Organic Light Pan

On October 14, 2009, on one of the worse rain storm days I can remember in a long time, I was involved in a devastating accident where I hit another car from behind on Highway 280 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The accident resulted in both of our cars as a total loss. I thank God that no one was seriously injured.

Accident Aftermath

This incident has left me full of deep remorse for disrupting the lives of so many people, my family included. My truck, a 2000 Toyota 4Runner, was a critical asset of Organic Light Photography as it provided transportation to and from photography jobs, and trips into the wilderness areas that I photograph, as well as being the workhorse in pulling a trailer filled with the show equipment I use at art shows and exhibits where Organic Light Photographs can be seen, enjoyed and purchased.

Needless to say I need to purchase another truck that can replace the loss. The whole incident has left me very shaken up. Of course any accident like this is bound to do so, and it is difficult to get past it without wondering what it all means. It is diffcult not to wonder if I had just braked a little sooner, or if I took that risk of veering into another lane if that would have averted the collision. But we can “what-if” ourselves to no end with no real benefit. What has happened has happened and it cannot be undone. When a calamity occurs, we need to find the courage in ourselves to stand up, dust ourselves off, forgive ourselves for our own inability to control things outside of our sphere of influence and find the wisdom in what has happend so that we may hopefully grow as thinking conscience individuals.

We are living in trying times. Tribulations seem to be coming upon us collectively as a society from all sides and as often as we blink our eyes. We tend to feel somewhat sheltered however when it is not happening directly to us, but the truth is that it is actually happening to other fellow human beings somewhere. Everyday someone somewhere is in a car accident, or a family member dies, or someone loses their job, and the list goes on. I am sure you don’t drive down the freeway without seeing at least one wreck a week.

The funny thing is that the traffic that results from drivers slowing down at the scene of an accident always upset me. It is a pet peeve of mine seeing all those “rubber-neckers” slowing down to get a glimpse of what happened, as if they did not have enough drama in their lives already, or enough violence as portrayed through the media that they just needed to see a little more of it so that they can get their fix.

But it has occured to me how incredibly insensitive I have been – not to the rubber-neckers, they still bother me, but to those afflicted individuals involved in the accident. The possible loss of life and property, lost earnings due to injury, the sorrow, the regret , the remorse – somehow did not occur to me. It was as if I was oblivious to all this. This was not the first accident that I have been in. When I was 16, I was in an accident with my first car, a Chevrolet Chevette, and it was pitted against a full-sized behemoth Lincoln Continental, yeah, no mystery there as to which car came out the loser. But I guess in the last 30 years I forgot what it was like being in an accident. I hope I never forget again. For when the world crashes for one person we should feel like it is crashing for all of us. In this way we can always feel compassion for those who are living through any tribulation and always express our gratitude for when we are not and showing patience when we are.

Please be safe out there this Autumn as the roads will be slick and slippery with water and snow as storms move through. The beauty of Autumn should not be overshadowed by the gloom of dealing with accidents.

Peace and Tranquilty to you all.

~ Youssef

I hate to “toot my own horn” but I am featured in an online interview at Examiner.com.   Check it out and let me know what you think.

Space is still available in this month’s Maples and Redwoods workshop set in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  Visit lesser frequented canyons and old growth redwood groves and capture Autumn like you may never have seen it before.

'Why?' - Big Leaf Maple in Fall Color

Redwoods Glowing in Afternoon Light

Glowing Maple Leaves on Alpine Creek

For more information and to register visit the Workshop Page on the Organic Light Photography Website.

Congratulations on Eid Al-Fitr! The moon was seen this evening, September 20th 2009, marking Shawwal 1, 1430 and the beginning of Eid Al-Fitr.

Shawwal Crescent, 1430

Eid, as the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him said,  is a day of Eating and Drinking and Remembering God.  So lets!

Congratulations to all who have fasted the Blessed month of Ramadan.  May you all be rewarded to the level of your efforts.

Where The Moon Would Have Been

The crescent moon of Shawwal 1430 was not seen this evening Saturday September 19th.  With that Eid will commence on Monday September 21st. The photo above is the portion of the sky where the crescent would have been had it been visible.

I extend my wishes for a wonderful Eid Al-Fitr to all.  May it be a day of eating and drinking and Remembering your Lord.

Venus and the old crescent moon.

When I was young I would sit out on the front porch of our house at night with my mother, God rest her soul and have mercy on her, which faced east and some times we would see the moon very close to a star.  I would ask my mother about it and she would tell me that that star was the moon’s mother and when the moon was close to it, the moon was visiting its mother.  That story always made me feel close to my mother.  I still recall those days whenever I see the moon close to a prominent star in the sky.

Two mornings ago, I stepped out of my front door, which faces south, and I looked towards the east to estimate how many more days we had left in Ramadan by gauging the size of the crescent moon.  To my surprise it was very close to Venus, the start shown above.  The sky was getting light and I was moved to photograph this pair as they visited each other in the morning sky.

I happend to look to the south and also saw the constellaton Orion, or Musa according to the Muslim Astronomers naming, and its distinctive belt of three stars that I grew up know as The Three Sisters, again named by my mother.

Three Sisters

It has always amazed me how universal the stars are and at the same time how ‘culturalized’ they are at the same time.  Growing up I knew Venus as the Mother of the Moon, and the Belt of Orion as the Three Sisters.  Every cultural or civilization has named the stars by different names and some have crossed over to other cultures.  Of the 57 navigational stars some 18 of them still have Arab names give by the Muslim Astronomers during the Golden Age of Islam.  The list of these stars can be found on Wikipedia at this link.

In a few days the month of Ramadan will have passed and the new crescent moon will make its appearance in the western sky after sunset.  And even though time keeps moving on, the stars, moon and sun will still be there to help us keep track of time and grow richer as they bridge the gaps of culture and the ages.

Did you have any special names for the stars when you were growing up?  I’d love to hear what they were.

Blood From A Stone (Artistic Rendition)

I don’t like complaining.  It never really brings about any change and it only tends to bring negativity to all involved.  However, sometimes things need to be said to wake everyone up.  I don’t think what I am saying is new, as we are all feeling the effects of the current state of the economy.  Everyone is spending less, and overall I think that is a prudent course.  Spending irresponsibly is partly to blame for our current state.  Being frugal is always prudent.

At the same time, we do not want to become stingy, Continue Reading »

Now available from Organic Light Press – Custom Fine Art Posters.  These posters are printed to the same exacting quality as the Fine Art Photographs using archival Epson K3 pigments and printed on a high quality satin finish poster paper.  These custom posters offer quality, longevity, resolution, and cost that is unrivaled by ordinary offset printed posters.  They are 18 x 24″ or 20 x 24″ in size depending on the image format and are shipped rolled in a sturdy tube and arrive ready for framing or hanging.  The are $25 each.  Visit the Organic Light Photography website’s Press page to order your set of 4 today!

After The Rain

Another Time

Autumn Meadow

Last Light

I just realized that it has been a year and 12 days since I started this web journal – aka Blog.  Where did the time go?  So let me look at some of the statistics.  IN that time, I have made 41 posts and received 44 comments, not so great.  I was spammed 5247 times, thanks Akisment for catching all those.  The journal as 58 subscribers – cool! and has been visited over 4500 times.  I had a nice counter plugin/widget that was working that suddenly gave up last week for whatever reason, so I have a new stats plugin, Counterize II, working but it does not have a nice sidebar widget to report it. Those 44 posts have been categorized 16 times as Announcements, 9 times as Images, 8 times as Inspirations, 4 times as Moonsighting, 23 times as Reflections and 2 times as Workshops.  Now of course if add all those up its more than 44 posts, so obviously some were marked under multiple categories.

So all in all, as seen from the post stats, the journal has lived up to its subtitle – “The Journal of Insights Through Reflections on Nature”, – for the most part anyway.  Have I “panned” across all that is photographic, probably not, but give me some time.  In my first “Real Post”, Calm Down, I wondered if the time I spent writing and updating the journal with new content was going to be worth it.  For the most part I feel that it has been a worthwhile endeavor.  I was hoping to see more feedback and discussion take place, but the feedback that I did receive has been positive and hopefully the articles I have written have been of benefit.  I guess the real proof has to come from the readers.

So I want to hear back from all the readers of this journal, have the posts I have made been of benefit?  Is there anything that you would want me to write on that I have not?  What about the journal itself:  Is it easy to read?  Do you like the format? Are the links to other blogs and websites relevant?  Do you have a blog or website that you would consider having a reciprocal link to?  Would you like to seem me change the journal and in which ways?

So lets hear it.  I hope the next year will be as good as what has past, but I really hope it will be much better.

Peace.

Reflections abound in our world. No matter where we look we see reflections. The light that that reaches our eyes is merely a reflection, in and of itself, of objects that exist in the world. In fact light, pure light, is invisible to our eyes. There is light streaming between you and the monitor right now as you read this that you cannot see. Light only becomes visible to our eyes after it has interacted with creation. In pure light we are blind and in the absence of light we are blind as well. That reflected light is really nothing more than shade – a mixture of pure light and darkness, and it is only in the shade that we can see. It is in these reflections that we can see all the various shades of color and luminosity. It is in the shade that we can start to understand the world we live in.

Reflections on Pebble Beach

The sage Muhammad Ibn Al-Habib in his Diwan (a litany of poems sung to melodies) has a couplet in one of the poems that has a meaning translated as “Truly created things are meanings established as images.  Whoever understands this is among the people of discernment.”   For years I struggled with understanding why I would train my camera on a certain scene, why I found a particular arrangement of objects appealing, why sometimes things looked better than normal.  After coming across this couplet, I froze.  I finally understood that the images I captured had meaning in them, and I now had to reflect on those very ‘reflections’ to find out what they meant to me, and possibly what they might mean to anyone else who looked at them.  And while I am not sure yet as to what the photograph that graces this post means yet, I do know that the moments that occurred that evening when this photograph was made followed  a downpour that followed a clap of thunder that followed a brisk cold wind on a gray and dreary day.  And afterwards it was as calm as can be.  I have more reflecting to do.

Peace.