Photography by Ira Gardner

Priest Lake Memories...

2012-01-23T15:16:00.000-08:00

The end of January makes me think about Summer. I have to these days because it is the time of year I need to make campground reservations if I hope to get a spot on the water. Every year for the last six years I have reserved a camp site at Priest lake for a week. I try to plan the trip to happen around the end of July or the beginning of August when the water temperature might reach 70 degrees and the huckleberries are ripe and ready to pick. It is a unique alpine lake with bare granite peaks that rise above the shores and timberline.

For me camping is the glue that holds my life together. It is during these annual trips that we create the memories that sustain family and friendships through the challenges that life always brings.

When I became a father I did a personal inventory of what were my favorite childhood memories. Number one on my list was camping. We use to car camp almost every weekend from the time I was 9 years old. My father went so far as to build a special box in the trunk of the station wagon that held all of our camping gear and yet had a plywood lid that allowed groceries to still be stacked on top so we wouldn’t lose any trunk space. We were always packed and ready to go camping at the drop of a hat. My parents worked extremely hard and it was a challenging time in our life during the recession of the late 70’s and early 80’s. Whenever we set out on a camping adventure the tension dissipated as the car rolled off the highway onto a dirt road.

Later, in high school, I would have the opportunity to go camping on the island’s at Priest Lake which is what makes this lake my favorite spot in the world. A friend’s dad would take us across the lake by boat on a Friday night and dump us off on an island with our gear and come back for us on Monday afternoon on a holiday weekend. We didn’t have cell phones, but we had lots of fun. The lake still feels like one of the few places you can let your kids explore independently without constant worry. Assuming they can swim...

As my son grew older I decided to buy a small boat just so I could give him the same sort of experiences that I had. He is quick to tell you the story of our first trip and the Mackinaw trout dad caught that we cooked over a fire on the beach. And he'll tell you about the time we got back in the rain and I fell off the boat and got soaked so we decided to keep cruising around on the boat since we were already wet!

Just a couple of summers ago I realized the lifelong dream of going camping on Kalispell Island with my brother whom I hadn’t seen much of since I was 10. It was a vehicle to reconnect and bridge the gap of years while drinking coffee and looking up at the stars. It is a space in which you can see how small we are in the grand scheme of things and realize how infinite love for one another is like the milky way that remains hidden from view back home in the city.

My 93 year grandmother can't remember what happened yesterday but will jump at the opportunity to tell you about her summers camping on Lake George in upstate New York where she use to swim or paddle over to meet the boys from across the lake! Lake camping is a metaphor for coming of age that still fits in just fine in the modern world.

I relish planning the next summer’s trip each winter. The memories of past trips and the anticipation of upcoming adventures is like a beacon of light during the long dark winter.

Priest Lake is a sacred place for me. It is where I had childhood adventures, got married, and formed the bond of a strong father and son relationship. Somehow sitting around a campfire soothes the spirit in a way that sitting in front of a television never does. These images are from last summer. Through the joy of children splashing and laughing I can appreciate an innocence I once knew and the purity of spirit I still aspire too.

Martin Luther King Day

2012-01-16T11:45:00.000-08:00

Happy belated birthday Dr. King. I am typically late with birthday wishes and this one is no exception. I started to write this the morning of January 16th but was interrupted by a lack of confidence that as a white male I had any right to publish words about such a great leader. Today I thought better of it and decided to push through my own discomfort.

January 16th, 2012:

Today is Martin Luther King's birthday and a Federal holiday. I took this day off to enjoy being with my son and his boy scout troop skiing. I am grateful for this time together but also feel obligated to acknowledge and honor the gift Martin Luther King has given us through his words, acts, and ultimately with his life.

Thanks to the power of the internet and podcasts, I started the day listening to a lecture by the poet Rita Dove and learning about a African-European concert violinist George Bridgetower who at one time was the acquaintance of Beethoven and inspired him to write a sonata dedicated to him. I have been a fan of Beethoven since I learned to play Für Elise as a young child on the piano. I was surprised I had not heard of Mr. Bridgetower before, but then again I wasn't as it seems most of the contributions of people of color are overlooked in mainstream society and we continue to teach our children the ideology of Manifest Destiny.

This photograph was made while documenting the filming of a movie scene on a bus this summer. The cast and crew circled around and around in a city bus. In addition to photographing the main characters I made personal photos of the extras that I found visually interesting.

I instantly made a connection between the girl who looked like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and started to photograph her. After reviewing the images I recognized the significance of the African-american boy on the bus sitting in front of her. They were both extras in the backdrop and were not featured in the scene but as I look at this image I become aware of the racial issues that are the backdrop of our culture and still linger with us long after civil rights. The fact that I am even aware of race within this photo makes me wonder if I/We still have a long way to go towards becoming a fully integrated society that values all.

Robert Frank's image in his book The Americans portrays a black man looking out the window of a bus seated behind two young well heeled white children. Rosa Parks still comes to mind as I look at this image. I am glad to live in a place and time where there isn't a hierarchy to where people sit on a bus, although some would still argue that their is a socioeconomic hierarchy that reduces many to having to ride the bus. These indelible images from our past inform my subconscious reaction to what I photograph and remind me of the struggle for civil rights that continues to play out as conservatives continue to debate the birthplace and legitimacy of our current president.

I remember the day President Barack Obama was announced the winner of the election. That morning I stepped over a rain puddle that had a discarded newspaper declaring "OBAMA WINS" paper mache'd to the blacktop. I was walking into a medical building to a marriage counseling appointment. As I reached the 4th floor in silence I thought about the significance of this historical event. I walked down the dark hall with granite floors and nondescript wooden doors towards the therapist's office. It reminded me of a Robert Adams image of a blank hallway that explored the dehumanizing qualities of modern urban life. I often looked at these doors and recalled the story of The Lady or the Tiger.

I decided to mark this occasion by making this photograph with my cell phone. It is a dreary hallway that often mirrored my own dreary mood as I struggled with my own issues and the change I faced on an individual level as our nation embraced change on a national level.

That morning of November 5th, 2008 I had hope for our nation and for myself. As I see this image I continue to have hope.

This is an image that makes people uncomfortable when I ask them what they think. I think I am even uncomfortable sharing it in this public forum because it exposes my own awareness of race as I photograph, because even though I want to believe we live in a diverse and culturally enlightened world, the very fact that I am thinking of Rosa Parks as I see this image reminds me that we are still not there.

I will continue to dream...

Meditations on Tea

2012-01-11T19:18:00.000-08:00

I've been drinking a lot of tea lately. When I decided to take on a New Year's dieting plan, the idea of transforming myself from a glutinous holiday sugar cookie into a healthy and spiritual being immediately connected me to the idea of making tea as a daily ritual.

For me tea inspires simplicity in lifestyle and a gentleness in temperament. As I savored my modest lunch of raw cucumber and tomato slices with red beets, I watched the steam rise from my teapot and I reflected on our interconnectedness with the cultures that cultivate such sweetness as lemongrass green tea. I drink it all day and often stare at the bottom of the cup and close my eyes and pray as the aroma greets my nose and the steam warms my cheeks.

It is a peaceful moment that is different than the pleasure I get from coffee. My morning Joe is comforting like a pot of Irish stew on a slow cooker that waits for you to come home. I can set the coffeemaker to brew for me at 6am, just waiting for me to get out of bed and sit by the fire in the winter darkness.

Tea, on the other hand, makes you actively engage in a ritual. You have to wait for it to boil and remain patient as it brews. My Grandmother always told me a "watched pot never boils". All the women in my family collect tea cups and I have often resorted to buying my mother a new one for her birthday when I can't think of anything else that would be as meaningful.

When the pot is ready it will whistle like a train and sometimes when I am alone I will let it continue to blow and interrupt it rhythmically, playing it like a frantic flute letting the sound fill the air and penetrate the chamber of my chest and move through me like the scream I wish I could utter sometimes when I am torn up inside or gripped with fear. I don't scream, and as the pot subsides I settle into a calm state and meditate as the leaves steep.

When I have gone into the mountains on climbing and hiking adventures, it is tea that I take with me. During the idle time while you are squatting and shivering while waiting for the snow to melt, when you feel the remote isolation and the coldness of a granite and ice landscape, holding your hands over the purring stove with steaming hot water offers reassurance that you are safe and exactly where you are meant to be in the universe at that very moment, and is a ritual that celebrates the joy and exaltation of feeling all your senses come alive as we return to the primordial homeland that reminds us of our pure self that still resides in the recesses of our DNA memory that connect us to the very cosmos that is the birth of our existence and that which we lose sight of in a city.

The other aspect I love about tea is the intimate social nature of sharing a pot with a friend or lover. I remember first seeing and then reading the novel Shogun by James Clavell and being introduced to the Japanese tea ceremony. The intricate ritual that brings two people together in quiet reflection. One of my favorite memories of San Francisco was visiting the Japanese tea house in Golden Gate Park on a rainy day.

I often leave a teapot on my dining table as a centerpiece. It is like an invitation for a conversation. If no one is there I can have internal dialog and reflection on the beautiful things in my life. I am grateful.

One of my most cherished family heirlooms is a copper teapot that my Grandfather brought back from India during World War II where he was stationed as a bombardier and navigator in a B-17 flying fortress. It has a small reservoir for lamp oil that burns to keep the pot warm. I never watched him drink tea as he seemed to prefer forgetting the war with high ball cocktails and lavish parties. What he did share was that the way he survived that terrible ordeal was by becoming a fatalist. So many friends were shot down leaving one to wonder "why not me?" with the only explanation being, It wasn't my time.

My Grandfather is the second man standing from the right. He sent this to my Grandmother
while he was off to war and listed the names of all his crew mates and himself as "Yours Truly".

Every day I look at that teapot and imagine how being in the presence of the Taj Mahal and it's representation of mankind's potential for love and the appreciation for natural beauty in the middle of a war, must have created a severe juxtaposition as he watched the insanity and destruction in the air all around him. Again I am reminded of the meditative quality of a simple pot of tea, the zen qualities of simultaneous contrast, love and hate, utopia and dystopia. He came back from war and made beautiful paintings and remained mostly silent about darker things and celebrated life. I'm grateful for the legacy of these gifts.

As I exhale slowly to cool a new cup, I expel fear and disappointments and inhale peace and hope, and I continue to remember to breath...

The abstract nature of emotions...

2012-01-08T15:39:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine who's been photographing for more than 30 years told me that it was only in the last couple of years that he had finally started to produce imagery that adequately expressed the emotions in his life. I asked him to show me what he meant and he produced a print of an image of bushes that were all snarled together with a small trickle of a stream. It made me think of someone who is emotionally bound up so tight with pain and a stream of tears coming down their face in silence. I loved this image.

Today I started working through some images from earlier this fall and I came across these abstract photographs. I made these while on a hike in October just a couple of weeks after a major emotional milestone in my life.

I often go hiking to clear my head and process my own emotions. If I'm all tangled up inside, the exertion and cool breeze help straighten me out. When I pause along the trail I often lose myself in prayer as nature is the grandest Cathedral I know and the place where I feel connected to my spirituality the most.

I selected these images because they reminded me of Japanese Kanji characters as well as the Yin and Yang of black and white. The contrast of branches and water remind me of the eloquence of a well rendered Sumi-e painting.

I remember the day Sensei Chinen translated and wrote my name in Japanese on my Karate Gi. He believed Karate was about polishing our soul through the rigor and discipline of Kata. For me, Karate was all about emotions and quieting the mind and communicating with our entire body.

Looking for photographs with my camera is meditative for me as it is also about quieting the mind and seeing a pattern within the seemingly infinite randomness of tree branches requires a transcendence beyond our own worries and challenges.

Aaron Siskind created a whole series of images that resembled Kanji characters from the cracks in the blacktop of a parking lot. Brooks Jensen recently did the same with some images of Graffiti at Fort Worden State Park. The thing I like about Chinese and Japanese characters is that they retain the pictorial qualities of the meanings they represent. The strokes of the characters are designed to mimic the shape of the object being described in words. Subtle meanings are formed by the layering of one pictorial image on top of another. For me, these images retain some of the qualities of the emotions I felt on that day when I went for a hike. They are not meant to be defined with words, but are meant to be felt.

I think that is what Jackson Pollock did so well with his paintings. He felt and he expressed. It is all I can hope to do with any photograph I make.