 53 years ago, when I discovered magic in the darkroom as images appeared as negatives on film and …
  - Long Shadows at El Tovar ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 30, 2010, 10:23
    Photography has developed my ability to see, to look at, to gaze, to directly experience the moment of existence that confirms the exteriority of the Absolute O…
  - Winter Storm, Loveland Colorado ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 29, 2010, 05:43
    Every photograph is a manipulation of, an interpretation of its origins. The very idea that a photograph is not manipulated, that it is a true rendering of some…
  - Sunset at El Tovar Indian Garden ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 28, 2010, 06:32
    Photography is reductive, compressive in the sense that photographic images reduce the four-dimensional universe into a flat two-dimensional re-presentation of …
  - Mather Point Sunrise ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 27, 2010, 07:15
    Whenever I can I make a pilgrimage to the American Southwest for the purpose of making photographs. Ever since I was very young I have been fascinated by the la…
  - Grand Canyon Sunrise ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 26, 2010, 05:24
    Photographs appear to be realistic visual presentations of what was right there in front of the camera's lens. Nothing is further from the truth. Photographs ar…
  - Sunrise at Mather Point facing Northeast ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 25, 2010, 06:07
    I often hear from people visiting my exhibit booth at art fairs, "I took that exact same picture...Only yours is better!" This comment used to raise the hair on…
  - Bright Angel Trail seen from Yavapai Point at Sunrise ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 24, 2010, 08:00
    When I read a book I always have a yellow highlighter in my hand. I highlight passages so as to remember, to return to at a later date and probe for more. When …
  - Sunrise Yavapai Point ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 22, 2010, 09:03
    Very little motivates me to get up in the morning before the sun rises on a bitterly cold Winter morning than the anticipation of making an image at or nearly a…
  - Into the Canyon at Yavapai Point ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 20, 2010, 06:27
    How does one dissect a place so large as the Grand Canyon, a place so vast that one is bound to be awestruck at every turn of every corner on the trail? When fa…
  - Wupatki National Monument ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 19, 2010, 06:07
    The taint of age can be very beautiful. The wreckage of man-made objects is something more beautiful than the new. Rust and weathering adds a patina of . . . …
  - Mather Point Grand Canyon No. 2 ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 18, 2010, 06:04
    Mather Point Grand Canyon No. 2 ~ Winter 2010 Mather Point Grand Canyon No. 2 ~ Winter 2010 You're suddenly seeing the coherence and the interconnectedn…
  - Storm in the Rockies ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 17, 2010, 07:41
    Photographs re-present a story in a single frame. Not wanting to wait for the story to be played out in full, the photographer brings a restless fraction of a s…
  - Moon over El Morro ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 13, 2010, 07:17
    Two days after the December 31st Blue Moon while driving toward El Morro National Monument in Western New Mexico I spotted the nearly full moon hovering over th…
  - Snow on Boulders ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 12, 2010, 08:55
    While driving along the Bear Lake Road in Rocky Mountain National Park during a snow storm I noticed these boulders framed by two bare aspens. I drove on storin…
  - Sunset at El Tovar ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 10, 2010, 07:30
    I know people who keep secrets, who bottle up their thoughts so tightly that letting go of them seems to force an explosion of doubt among those that surround t…
  - Mather Point Grand Canyon No. 1 ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 9, 2010, 08:39
    Waiting for the precise moment when the sun cast a ribbon of light across the North Rim of the Grand Canyon is the essence of making landscape photography work.…
  - Salt River Canyon No. 2 ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    January 8, 2010, 16:02
    The Salt River Canyon in Eastern Arizona, along Route 60 past the Superstition Mountains heading toward Holbrook and Show Low, cuts through the Fort McDowell an…
  - Windows ~ Merry Christmas by: Roger
    December 25, 2009, 06:19
    A photograph is neither taken nor seized by force. It offers itself up. It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos. Henri Cartier-Bresso…
  - YMCA ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 24, 2009, 05:27
    Living in the ordinary world, the stuff of living both in the present and locally. One does not live in the world, one lives in this world, the world that surro…
  - Rocky Mountains ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 23, 2009, 07:02
    Reality is dependent upon the observer not the observed. Point of view is dependent on one's proximity to an object being observed as well as the angle of obser…
  - Great River Road near Hannibal, MO ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 20, 2009, 08:00
    When Frampton says that the photograph is taken out of the infinite cinema, is he suggesting that the photographer, through some secret of alchemy, somehow remo…
  - Covered Bridge No. 2 ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 19, 2009, 08:18
    Because the camera as tool allows one to capture clarity, a sharpness of focus of the object being photographed, does not translate into a clarity of subject ma…
  - Huntley Barn ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 18, 2009, 08:03
    I began photographing barns in Northeastern Illinois because they are rapidly disappearing from the landscape. As cities expand, as bedroom communities surround…
  - Sonoran Rock Face ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 17, 2009, 06:37
    I invite you unconditionally to look at my photographs, at the images I create because I am absolutely passionate about what I choose to photograph and wish to …
  - Sonoran Desert ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 16, 2009, 06:45
    I photograph landscapes. A long time ago I made the thoughtful decision to avoid photographing those iconic images that have been shot once by a master photogra…
  - Western Nebraska ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 15, 2009, 04:57
    During the colonizing march West, the history books call it Manifest Destiny, and before the transcontinental railroad changed the nature of travel for nearly 1…
  - Covered Bridge ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 14, 2009, 06:14
    Photographs document the existential moment, or, at least as close as one can come to documenting the existential moment., Photographic images preserve a simula…
  - Red Rocks near Phoenix ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 13, 2009, 06:29
    Leith raises several interesting questions, not the least of which is the question: What is the way the world is? I believe photographers have a decided advanta…
  - Bridge No. 1 ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 12, 2009, 06:04
    Emmanuel Levinas taught that the existential life, the lived experience, the ontic life, is one sandwiched between two infinities, two timeless infinities in wh…
  - Snow in the Foothills ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 11, 2009, 09:17
    Another reason not to think of the photographic image as realism. If the photograph is understood as symbolic, as a trace of a trace of an always already gone o…
  - Foothills, Loveland Colorado ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 9, 2009, 07:12
    When is the present? It is always already past, leaving a trace, an incomplete memory of the existential moment that re-presents the impossibility of the presen…
  - Castle Rock State Park Ground Fog ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 8, 2009, 06:26
    For those who believe in photographic realism, the idea that the camera captures precisely what is there, nothing more and nothing less, I argue that such a bel…
  - Devil's Backbone ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 7, 2009, 06:29
    Photography is naturally reductive. The photographer works in the four dimensional world (I include space-time as a dimension especially because I work in snipp…
  - Long's Peak at Sunset ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 6, 2009, 07:54
    Observing and photographing nature makes me realize who is truly in control, and believe me, it's not us humans. Michael Garth Michael Garth makes two err…
  - The Rockies ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 5, 2009, 06:47
    A photograph does not speak, it does not smell, it makes no sound, it does not move, it is just a two dimensional piece of paper, but a good photograph can …
  - Dirt Road - Loveland Colorado ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 4, 2009, 06:43
    Every setting conveys a thousand realities and the joy of photography comes with emphasizing the dimensions that bring personal choice to bear. A still scen…
  - Foot Bridge White Pines State Park ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 3, 2009, 05:59
    Hospitality begins with an acknowledgment of the infinite, the timelessness exterior to the existential lived experience that both bookends the lived experience…
  - Castillo de San Marcos No. 2 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 29, 2009, 06:19
    The ethics of hospitality, according to Levinas, requires one to respond to the welcome of the other; a welcome that may or may not be offered. The readiness to…
  - Castillo de San Marcos ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 26, 2009, 05:46
    When interrogating an image, as one constructs meaning from the contents of the four corners of that image inward, one must not forget to look at the margins a…
  - The Beach ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 25, 2009, 06:38
    Photography is an art that captures an instant of temporality on the pretense that one is capturing what is real, what is there when, in fact, what the photogra…
  - Salt Marsh ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 24, 2009, 07:32
    Photographic images contribute in two ways to the making sense of the world. Both are highly contextual fully dependent on embedded experience. For the photogra…
  - Marsh Fog at Sunrise ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 22, 2009, 06:21
    An illusion of reality? Arnold Newman is on the right track. Another way to look at this idea is that the photograph is a supplement for the origins it is attem…
  - Rock River Autumn Morning ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 19, 2009, 06:38
    I would not go so far as Dave Lee by arguing that a photograph re-presents the photographer's truth as an absolute function of the notion of truth. Rather, I wo…
  - Sunrise Near McHenry Dam ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 18, 2009, 06:00
    Photographs capture that which the photographer attempts to capture. The creative experience is one in which one attempts to re-present a spontaneous or origina…
  - Where are they Biting ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 13, 2009, 05:41
    If you didn't get a picture of it, it never happened. James Finley In what way does a photograph document an event, a place, a time, an era? Photographic…
  - Three Boats ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 12, 2009, 06:09
    If I knew how to take a good photograph, I'd do it every time. Robert Doisneau In the end, does it matter that I may have technical competence in photogr…
  - White Pines No. 1 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 10, 2009, 06:58
    Agents of Death? What could Barthes mean? Let me see if I can make any sense of this obscure reference. For some time now I have been arguing that the photograp…
  - White Pines No. 2 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 9, 2009, 07:21
    Much of image making is intuitive. Because, as a photographer, I attempt to capture a moment corresponding to the existential moment, a moment that is always al…
  - Early Morning Haze ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 8, 2009, 07:16
    How do I describe what I saw with mere words? Language, especially spoken language, is as fleeting as the moment in which it exists. Say something and that some…
  - McHenry Dam No. 7 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 7, 2009, 06:41
    Photography occurs in fractions of seconds; by photographing something the photographer both creates a visual text thereby preserving something of the object be…
  - Fox River Sunrise ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 6, 2009, 07:04
    In Rex's Blues, songwriter Townes van Zandt wrote, There ain't no dark 'till something shines. Meaning is dependent on the difference between the light and the …
  - Moraine Hills Tree ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 5, 2009, 04:59
    Riboud is only partly right. Photography is evidence of a specific moment in time modified by the photographer's point of view, intent, skill, and experience. S…
  - McHenry Dam No. 6 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 4, 2009, 04:47
    The photographic image is the reflection of the photographer's vision, his or her passion. By printing an image the photographer makes public that vision and pa…
  - Sugar Maple ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 2, 2009, 06:43
    I often hear people comment when looking at my work something to the effect that "I took a photograph just like that once, only yours is better." Now I don't me…
  - Forest Sunrise ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 1, 2009, 04:48
    Photographs are not rational in the sense that they are something to be talked about, reduced to language. No, they are to be experienced at every level of enga…
  - Morning Frost ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 31, 2009, 08:25
    The photograph is an artifact of an existential event, not the event itself. The image re-presents a moment frozen in time, a moment that can only occur once, …
  - Apple River Canyon No. 3 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 30, 2009, 06:50
    The instant the shutter snaps the image in the photographer's viewfinder is already gone, replaced by an infinite number of new images that, while appearing the…
  - Solitude No. 4 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 29, 2009, 06:37
    I tend to photograph landscapes alone, walking trails that mark particular journeys that sometimes inspire great awe and other times simply leave me flat. While…
  - Fall Colors No. 3 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 28, 2009, 04:33
    Just what is "that other reality" Uelsmann is talking about? That other reality begs the question of what is reality in the first place. So let's begin this bri…
  - Apple River Canyon No. 2 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 27, 2009, 07:28
    I photograph nature. My motivation is simple, straightforward. By photographing nature I meditate on the nature of the self as a participant in a lived experien…
  - Lake La-Aqua-Na ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 26, 2009, 05:35
    The image in this post was made at Lake La-Aqua-Na State Park just outside of Lena, Illinois. Trees exploded into bright Fall colors and the lake was calm and i…
  - Ground Fog ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 25, 2009, 07:05
    The very act of looking changes perception, the subject, the context, everything. Looking at something changes the way one thinks about that which is observed. …
  - Rock River ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 24, 2009, 05:53
    Photographing the landscape (or anything else for that matter) is about the awe engendered by scratching the limits of the infinite without crossing over into t…
  - Fall Morning Haze ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 23, 2009, 06:40
    Photographs, by their very nature, rub up against the infinite. The photograph itself is made in the briefest span of time, freezing a moment that will never oc…
  - Apple River ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 22, 2009, 07:20
    I have argued that the photograph captures the simulacrum of the existential moment, that moment always already gone that implants trace memory to provide the i…
  - Morning Haze ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 21, 2009, 06:40
    Frozen moments, artifacts of existential time, photographs open the door to the infinite by holding time still. The photographer's stock in trade is his or her …
  - Fog Lifting in the Valley ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 20, 2009, 05:28
    Photography freezes moments that will never, ever be repeated. Moments are like fingerprints, each one is totally unique falling within a generalized structural…
  - Sunburst No. 1 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 19, 2009, 05:21
    Knowing where to stand comes, it seems to me, right after knowing where to go so that one's stance will be right. Additionally, knowing when the light is right …
  - Early Fall Morning ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 18, 2009, 04:16
    Not long ago while exhibiting at an art fair, a visitor to my booth remarked, "Wow, I took a picture exactly like that!" She paused briefly and added, "Only you…
  - Fall Colors No. 2 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 17, 2009, 07:53
    What secrets? Why layered one upon another? Who knows less and about what does one ask questions leading to more questions? If my experience as a photographer c…
  - Lone Tree No. 4 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 16, 2009, 06:09
    It is not that I don't shoot people...that is not the point. The point that Adams makes is that there is always a maker of the image and a viewer of the already…
  - Solitude No. 3 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 15, 2009, 05:58
    Solitude should not be confused with loneliness or sadness or isolation or abandoned or unwanted or outcast or desolate. Solitude, while generally reckoned as a…
  - Solitude No. 2 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 14, 2009, 05:56
    Human beings are a solitary/social species. We are trapped in our own perceptions, in our own visions. We can only know the world through our own eyes, our own …
  - Solitude ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 13, 2009, 06:34
    Solitude is painful when one is young, but delightful when one is more mature. Albert Einstein If it were not for the early morning sun in a partly clou…
  - Fall Colors No. 1 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 12, 2009, 06:40
    Where does one discover the spirit of the work? I believe the answer is simple. The spirit of the work is found in the act of doing; an act that can only take p…
  - McHenry Dam No. 1 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 11, 2009, 04:49
    For Levinas, a philosopher of some reputation, the ultimate philosophical act is to render service to the other, the widow, the orphan or the stranger, even at …
  - Volo Bog No. 1 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 10, 2009, 05:08
    In 1840 Illinois had over 22 million acres of tall grass prairie. Today barely 2500 acres remain pristine examples of the tall grass prairies that flourished ac…
  - Bridge ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    October 7, 2009, 05:44
    I appreciate the ebb and flow of the seasons. I like to walk through Midwestern woods and meadows looking at the changes that occur each year. For me these walk…
  - Lone Tree No. 3 ~ Fall 3009 by: Roger
    September 24, 2009, 06:11
    The blink of an eye is longer than the moment of existence, the existential moment that is infinitely small, unable to be measured, and constantly replaced. Yet…
  - Hayfield in Fall ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    September 22, 2009, 06:54
    Everyday life is the path. This is something akin to the Jewish notion of practice as opposed to faith. Doing that which is right and proper, following the rule…
  - Natchez Trace ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    September 21, 2009, 09:33
    Running from Nashville to Natchez Mississippi, the Natchez Trace Parkway preserves an ancient trail used by both animals and native people for thousands of …
  - Lone Tree No. 2 by: Roger
    September 18, 2009, 06:03
    Mary Travers died yesterday at the age of 72 of leukemia. On Sunday the 25th anniversary of the death of singer-songwriter Steve Goodman is observed. Both of th…
  - Lone Tree No. 1 ~ Late Summer 2009 by: Roger
    September 17, 2009, 04:48
    Woods on one side and the other, the farm land layered with wheat and soybeans in repetition, and the lone tree sitting in the middle of this field in the early…
  - Chimney Rock Bluff and Tree No. 3 by: Roger
    August 11, 2009, 06:08
    Who is responsible for capturing this image? I sign my name to the image, copyright the image, own the reproduction rights to the image so why would I ask such …
  - Nebraska Windmill by: Roger
    August 10, 2009, 06:51
    Before wind was used to convert its energy into electrical power it was used to pump water from the ground to water cattle and irrigate crops. The windmill turn…
  - Chimney Rock Bluff and Tree No. 2 by: Roger
    August 9, 2009, 09:02
    The Chimney Rock area marked a landmark along the Oregon Trail. The rock itself is an imposing spire rising above an otherwise flat prairie. According to the ex…
  - Green No. 2 by: Roger
    August 7, 2009, 08:00
    The burst of color from the center, succulent leaves exploding out away from the center, reminds me to release my ego by stepping outside of myself and being of…
  - Sonoran Desert No. 3 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 6, 2009, 12:19
    The more one tries to control something the more it seems to tumble out of control. The solution is a simple one, let go of the results of actions, just do the …
  - Board of Trade Building ~ Summer 2008 by: Roger
    August 5, 2009, 07:05
    In a departure from recent posts (but not from the overall theme of this blog) the image in this post is of an iconic building in Chicago, the Board of Trade bu…
  - Trees No. 4 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 4, 2009, 04:51
    This is the third in a series of seasonal images. The idea was to capture and document the same place in three different aspects in order to demonstrate change …
  - Pond Edge ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 2, 2009, 06:39
    The image of the pond in this post was shot as an HDR image around one mile from my home in the early morning. I like exploring landscapes that are often overlo…
  - Trees No. 3 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 31, 2009, 08:44
    Last Fall I decided to document this particular stand of trees in Fall. Winter, Spring and Summer. I have now nearly accomplished that process. The only ima…
  - Yellow No. 9 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 11, 2009, 04:50
    Technically this is an HDR image. It is made from three bracketed exposures that are then combined into a single image. The technique allows one to expose for s…
  - Preston Bradley Hall Ceiling Detail by: Roger
    July 5, 2009, 05:42
    Let me take you back in time for a brief moment; to a time when the Tiffany Ceiling in Preston Bradley Hall was an integral component of the Chicago Public Libr…
  - Ozark Bridge ~ Spring 2009 by: Roger
    July 1, 2009, 09:12
    The bridge in this image is eroding at the edges. Pieces of concrete falling from the bridge are in evidence on the valley floor. Built in the 10930's as a WPA …
  - Red and Green by: Roger
    June 17, 2009, 06:03
    Landscapes are sometimes natural, sometimes found, and sometimes created. Red and Green is a made landscape, a kitchen-scape if you will. The image is created f…
  - Sonoran Desert Trail, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 12, 2009, 10:09
    Photographic images capture brief snippets of time carved out of the infinite now but extending beyond the singularity of the moment by placing parentheses arou…
  - Fort Davis Officer's Quarters, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 10, 2009, 16:09
    It is, of course, quite interesting that it is necessary for an invading force to create "defensive" outposts to keep the native inhabitants of the land from en…
  - Nebraska Bluffs near Chimney Rock, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 1, 2009, 08:16
    The narrative told by the historical story of the Oregon Trail is one that represents a very short period of the American story, one that glorifies the notion o…
  - Salt River Canyon, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    April 29, 2009, 08:02
    The Salt River Canyon is located between Globe and Show Low Arizona along US 60 cutting through Apache Nation land. One of the most beautiful landscapes in Ariz…
  - Chimney Rock, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    April 28, 2009, 14:41
    Along the Platte River in Western Nebraska, about 1/3rd into the journey along the Oregon Trail, lies one of the most reliable landmarks along the trail. Not fa…
  - Layered Boundaries by: Roger
    April 1, 2009, 05:00
    The footpath protects the fence which in turn guards the woods which in turn marks the edge of the forested land. So many edges, so many boundaries. The footp…
  - Castillo de San Marcos, St Augustine, FL by: Roger
    March 30, 2009, 06:26
    The Castillo de San Marcos is also a monument to the penetrating fear of the other that human beings possess. Imposing artificial boundaries of stone and mortar…
- infrared (27)
  - Battlefield Trees at The Hermitage ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 28, 2010, 07:19
    Making photographs, especially those made as self-assignment works, always is a statement of deep commitment to one's subject. These photographs are made to be …
  - Leaning Cyprus at The Hermitage ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 27, 2010, 07:20
    What is it about a photograph that causes people to think of an image as somehow acting in place of the reality of that which has been photographed. The notion …
  - Water Barrels at The Hermitage ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 23, 2010, 06:43
    Images are always there hiding in plain sight. Most are missed, even by those with a strong sense of vision. Sometimes, however, images sometimes seem to jump o…
  - Fence Line at The Hermitage ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 22, 2010, 07:08
    I made this photograph outside of Nashville while there for a funeral of a relative. It at moments like these that one realizes how small one's world really is…
  - Horse Head, Tombstone Arizona ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 15, 2010, 07:08
    Point of view is something developed over time. It comes from practice, the rejection of more images than one decides to keep, and the application of that exper…
  - New Mexico Highway ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 12, 2010, 05:50
    An old proverb reminds us that wherever you go, there you are. There is no escape from the presence of the self. Often this bit of folk wisdom is shared when on…
  - Salinas Pueblo Missions Ruins at Quarai No. 2 ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 11, 2010, 07:22
    I make photographs because the making of images helps me understand my place in the universe. Making photographs as art is a unique way of thinking about space,…
  - Salinas Pueblo Missions Ruins at Quarai ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 10, 2010, 07:44
    Ralph Haber claims that one remembers what one saw in a photograph after the photograph is no longer there. I am not so sure that one remembers specifically wha…
  - Snow on Boulders ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 12, 2010, 08:55
    While driving along the Bear Lake Road in Rocky Mountain National Park during a snow storm I noticed these boulders framed by two bare aspens. I drove on storin…
  - Ingersoll-Rand No. 1 ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 11, 2010, 07:57
    Tombstone, Arizona: Standing just outside of the meeting place for the mine tour of a now worked out silver mine, this Ingersoll-Rand skeleton that once was the…
  - Long Pier ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 21, 2009, 07:23
    251 km North of Adelaide, South Australia, outside of Port Germain, SA, a wooden jetty, booked as the longest pier in South Australia is now an attraction for t…
  - Western Nebraska ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 15, 2009, 04:57
    During the colonizing march West, the history books call it Manifest Destiny, and before the transcontinental railroad changed the nature of travel for nearly 1…
  - Fence Line No. 2 ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 10, 2009, 06:24
    The core of Levinas' work turns on the ethical imperative of responsibility for the Other, the ethics that requires one to make no excuses, conger no alibis, to…
  - Funk's Grove Old Route 66 ~ Winter 2009 by: Roger
    December 2, 2009, 07:05
    Henri Cartier-Bresson called it the decisive moment, that instant when everything converges into the perfect image; that is it instant in which one must release…
  - Little Rock ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 27, 2009, 07:43
    Berenice Abbott is nearly half correct. The photographic image re-presents an always already disappeared present, one that was captured in a fraction of a secon…
  - Lone Tree No. 3 ~ Fall 3009 by: Roger
    September 24, 2009, 06:11
    The blink of an eye is longer than the moment of existence, the existential moment that is infinitely small, unable to be measured, and constantly replaced. Yet…
  - Chimney Rock, Spring 2009 by: Roger
    May 11, 2009, 06:54
    The story is told that when asked why he didn't shoot in color Ansel Adams replied, "Black and white is the color of photography!" Whether the story is true or …
  - Wolf Creek Pass ~ Spring 2008 by: Roger
    April 7, 2009, 05:37
    The American West represents the border between good and evil in the American psyche. Thanks mostly to Hollywood oaters, white hat cowboys always triumph over b…
  - Abandoned by: Roger
    April 4, 2009, 06:50
    Once an out-building on a thriving Illinois farm, this shack is left to return to the earth from which it came. The farm, long since abandoned, is returning to …
  - So Many Boundaries by: Roger
    April 3, 2009, 05:25
    Wherever we look, whatever we see around us, someone created a demarcation of space or time. Days are divided into hours, hours into minutes, minutes into secon…
  - Barn ~ Gilberts, IL by: Roger
    April 2, 2009, 04:52
    Another relic of a soon to be lost past, this barn is located on the edge of a bankrupt subdivision that was to have added another 300 to 400 houses to Gilberts…
  - Layered Boundaries by: Roger
    April 1, 2009, 05:00
    The footpath protects the fence which in turn guards the woods which in turn marks the edge of the forested land. So many edges, so many boundaries. The footp…
  - Property Line ~ Kane County, IL by: Roger
    March 31, 2009, 04:56
    Jacques Derrida wrote about boundaries. He wrote about the fragility of definitions such as citizenship and place definitions, about the need to protect and fee…
  - Castillo de San Marcos, St Augustine, FL by: Roger
    March 30, 2009, 06:26
    The Castillo de San Marcos is also a monument to the penetrating fear of the other that human beings possess. Imposing artificial boundaries of stone and mortar…
  - Colorado, Spring 2008 by: Roger
    March 29, 2009, 07:36
    The image suggests a solitude, perhaps desolation, that emerges from boundaries, both real and imagined. What is on the other side of the fence that seems to go…
  - Stormy Day by: Roger
    March 25, 2009, 05:15
    A break in the rain opened a window to this old barn located in McHenry County. The clouds hung like a layered blanket across the grey sky momentarily holding b…
  - Barn near Huntley, IL by: Roger
    March 23, 2009, 08:51
    When I first moved to the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago I merely had to drive around 1 mile to be surrounded by dairy farms, corn or soybean fields, and dirt roa…
- interior space (1)
  - Eggs No. 1 ~ Fall 2009 by: Roger
    November 21, 2009, 06:43
    How does one encounter a photographic image? After all, the image is visual, contains no words, no sentences, no paragraphs, no linguistic structure, yet, the o…
- macro (6)
  - Yellow No. 18 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 18, 2009, 06:37
    We have two dogs at home. The younger, Mazel, is a 20 pound, four year old Cockapoo. It is the older one, Simin, a 50 pound Labradoodle that I want to write…
  - Purple No. 4 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    August 17, 2009, 11:26
    Only yesterday I learned that a friend of mine has late stage cancer. Last week I learned that another friend lost his job of 20 years due to cutbacks and, beli…
  - Yellow No. 14 ~ Summer 2009 by: Roger
    July 22, 2009, 15:13
    Photographing flowers as landscape presents one with an opportunity to discect, to cut away the whole, to explore the parts. Using a wide open lens (in this cas…
  - Red No. 1 by: Roger
    June 28, 2009, 03:18
    When art became an academic discipline art became separated from function. When what experts claim as art is housed in a museum, in exclusive galleries, in the …
  - White No. 1 by: Roger
    June 27, 2009, 02:59
    Publishing an image creates a certain vulnerability through the "I" of the signature. Yet, even as the image is signed one is separated from the creative act of…
  - Horizontal Cactus by: Roger
    June 9, 2009, 07:08
    The moment of experience can be viewed as existential time, the time of experience. Visual representations exist outside of existential time finding their place…
- manipulation (1)
  - Long Shadows at El Tovar ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 30, 2010, 10:23
    Photography has developed my ability to see, to look at, to gaze, to directly experience the moment of existence that confirms the exteriority of the Absolute O…
- selenium tone (15)
  - Anticipation ~ Spring 2010 by: Roger
    March 1, 2010, 14:48
    Not to make light of Descartes' dualistic insight I might be tempted to say, "I see therefore I exist!" But that would be disingenuous, so I won't go there. Lea…
  - Battlefield Trees at The Hermitage ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 28, 2010, 07:19
    Making photographs, especially those made as self-assignment works, always is a statement of deep commitment to one's subject. These photographs are made to be …
  - Leaning Cyprus at The Hermitage ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 27, 2010, 07:20
    What is it about a photograph that causes people to think of an image as somehow acting in place of the reality of that which has been photographed. The notion …
  - Directions, Franklin, Tennessee ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 26, 2010, 08:08
    Learning to see the ordinary, to not overstate or understate, to select a frame from a wide array of possible frames that re-presents that which was but is no l…
  - Near Desert View Grand Canyon ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 25, 2010, 07:15
    Hanging just above the trees that protect a gift shop near Desert View by the Grand Canyon the nearly full moon sparkled in the sky. I stopped for a second, set…
  - The Other Side at The Hermitage ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 24, 2010, 07:23
    There are two great mistakes made by those first entering the field of photography. The first is to overrate the value of one's equipment while the second is th…
  - Water Barrels at The Hermitage ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 23, 2010, 06:43
    Images are always there hiding in plain sight. Most are missed, even by those with a strong sense of vision. Sometimes, however, images sometimes seem to jump o…
  - Fence Line at The Hermitage ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 22, 2010, 07:08
    I made this photograph outside of Nashville while there for a funeral of a relative. It at moments like these that one realizes how small one's world really is…
  - Horse Head, Tombstone Arizona ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 15, 2010, 07:08
    Point of view is something developed over time. It comes from practice, the rejection of more images than one decides to keep, and the application of that exper…
  - Tombstone Mine Compressor ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 14, 2010, 08:43
    Things ask me to take their pictures. When I am out in the world intending to make photographs I am generally moved by something visually screaming for me to ma…
  - Wupatki Citadel Ruin ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 13, 2010, 14:34
    Kavanagh's quip is not only demeaning to policemen (as well as any others who work for a living) but it debases art. Shakespeare wrote, not for the nobility, ra…
  - New Mexico Highway ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 12, 2010, 05:50
    An old proverb reminds us that wherever you go, there you are. There is no escape from the presence of the self. Often this bit of folk wisdom is shared when on…
  - Salinas Pueblo Missions Ruins at Quarai ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 10, 2010, 07:44
    Ralph Haber claims that one remembers what one saw in a photograph after the photograph is no longer there. I am not so sure that one remembers specifically wha…
  - Gathering Storm Loveland, CO. ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 8, 2010, 08:13
    Photography, any visual art for that matter, but photography in particular is about learning to see. Everyone looks but not everyone sees. What is the differenc…
  - Wupatki National Monument Backcountry No. 2 ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 6, 2010, 22:21
    On one count, and one count only, Goldsmith, while not entirely wrong, is far too bombastic for my taste. The camera does not lie, the camera is the photographe…
- sepia tone (14)
  - Palm Trunk Detail ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    February 1, 2010, 07:06
    In late December I was in Phoenix visiting my 11 year old grandson. He has an interest in photography and asked me to help him learn something about making pict…
  - Winter Storm, Loveland Colorado ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 29, 2010, 05:43
    Every photograph is a manipulation of, an interpretation of its origins. The very idea that a photograph is not manipulated, that it is a true rendering of some…
  - Snow on Boulders ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 12, 2010, 08:55
    While driving along the Bear Lake Road in Rocky Mountain National Park during a snow storm I noticed these boulders framed by two bare aspens. I drove on storin…
  - Ingersoll-Rand No. 1 ~ Winter 2010 by: Roger
    January 11, 2010, 07:57
    Tombstone, Arizona: Standing just outside of the meeting place for the mine tour of a now worked out silver mine, this Ingersoll-Rand skeleton that once was the…
  - Clearwater by: Roger
    June 29, 2009, 08:49
    Returning from the quite windy Fountain Square Art Festival in Evanston, IL, I find myself thinking about the funny questions people ask or comments they make. …
  - Yellow No. 3 by: Roger
    May 26, 2009, 08:01
    Words in print are much like photographs...they both preserve and imitate moments that no longer are. The writer of words perhaps intends to preserve thoughts, …
  - Wolf Creek Pass ~ Spring 2008 by: Roger
    April 7, 2009, 05:37
    The American West represents the border between good and evil in the American psyche. Thanks mostly to Hollywood oaters, white hat cowboys always triumph over b…
  - Reduction by: Roger
    April 5, 2009, 07:18
    Two tracks merging into a single track at the point of decision. Moving in the direction of the image two reduce into one but if a train were coming at the view…
  - Abandoned by: Roger
    April 4, 2009, 06:50
    Once an out-building on a thriving Illinois farm, this shack is left to return to the earth from which it came. The farm, long since abandoned, is returning to …
  - Barn ~ Gilberts, IL by: Roger
    April 2, 2009, 04:52
    Another relic of a soon to be lost past, this barn is located on the edge of a bankrupt subdivision that was to have added another 300 to 400 houses to Gilberts…
  - Layered Boundaries by: Roger
    April 1, 2009, 05:00
    The footpath protects the fence which in turn guards the woods which in turn marks the edge of the forested land. So many edges, so many boundaries. The footp…
  - Property Line ~ Kane County, IL by: Roger
    March 31, 2009, 04:56
    Jacques Derrida wrote about boundaries. He wrote about the fragility of definitions such as citizenship and place definitions, about the need to protect and fee…
  - Castillo de San Marcos, St Augustine, FL by: Roger
    March 30, 2009, 06:26
    The Castillo de San Marcos is also a monument to the penetrating fear of the other that human beings possess. Imposing artificial boundaries of stone and mortar…
  - Elevator Lobby, State of Illinois Building by: Roger
    March 28, 2009, 05:46
    Looking down from the second floor, the open shaft of the elevator lobby (this is the rear) I found the converging horizontal and vertical lines irresistible. O…
- More...

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Documenting our Landscape

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Who's Online

Blog Statistics

Alexa Rank

Going Green

Spam Blocked

Login/Register

Search the Blog

Past 7 Posts

Archives

Random HDR Posts

Random Color Posts

Random B&W Posts

Random Close-Up Posts

Site Map

Categories

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Stay Informed

Bookmark & Share

Become a Fan

Born on this day

Tao Wisdom

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