Organic Light Pan

As a photographer I feel a certain amount of responsibility to record the world as it is. I always looked at what I thought were manipulated photos as somewhat of a desecration. That it was untruthful to portray the world in a way that it was not. I think my first foray with this line of thinking was against those photos that were heavily saturated in color produced by the use of a polarizing filter to make a scene look more enticing than it really was. I have always enjoyed the outdoors and I never saw that dripping off the page color in “real life”. I was satisfied, and in some respects arrogant, in producing the dull and lifeless photos that I knew came out of a camera.

Then as I became more serious about portraying the natural world as it “really” is, I railed against the heavy-handed use of the now popular and almost indispensable Graduated Neutral Density (GND) filter. Used improperly and you could tell that it was a lame attempt to try to make film capture something that it could not. However, when used properly one could hardly tell a GND was used, and the photograph showed a scene that faithfully captured what one’s eye would see. For at this point I had learned that film was limited, it was a poor medium in trying to portray the world as we really experienced it. What I did next shocked my closest confidants; I whole-heartedly accepted and started using the GND. Although now I was branded as a hypocrite, a liar, a fake. I was shocked. Had I created such an environment around me that I had galvanized people into thinking that what the camera and film produced were truth? Had I built around me a glass bubble so fragile that if I tried to grow as a photographer and break through that bubble I would send shards of broken glass at myself as to render me dead? What had I done?

The more I photographed the more I learned that the camera cannot see what my EYES see. The camera cannot feel what my heart feels. The camera cannot smell, hear or touch what my nose, ears and fingers can. As I wandered this beautiful world with my camera photographing I became aware that I was actually being unfaithful to the beauty that I loved so much in my photos.

Even though I was recording the light faithfully, I was not conveying the euphoria that I felt in the presence of that beauty. And thus I embarked on a path of trying to convey the multi-dimensional experience of being out in nature onto the two-dimensional plane of a photograph. What resulted was sometimes very different from the straight record of light that was present. For now, the images transcended into the realm of my feelings. All photographers, as they photograph, are steeped in emotions at the time the shutter is tripped. Recalling those emotions when looking at the resulting photos at times leaves the photographer somewhat let down as the photos appear lifeless. I had to learn to not judge an image until I brought it into my photo editing software environment and apply the standard adjustments - tonal dialation, adjusting contrast and setting color balance - first. Then if it was still lifeless, a number of other adjustments from applying a softening blur or artistic use of dodges and burns to eliminating color entirely and going balck and white. If, after all that, I can’t reproduce a pale shadow of the euphoria I felt at the time I tripped the shutter, then and only then is the image a flop and destined for the trash can, otherwise known as the ‘Round File’.

And thus, you have the photograph that graces this post. A rendition of the euphoric state of my heart as I stood there under these delicate trees as thier leaves shivered in the light breeze and danced among the sunbeams that filtered through them. Maybe I am not a true photographer anymore depicting the world as seen through the lens of a camera, but now, at least now, I feel that I am finally writing with light.

I have been silent for some time. Not to sure why. I have been busy conducting two workshops, one in the Santa Cruz Mountains of Northern California and the second in famous Yosemite Valley. Both were in search of the lovely autumn color. However, earlier I spent several days on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada in search of autumn color there as well. I was there during the inital shock of the financial melt down and I guess I had internalized the fear that was rampant and it was reflected in my images. For the images that were appearing to me were somewhat foreboding in nature. Like “Strangled” from my previous post and this image below titled “Death’s Hand”, both have a deeply foreboding qaulity to them.

Yet on my return from the Eastern Sierra, I found that my heart had eased as I found the mountains still there. They had not shaken, they were still as firm as they have always been and still served to hold the Earth together. And so even though my heart was seeing what it felt which led me to these images, in reality there was nothing to wory about at all.

Sometimes an image just happens to come to you. It appears as if by magic at your feet, and in this case it literally did. Even more amazing is when an image just captivates your imagination and conveys to you exactly what you are feeling.

Such was the case with this photo of twisted sage brush in the Eastern Sierra. Continue Reading »

Last week I saw a bumper sticker that read “Trees Are The Answer”. I honestly found that to be a very profound statement. It struck me odd, as that I thought I was the only one who thought that the answer to many of our glaring problems are the trees. We find that we faced today with so many challenges and problems globally that if we think about them we get overwhelmed, at least I do.

Much has been written about trees - essays, poems, songs - so I don’t think I can add much. But I don’t think I have ever run across anything that highlights the relationship that we actually have with trees. Trees actually breath, that is they absorb carbon dioxide and release, as a waste product, oxygen. Funny - we breath in oxygen and release carbon dioxide as a waste. We need their waste and they ours. The only trouble is that we seem to be drowning in carbon dioxide and killing off the trees at the same time via chainsaw.

In my last post, I wrote of balance; that Divine balance that was put in place by our Creator. Maybe that balance goes beyond mere economics. Maybe it has a farther reaching implication. Maybe it means that everything has a balance point and if we tip it too far we will destroy ourselves.

There is an interesting tradtion of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, that says “If the Last Day comes upon you and you are planting a tree, continue planting it“. That is don’t let anything sway you from doing whatever good thing that you are doing irrespective of the tribulation at hand. But what I find so intriuging is that the Prophet, peace be upon him, used the act of planting a tree, which indicates to me that trees will be important to us even up to the very last day.

Maybe its to simple an answer to our global problems, but then again…

The month of Ramadan is just about over. In less than 24 hours, the search for the new crescent moon will begin for those who follow the tradition set more than 1400 years ago in marking the beginnings of the months. The day the follows the end of Ramadan is known as Eid Al-Fitr, the festival of fast breaking, and is celebrated the world round by observant Muslims. It is a joyous day that marks not only the end of a month-long devotion to our Creator but also that as Muslims we were able to stay away from and curb our desires during daylight hours. It is a month where those who observe it hope to gain the self-control and discipline to tame our egos, grow more conscience of the Divine, and foster love, mercy and compassion to all of humanity.

And so it is with this as a backdrop that the current events unfolding leave me somewhat introspective on our future. Continue Reading »

I am not a political analyst. Nor do I enjoy politics all that much. However recent events have brought on a new interest in what goes on with the governance of the land in which I live. When we elect people to run the country we would hope that they have some scruples. Unfortunately, most politicians are liars, they lie about what they will do for us once in office, they lie about what they do while in office as well. It used to be that leaders were the best among the people that they led. They were the wisest, the smartest, the strongest, the highest in good character, the most educated, the most God conscious, humble, courageous, steadfast, cool tempered, truthful, caring, generous, and merciful.

On the contrary, our leaders of today are the antithesis of these qualities - foolish, weak, foul in character, ignorant, heedless, arrogant, cowardly, capricious, hot headed, liars, selfish, miserly and wrathful. Where can such a ‘leader’ lead us except into ruin? It brings me to a level of indignation and frustration that I have not known before. It boggles my mind why we as a nation continue to put up with such mockery - can we not see that we are being played for fools? Do we not have a government in this country that is for the people by the people? Where are the people? Can we really choose this for ourselves, is this what we really want?

We are standing on the precipice of what is inarguably the largest financial breakdown the world has ever seen. As more and more information makes its way to the surface, it becomes clear that the driving force behind it all is Greed, or in other words, the love of material wealth. As the great Moroccan scholar of the thirteenth century, ‘Abdul-Wahid Ibn ‘Ashir said, the source of all wrong action is the love of material wealth. In fact he used the Arabic word ‘Ajilah, which literally means that which goes away quickly, as a descriptor in place of the words ‘material wealth’.

When one loves money, there is nothing that he or she will not do to acquire more of it. And its not that the person actually needs any of it, for we can get by with very little physical wealth, but it burns into the heart in such a way that it literally consumes the person. They love it for its own sake. They just want more and more, regardless if they actually need it or even use it for anything, they just want to have it and revel in the fact that they have it. The sad part is that we can’t take it with us. We will all die, and we find three things will accompany us to our graves – our family and friends, our wealth and our actions. Two of them return and one stays with us – family and friends leave us behind to squabble and consume our wealth that leaves with them and we are only left with our actions.

And here we are faced with the financial destruction of an entire nation because of a leadership that encouraged greed, fostered its growth and now wishes to reward those who brought all this upon us by bailing them out at our expense. The numbers they speak of are absolutely staggering! I don’t think we can even fathom the amount they speak of; it’s just not something we can get our minds around. And yet, the very people who propose the solution to this crisis are the very ones who not only allowed it to happen, but also fostered it and are diseased by that very sickness, greed, themselves. It leaves me to wonder if what motivates the solution is not the very thing that brought on the problem to begin with.

The real deal is that our leadership has failed us terribly. When this happens do we have anyone to blame but ourselves? For did we not put them in the position? When this happens do we have any other choice but to remove those who lead from the position of leadership? I hope we are not too late in acting on this, for if we are, I fear the end of freedom as we know it will be knocking on our doors.

It seems like a strange name, Organic Light Pan for a web journal. Why did I choose that? Well one reason which is kind of silly, but of importance in the branding of my company, Organic Light Photography, are the initials OLP. From Organic Light Photography to Organic Light Press to, hopefully in the future, Organic Light Philanthropy, I wanted the web journal to keep the same three letter moniker of OLP.

This is where the search started in naming this journal. I went to great lenghts of searching words that begin with the letter ‘P’ that would capture the sense of what this journal would serve. My photographic work is in general concerned with nature and the landscape. More specifically I am concerned with our relationship with the Earth as well as our relationship with our Maker.

For one, I find it interesting that the natural world, taken as a whole, is at peace with itself. Everything is in balance and it would stay that way if we did not come along and upset that tenuous equilibrium. Thus I write about that in the reflections that accompany my photographs. I also tend to see that if we open our eyes to how the natural world functions we can learn a great many things in how to live our lives in peace with each other. However to do this, one has to “pan” across all the strata of existent things in the universe to see this. And that is where the name of this journal appeared. I also found it fortutious that in many instances a photographer has to pan the camera while following a subject in the viewfinder.

And so, Organic Light Pan became the title of this journal that aims to extract Insights Through Reflections on Nature. Hopefully these insights will lead us to living in peace with each other on this planet and in peace with the Earth itself, our home and vessel as we are hurled through the universe.

Today was the first day of fasting for the month of Ramadan this year.

Enjoying the afternoon

I lead a trip up to the Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve in the northern Santa Cruz mountians on Sunday after noon with about 20 people attending. We spent about two hours along one of the ridge trails in the preserve waiting for the sun to set so that we could start searching. We had a good time while we waited.

It was another perfect day for moonsighting. The sky was clear and visibility was excellent. Although it was clear and sunny we had mild temperatures in the upper 60’s.

As the sun began to set, we all anxiously waited to start searching. Although the sunset was quite impressive with its deep orange color, we had to really stop ourselves from looking to prevent the green spots from appearing in our eyes which would hamper seeing the delicate crescent moon.

Finally the sun had vanished below the horizon. It left us with sublte pastel colored skies.

However, try as we did, we could not see any sign of the new crescent moon. Even though is was a 30 hour old moon, its age determine from the moment it is in conjunction with the sun, it was low on the horizon, only about 3.5 degrees in altitude, and was only in the sky for 20 minutes after the sun set. Most 30 hour old crescents are easy to see in the sky after sunset, but this one was to low ont he horizon and set too soon after sunset.

In the end, no one in North America saw the crescent moon that evening. Making the month of Sha’ban a 30 day month and with Ramadan beginning on Tuesday September 2, 2008.

With one day now complete we look forward to a blessed month ahead of us.

Peace - Youssef

After The Rain was a photograph I made back in 2003 down in Southern California during the wildflower bloom on the Gorman Hills. It was the most extensive wildflower bloom on record there in Gorman. A similar bloom occured in 1992, but not as extensive. The hills run for about 7 miles along Gorman Post Road which parallels Hwy 5. For the entire lenght of Gorman Post Road and from the base of the hills to the top, it was socked in color like that seen in this image.

I decided to drive down from the San Francisco Bay Area on Easter weekend with the notion that on Easter no one would be out and about, as it was a family day and a religious holiday that would be observed. Well I was sorely wrong. However, my actual intention was not Gorman, but the John Gavrillis who had also photographed the extensive bloom at Gorman and had THIS photograph on display as 40″x50″ enlargement. It certainly was quite impressive to see. I asked when he had taken it and he told me Saturday, the day before I was there. I told him I had the same photo - you know how we photogrpahers like to hear that from other photographers - and he chuckled and said ahh huh! I invited him to my booth and pointed at my version and he said wow, that is better than mine. We walked back to his booth and I pointed out where in his composition you could see mine. We both had a good laugh.

After the Rain has been my number 1 runaway best selling image. To me the photo speaks to what gratitude is truly about. These hills are dry and yellow for most of the year. Even in winter and spring they sometimes don’t flush out with color as they depend heavily on ample rain. When it does come, they just burst out in color as if to say Thank You for the life giving rain and in their gratitude, they give off this amazing display of wlid flowers. It has brought some viewers to tears, for reasons they could not explain. It stops almost everyone who passes by my show booth. It is an amazing scene.

It has placed in many photographic competitions, however this award, even though it was only Runner-Up in the International Conservation Photography Awards is still its greatest accolade to date. The open invitational is put on by famed landscape photographer and convservationist Art Wolfe. The winners of this year’s competiontion will be on display from August 30th to October 12th, 2008 at the Museum of History and Industry located in McCurdy Park at 2700 24th Avenue East, Seattle, WA. If you are in the neighborhood stop by and take a look. Let me know what you think of the image in real life. I am sure it will knock your socks off.

Peace - Youssef

The 2009 From Darkenss To Light wall calendar is now in stock and ready for delivery. For all those that have pre-ordered the calendar, they will ship out in the next 48 hours. Be on the lookout for them in, or I should say near your mailbox.

The printing this year is top notch and the look and feel of the paper used is, well the best way I can put it is luxurious!

To order a copy or more visit The Calendar page on the Organic Light Photography Website TODAY!