the color of wind

all things must pass

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 22:21:00 +0000

including this incarnation of my blog! yes, i've been gone, but not gone gone. if you haven't been automatically re-directed to my new site/blog, click here.

in case you're curious, this is graffiti from ruins of the maharishi's ashram in ram jhula, near rishikesh, india. for those of you old enough to remember, this is where the beatles went to hang out back in the '60's. it's in ruins now, but you can access the 14ish acres and wander around at will. the main meditation hall's walls were covered with(what else) beatles-related graffiti. we explored for hours - the dorms, halls, meditation "eggs", the grounds, and we had the place mostly to ourselves. here's a nice write-up and more pictures...see you at the new blog! ja

he was just here a moment ago...

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Felix C. Alfano

1917-2012

he loved spaghetti and meatballs with warm, crusty italian bread on sundays,
and strawberry shortcake whenever he could get it.
he loved for everything to be where he last left it.
he loved shoes, especially if they were on sale.
he loved music, especially mariachi music, which may come as
a surprise to some - it did to me.
he loved the eloquence, the subtly, and precision of language, and
he loved to make a shorter toast into a longer toast.
he loved a glass of good scotch.
he loved the game of golf and the promise of the first tee on a cool summer's morning
he loved his family and he loved his friends, and most importantly,
he loved us when we made it easy, and he loved us when we made it hard.

thanks, Dad, for showing us how to love.

a thought for now

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 08:01:00 +0000

The thought manifests as the word;

The word manifests as the deed;

The deed develops into habit;

And habit hardens into character;

So watch the thought and its ways with care,

And let it spring from love

Born out of concern for all beings...

As the shadow follows the body, as we think, so we become.

- The Dammapada

one autumn eve

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 22:17:00 +0000

none goes along this way but i,

this autumn eve

- basho

the single best invention of life

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 22:06:00 +0000

interesting confluence of thoughts today on my morning hike. steve jobs has been in the news, with the usual slew of articles, quotes, retrospectives and the like. i came across some excerpts from a stanford commencement address he gave in 2005. decided to follow his advice - in admittedly a little way - here. i've been sitting on a number of shots from various old cemeteries i've visited as part of my berkshire wanderings for a few years now. these cemeteries are fascinating to me - being in one evokes curiosity, memories, emotions, and eventually a special kind of quiet. i've never shown any of these images, based on my own observations that people just don't like to be reminded of the whole death issue, in spite of all that we know to be true. maybe the best invention of life, but not high on list of photo subjects for most. here's one of my favorites anyway.

jobs had the courage to talk about death as a part of his personal story and as a motivator and seemed to me to speak to the truth of it - with his buddhist perspective shining through. a couple of the quotes:

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true."

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

musical immersion

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Tue, 10 May 2011 04:09:00 +0000

is what any time in new orleans is about, but even more so when you go there for the jazz and heritage festival. the people, the food, the music, oh my. the city is consumed by celebration as much as it is still consumed with the aftermath of katrina (with much justification, sadly). we were there with friends, and made more (of the local type), who kept us focused on what was most important - who to listen to, and when, and what to eat, and where. nice. the last morning, we wandered the french quarter, making a point of staying at least 2 streets away from the notorious "bourbon" when i came across this music store. reflections such as these are always a challenge, but when you get it right, they can be rich with layers of images which blend the real and the reflected realities in ways that help to show "not simply what something is, but also what else it is". my favorite quote is from miles davis: "do not fear mistakes. there are none."

as cold as it looks

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 15:00:00 +0000

found myself in rockport, ma this past january. it was between storms, which was lucky, but it was squeaky-snow cold. walked the pier and around the harbor before the wedding we were attending. had a fabulous brunch with friends at the tiny "red skiff" diner. in real life this dinghy is red, and reminds me of that day. in black and white, it's just cold.

where were we?

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 05:34:00 +0000

yep, been awhile. been immersed in the wonderful world of revenue-generation, which has put a bit of a crimp in my photo life, at least the "standard" version of it. i've certainly tried harder to make the most of my opportunities, which mostly means just going with it, instead of fighting. the composition above is a great example. we were with some friends in Carmel to celebrate the new year. did i want to go to Point Lobos or Garapata or Big Sur? You bet. did i? nope. we all went tourist on Monterey. all 8 of us. we walked out onto the coastguard pier, and on the way back, i noticed the painted markers. not on the way out. in any event, i noticed they all had weathered in interesting ways, so started to shoot them. got to the 8th, and a young boy was fishing right in front. waited for him to move, but he didn't, so i went with it. turns out he made the whole series! a friend asked if i had taken these. he was surprised, because it's not like me. is now! nice.

patagonian daredevil

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 17:03:00 +0000

while everyone else was hunkered below decks on what was admittedly some fairly rough waters, Bill Ellzey was on deck trying to get another shot or two of the fabulous light...if you're considering a photo workshop this year, i recommend you get in touch with him. he's headed down to patagonia in april for the fall foliage show, and as you can see, there's a bit more than red leaves on the agenda. when i went in '08, i came back with new friends, great memories, and a book's worth of images!

my all-time favorite analog imaging system

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 23:28:00 +0000

came back from the optometrist late last year with a clean bill of health, and this showed up in my email shortly after (one of two!). reminded me that this was my sensor. DR is awesome, color reproduction is fabulous, subtle tones, no color casts, etc., resolution is perfectly matched to the lens and the processing pipeline, and is more than enough for the standard output target. and, of course, it does video! while the processor might not be as fast for other tasks than it used to be, on the imaging front, it works perfectly well. and thankfully i haven't had an urge to upgrade at all - not even the slightest inkling...so far. i'm perfectly satisfied. yeah, sure, the sensor isn't exactly aligned properly, (design is fine, i suspect a manufacturing defect) but nothing that lenses can't fix...now that i've simplified on the single still image digital backup/augmentation front, hopefully now i can focus on what this system does best: see. something that a camera can never do. i'm thinking that's the best way to improve my photography this year.

stretching, part 5 - haiku fun!

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 23:59:00 +0000

i stumbled upon a site about haiku poetry the other day, and it kind of inspired me...i've been thinking about posting this image for awhile, but there is a subtlety to it that i didn't think would come across on the web. but as i read up on the origins of haiku, i figured i might try to capture some of the essence of it using haiku. soooo, in the interest of having a good stretch, here are a couple that came to me this afternoon:

for a moment,
the slowly creeping fog hides
the afternoon sun

and

water softly washing
a thousand sculpted pebbles...
gulls cry on the wind

the thing about haiku is that anyone can do it (and, yes, it certainly has been abused as an art form on the web!) and it can be a lot of fun. the best ones come from direct experience/memory. does this image conjure any beach memories for you and perhaps, some verse? would love to read some! feel free to stretch...

leaf meditations, part two

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 15:00:00 +0000

yep, this one's color...because among other things, it's about color - here's the story: we were all waiting for the light to change shortly after sunrise one morning during our workshop, and most of us started to wander around looking for other interesting opportunities...i quickly gathered these leaves, which to me represented the spectrum of leaf colors around us at the time, and asked if anyone wanted to shoot them. i took each leaf and dropped it on a nearby rock, then tweaked the arrangement a bit. so it's random, but it's not. one student gasped, "you're going to stoop to that?!" "you bet. why not? let's make art! " i replied. interestingly, a number of students gathered 'round, some made their own tweaks to the arrangement, and shot away. seems to me, though, that i bumped up against some pre-conceived notions of what "nature" photographers are, eh? Guy Tal seems to have come across the same issue, which he describes in a recent blog post. i'm fine with anyone who wants to "document reality" as their approach. whatever works, i say, but a little stretch every now and then can't hurt, can it? btw, ever see paul caponigro's meditations in silver ? still life images meticulously and subtly crafted and photographed that will take your breath away!

leaf meditations, part one

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 20:07:00 +0000

maple leaf

falling down

showing front

                                                         showing back

                                                                         - Ryokan

been spending some time going through images from my recent trip to colorado, trying to decide what to do with some of my foliage images, and the other night came across some passages about seeing in a steve hagen book i've been reading. much to my delight, he used watching falling leaves as an example of just seeing. when we see reality, he says, we are completely beyond the realm of words and concepts. can just watching leaves fall do that? i'm for it.

a couple of things.

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 22:38:00 +0000

first, i think i'm turning Black and White. i really think so. as you may have noticed, i've been creating more work in B&W than in color for some time now. I've actually started to see in B&W - at least for now by generating B&W jpgs in camera. what does this mean? now i can view what an image will look like in BW right away, so i can judge the image on the tonal structure and composition and not be as "distracted" by color. it's always about seeing differently, eh? stay tuned.

second, got to love dunes...they're so, so...life-like! just add some low angle light, and let the fun begin. you want subtle, got it. high drama? yep. grand vistas? check. intimate worlds? bien sur. i've just added significantly to my gallery "impermanence" where you can find all my dune images. all shots from my recent trip to the Great Sand Dunes NP in Colorado. love to hear what you think.

crestone zen

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 15:51:00 +0000

just returned from the Telluride Photo Festival, which was exhilarating and exhausting. got to meet a number of photographers i have admired for years, was introduced to the iLCP (help them however you can!) and had a blast helping Bill Ellzey with his 4 day workshop. we then drove back to his home in Crestone, where we visited the Crestone Mountain Zen Center and shared some tea with Koyo Welch-roshi. this is a snap from my iphone. over the next few weeks, i hope to post images from my trip - Yosemite, Mono Lake, Arches, Telluride and Sand Dunes NP. whew!

stretching, part 4

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:34:00 +0000

what happens when you find yourself mulling over the concept of photographers being "professional noticers", reading Kirk Tuck's blog and gardening all within a few hours? you finish pruning the old seed stalks from your aloe, and instead of throwing them in the compost as always, you notice that they're actually quite graceful. you then decide that maybe you could play with doing some portraits of them, which is something you've never really done before, but why not? grabbed some black foam core, my relatively new Contax/Phase digital back, put on some Radio Paradise, and headed out to the back deck. secured the background to the back of a chair, gathered my various clippings and had a blast. i tried some in full sun, playing with the shadow in relation to the stalk. then i setup at the edge of the shade created by the neighbor's trees. the breeze was variable, which was fantastic - i would position the setup and then wait for a light pattern i liked as the tree branches swayed, creating different shadows. i would move the setup around on the deck as the sun moved, which gave me tons of new opportunities. i found myself just standing there watching until the right breeze/pattern came along, just as i would wait for the right light/shadow combination if i were "in the field". at the end of two afternoon sessions, i had about 200 shots. this image caught my eye after a quick review. for some reason, i just got a kick out of the grace and at the same time, tension of the composition. yes, i re-took the shot with the base level, but you know what? i think it adds to the subtle tension of a balancing stalk. you? nice stretch.

liberating fog

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:13:00 +0000

spent the day at point reyes with fellow photog Robert Hecht a couple of weeks ago, and as is typical of the california coast in summer, yep, it was foggy. i wound up shooting a number of fences - they were weathered and covered in lichens, etc., so were pretty interesting to me, and certainly reflected the essence of the place. but as i was reviewing the images from the day back home, this one struck me. i took it early in the day, and though i would spent the rest of the day noticing details, this represented a letting go - of sun, shadow, blue water, detail, sharpness - everything one typically, if not secretly, wants on a day in a beautiful place. this photo represents none of those things - in fact, when i was processing it, i found myself pushing levers here and there to try to get back some sharpness that was actually never there in the first place! my eye wandered in the foggy background searching for shapes that i could identify. finally i gave up, and began to enjoy the simple feeling of the fog in my face and the simple beauty of the place. nice.

at altitude

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 23:05:00 +0000

aahhhh...there remains something very magical and satisfying about my first trip of the season to tuolomne meadows and tioga pass. yes, after 20 or so years of making the pilgrimage, there's the occasional notice of a stray thought that reflects some form of dissatisfaction (clear blue skies, again !?) or the feeling of the need to see something "new" to "make" the trip. usually a result of something i brought with me. then, a moment arrives, the mind quiets and all else is forgotten; when time starts again, it's somehow different, well, i'm different. i'm there...

yep, just got back. it was bliss: cold, windy, snowy, cloudy, sunny, and radiant. this image was taken in the morning at an ice-covered tairn, between the meadows and the pass. 28 degrees at 8:30am. the 11th of june. nice.

imagining reality

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 21:08:00 +0000

i shouldn't have been surprised, but i was. most of my recent work has been monochromatic, which is why i was caught off-guard. a friend was visiting, and commented how much she appreciated some color work on the wall. then she sheepishly asked, "is it real? i mean, the color." a couple things. nobody ever asks me if any of my black and white images are "real", which is perhaps why i was caught off guard. i guess the "reality comparison gene" doesn't kick in unless there's color...and i'm always fascinated by this question, as it starts me thinking more deeply about how we perceive reality. and then, of course, i start noticing... shortly after, JPC reminded us that "color is an event"; that color doesn't exist "out there" - it exists within us as we observe and perceive objects and light. then i came across a recent article in Tricycle magazine talked about our mental conscious-ness, and how our thoughts cannot perceive anything directly (only our senses do) - they "only impute generalities and unclear abstractions", but our thoughts create our reality. hmmm. the upshot? what we think of as "reality" is just a facet of our imagination. nice. does this mean that the color you see in a photograph says much more about your own mind than, say, mine? is it up to your own imagination to decide if it's "real"?

stretching, part 3

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 00:30:00 +0000

this stretching moment brought to you by the wonderful italians...so, we're headed to italy, and of course, i'm excited. i get to take pictures in italy, the home of my ancestors, as well as my favorite food! but i'm also a bit nervous. heck, i don't know how to shoot in the city! think about it. the vast majority of my images include neither people nor cars nor buildings - that's a lot of time energy and effort focused on avoiding those kinds of things...yikes. to make matters a bit worse, i'm pretty much a classic introvert. the idea of walking up to people to take their picture or wandering around town with a big DSLR and a 70-200 around my neck, is not my idea of being "discreet". so i figured this would be a real test of my ability to stay in the moment and trust that images would reveal themselves. to make matters more interesting, since i was going to be out of my comfort zone anyway, i decided to bring along a new camera (normally NOT the thing to do). i purchased the new panasonic gf-1 with the 20 mm 1.7 pancake lens, and that was all i brought. risky business. in the end, it solved my "discreet" problem, enabled me to have a camera always ready, and forced me to look at the world differently for 2 whole weeks. a real vacation. i'm pretty happy with the results, which i've just posted over on my site, here. nice stretch.

Fotoritim e-photo magazine

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:57:00 +0000

ever hear of it? for most of us in the US, maybe not so much. it's produced in Turkey. i was approached late last year to contribute, and after checking out the site and the quality of the photographers, i jumped at the chance. i highly recommend a visit. only some of the artists' text is translated into english, but needless to say, the photos speak for themselves. for those of you making it all the way to the end of the feature, note that the image of yours truly was made by my son, giancarlo. he did a fabulous job working with a very narrow depth of field and a finicky subject, no?

warm days, cool nights in Telluride

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 21:35:00 +0000

looks like i'll be assisting one of the most talented and fun photogs i know, Bill Ellzey, during his workshop this fall at the Telluride Photo Festival, September 20-26. i first met bill in Pagatonia, where i learned a ton, had a blast, and came home with more than a few "keepers". not sayin' that listening to him talk Lightroom or or giving tips on how to setup your camera like working pros do wasn't helpful, but watching him work the subject was a real marvel...i can't wait to see him on his home turf. hope to see you there - i'll be the one chasing him up some hill with his coffee...if you're interested in learning more, don't hesitate to ping me!

crack of dune surprise

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:37:00 +0000

got home the other night from garapata beach and asilomar, where i had been shooting the surf from the week of storms we've had, to see an email reminder that the Black and White Spider Awards ceremony was going live online in a couple of hours. i had entered way back in may, and had forgotten all about it. i had just assumed that it was over sometime last year, and since i hadn't been notified of anything, well, you know how it is, life goes on...i was curious, of course, but went back to watching the game. later, i checked the winners, and didn't see my name anywhere. started looking at the various nominee lists, and saw one of my images! and then another. pretty sweet, even though i didn't get the big awards. given that i'm not what you would call an active player in the "art world", i was nonetheless pretty impressed with the judges, so i entered. "crack of dune" (above) made the list, as did "high drama two" from my "unsui" collection. nice surprise. took the edge off my team losing. The images are posted in the winners gallery here. (abstract: professional and nature: professional)

Dalwhinnie sunset

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:22:00 +0000

i was sitting on the porch of a friend's new home the other evening with a glass of scotch and my iphone. a few swirls, the setting sun, and more than a few snaps yielded a number of fun images. i got to thinking about the honesty they reflect - filtering is what the brain does best, isn't it? we put all sorts of filters in front of our lives in an attempt to make our reality, what, more comfortable? more to our liking? on top of all that, we also put filters on our photography - to manipulate the supposed "reality" that we are capturing. most of us can't tell when a photo has been subtly filtered by technology, can we? yup, i think i like the honesty of the scotch filter on reality...hmmm, maybe i should try a different kind and see how that compares. could be fun, no?

focus, or lack thereof...

noreply@blogger.com (john alfano) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:30:00 +0000

i started the summer with the intention of finishing two smallish projects - a folio from Joshua Tree and an update to my "Berkshire Zen" portfolio. as you can easily see, i'm not quite there yet. somehow i got caught up in the swirl that is life, and the next thing i knew, it was October. granted, the LensWork and B&W "events" used up a few cycles, as did replacing my Mac, which, after 4 years, decided to give me a few hints of its impending departure, and finally, after a few weeks of occasional panics for both of us, it died in its sleep. research and purchase of a new monitor also cost me a couple of weeks, but now, i'm all calibrated and ready to go! I'm getting ready to head up to Yosemite for a few days, but when i get back, i'll get right back to finishing those projects, i promise...