I started taking photos when a friend of my parents gifted me a plastic camera at age 6 or so. It wasn’t until much, much later that I began with a really nice Nikon, several lenses, the whole nine yards. I preferred slides and B&W, started printing my own and really got into it. I’ve material from those days in archival storage that I hope to use one day and hope they’ve been preserved.
When digital came out, I didn’t get one till much, much later. In fact I had basically stopped photography. When I did get a digital camera, it was used to document my son growing up.
This year, I went to Menu » Color Mode » Black & White and took a walk in my neighborhood. As a longtime tree and B&W-lover this simple walk yielded beautiful results (see the pics at the beginning of this blog). And so this space was born.
It seems to me that there’s such wonder around us all the time, especially in nature, and we haven’t been good stewards of our environments. And the viewfinder is a creative, contemplative, exploratory experience for me. I needed to re-enter it and through it.
I haven’t yet traveled anywhere exotic with my digital camera, and it hasn’t mattered. The extraordinary is in the seemingly ordinary.
For me, this journey is about appreciation, self-expression, and awareness of beauty, form, contour, elevation, texture, color, shade and light. It’s also an ode to the Earth, the most beautiful woman I know (although I may venture into other subjects in the future).
Here’s to Life!
Contact: karunaray [at] gmail [dot] com
