So it’s like kinda maybe just happen to be like above everyone else but only visually and connected with your eye, heart and mind. See, shooters are always in the same space and reality as everyone else but for real, they are connected to Mother Light in a way that they wait for her to grace their presence and give them a breath of light to share and experience and make their photos.

I can only explain what happens sometimes when I’m not interfering with the natural order of things. I say the natural order because there is a harmony in making photos. There exist a rhythm and beauty in life that one must try to tune into. Shooters can’t be themselves without dancing to the rhythm of life. This rhythm fills our essence and when the subject matter is present and the rhythm of life is in us and we allow our minds to dance freely then and only then will the shooter make photos that reflect the time of the moment of awareness. At the very time of release. all is accountable and all is suspect. If we dint get the photo as we visualized then something is wrong in our perception of time and space and how and where we fit in.

The value of the photo is what we desire it to be. If if reaches that range of acceptance to us, then the ultimate goal is achieved. Yeah sure, it’s nice to have ppl like our work. It’s sweet to sell the work and get shows and exhibitions. If this is the reason you work and find the value that others place on your work most important, well you are destined to die a very lonely death.

Your photos will not miss you because they are busy entertaining others and not you, the parent.

I was sitting at the desk that Ding had and he pulled some prints out for me to study. We looked Strand and Evans because Ding knew I was most in love with them. Of course Kertesz was in my brain and heart at all times. So Ding put back the Strands and the Evans prints and said, for you Don, we will chat with Andre’. Well it’s 1976 and Kertesz is still alive and I’m thinking that a visit is going to happen. I asked Ding when Andre’ was arriving cause I wanted to have my Leica ready.

He smiled and said, Don, here is Andre’ in total. He opened the box of prints I knew so very well. Ding said, as you go thru life remember this as you ever remember anything. Kertesz is the most important photographer that lived and worked in the moment. He never was outside life. I looked at the photos in a new way. I mean I could feel Andre’ in the work but more than that, I felt him inside me. I mean it’s as if I was aware of him in a way I had never understood before. I had tears in my eyes and Ding smiled. He said, Don I love how you take it all in and absorb life.

So I thought about this experience for decades and in fact, I’m in thought now. See, shooters must work from the heart. You gotta feel what your doing. Don’t give a fuck if anyone responds to your your work. You work for you. Ya know what, you work for me too because shooters make photos for themselves and for other shooters.

The awareness of your life is the presence you make and the photos you make. The camera will either be your tool and master or become your friend. In order for it to be your friend you have to surrender to the controls ppl place upon you. I take Walker the Nikon Coolpix A out and we are friends. We get into the moment to and work together to make photos that I can learn from and relate to. Maybe if things go well, someone else can relate to them also.

I feel that the most important thing to digest is that my photos for me represent the moment of awareness and dammit, I’m friggin’ loving that.

ok, gotta run the ambulance is outside to take me to my VA Doc…….he’s not a photographer byes………………………..