The Balance of Life

 I find myself more passionate than ever about shooting film! A love affair that will never end, nor could ever be replaced.....Walking out of an airport after a 3 month epic, with 20 roles of Velvia in your rucksack is a lost passtime for most photographers, but for myself its one of the most exciting feelings I get out of life.

Physically and mentally pouring thought and emotion into each image...searching for the light ~ in frame~ in exposure ~ in focus ~ and in the final touches of the journey, protecting that film with your life, as it can be lost in the moment of a wrong decision or unfortunite encounter with mixed cultures.

There you are home at last!  Priority obligations like calling your mother to tell her you've made it home safe, or catching up with an old mate to share a few stories over tea, and quickly the photos are put on the back burner. Eventually you become so involved in your work, that for days the mind is lost in admiration for what the body and spirit has just experienced and is now captured forever in time.

I often think about how photography has shaped my life, and of the leasons I have learned in the process.  Ever since I set out to travel 13 years ago, the dream of one day writing a book and sharing my work has always motivated me.  Having a clear vision of what the final presentation might look like, with the hopes that it will touch peoples lives the way each experience has affected me.   Will people really understand the emotion and sincerity that goes into my work?  In the big picture, I could just be another photographer that has this obsessive desire to be alone in nature. But personally its much deeper than that....I feel a true sense of meaning and appreciation for the gift of life when I walk away from a beautiful tropical sunset with my tripode slung over my shoulder...

I realized long ago that being a photgrapher is a very personal and intimite experience, a stimulation of all the bodies senses in that brief moment of life passing you by...

"Never fear a vision that is yet to be lived alone,  for then it's magic is surely meant to fade away...in the moments of hesitation, life's grandest and most pure sensations become only a whispering illusion"