Landscapes of the Spirit [antikvár]

Introduction "How did you feel?" my professor inquired. I didn't know what he meant. "When you cUcked the shutter, what were you feeling?" he asked, referring to a photograph of mine projected on the screen. "You connected with something there. Think about what it was. Pay attention to it next time. Listen." The beauty of nature motivates and inspires my photography, nourishes my artistic sensibility and restores my spiritual balance. In landscapes of silent rock, reflecting water and parting cloud 1 feel most connected to myself and to life itself. In the clarity of wilderness light, my mind and my heart are soothed and uplifted by the serenity of Creation. These are landscapes of, and for, my spirit. As a child I was exposed to the joys of the outdoors during family excursions from our home in the San Francisco Bay Area to the great western national parks. My response to nature was based largely on recreational pursuits until the summer of my eighteenth year, when I took a job in Glacier National Park in Montana. In the middle of that summer I was stunned to receive a phone call with news that my only brother, Jim, had suddenly died of a brain aneurysm. Just two years my senior, Jim was my friendly rival, my conscience, and most important, my close friend. I hurried home for the funeral and to help my grief-stricken parents, but soon fled back to my summer job in Montana. The trails in Glacier would become the beginning of my path to healing, and would lead me toward a life in photography. As I mechanically performed my job, my thoughts whirled with unanswered questions about the premature death of such a kindred spirit and generous soul. Searching for a respite from grief, I backpacked through the wilderness and scrambled up the peaks with a near-desperate vigor. Long, hard hikes temporarily soothed my pain and helped me to fall into exhausted sleep at night. At some deep level, the beauty of my surroundings seeped into my subconscious — the lush colors of a meadow dense with wildflowers, the energy of a lightning storm, the clarity of a turquoise lake, the splendid perspective from a mountain peak. The summer after my brother's death I returned to work in Glacier, attracted by the place itself and by friends who had helped me through my most difficult time. This time 1 was equipped with a new Kodak Instamatic camera to document my travels for my friends and family. When I returned to college in the fall, 1 showed my landscape photographs to a friend, full of youthful zeal about my adventures and my new method of sharing them. As she flipped through my prints, she remarked, "You should become a photographer!" She had seen in my casual snapshots what