No Mind of the Tao and the Tao of No Mind

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Nashville ColoR9 Slide Show

Nashville

The Hand that Rocks

Fall Creek Falls, Tennessee State Park

Nashville SLIDE SHOW

Paul Kossoff

Vintage Family Photos SLIDE SHOW

My first photos, San Francisco 2003 Polaroid SLIDE SHOW

1939 Family Photos: Americana SLIDE SHOW

Nashville 5:30 am

An American Bar

Visions

ShOt FrOm AbOvE

woman trapped in two worlds

Colored Junky

SLIDE SHOW

Benny the Jazz says Goodbye

The Basic Teaching of Reincarnation

This is INCREDIBLE! perfect in every way. I saw this image as a thumbnail yesterday and it blew me away then, and I decided to wait to say something to you about it because I didn't have the words then.. I still don't have the words now either (because it's 5:30am on on a Sunday and it is both late and early).. This image seems to encompass everything about your work for me, including the use of the perfect text - as image and text finally fuse beautifully. Text that could be from the Dhama, an MRI or the lid of a washing machine! Extraordinary too, seen in the context of the rest of your work! Yes, everything about this image.. The shadow thin on concrete wall and leaning, both outside and somehow subterraean inside too, the quality, the colour, the Everything! EVERYTHING!! This is another image of yours I'd love on my wall... I am going back to bed now and I hope you read it before I wake up as I will proberly delete these words, thinking they expose me too much (as this seems to be my relationship with word these days: Post, detete, post delete...)

-- Simon Kossoff

R9

Black and White Pics

Universal Daughter

Exhibit

Hotel Jazz Series

In Solitary Confinement

For More Camera Phone Photos
NEW! Camera Phone
Confessions of a Camera Phone
bad food but plenty of it
Shooting From the Hipster
Ravages of a Camera Phone
Camera Phone Photos
Observations
Flickr Gallery Photostream
pbase Gallery Early Works

Hospital Photos

The yin and yang of positive and negative space

1+1+1=4

Draw a triangle with three equal sides and number them as #1 #2 and #3.

The space INSIDE the triangle number it as #4. (1+1+1=4)

The positive space is yang, the negative space in yin. The triangle itself exists as the positive space; it is the "subject", let's say. Now, inside the triangle, and all around OUTside the triangle, that's yin, or negatve space.

It is an accepted datum that the focus (or subject) or an image is given by, or distinguished by, or set apart by, the negative space in the image. In other words, to see the cat in the window, it is set apart by all the rest of the space. The yin of the photo is everything else that is not the cat, which is yang.

For More Holga
Holga Photostream
pbase Holga Gallery

Black and White Photos

Portrait of Nico

The Bath Tub

High Priestess of Occult Mysteries

May 6, 2005

To the Priestess of love’s Agony and Torture, accept my gratitude: Thy curses are more merciful than Thy blessings!

I worship the nauseating mist floating above the fog. In my grave, you gave me moist erotic dreams and in my ascension, you were my escort throughout the night in the hour of death’s delirium! And you did not forsake me. I worship Thee and rejoice with the blind dog sleeping at Thy feet!

To the Priestess of love’s Suffering and Persecution, accept my thankfulness: Thy curses are more generous than Thy blessings!

I worship the toilet seat and the black robe you made me wear to hide myself from your eyes. I covered myself with immodesty and false humility so you could crucify my guiltiness. You were my companion throughout the night in the hour of death’s delirium! You did not desert me. I worship Thee and rejoice with the blind dog, vomiting at Thy feet!

To the Priestess of love’s Pain and Anguish, accept my award: Thy curses are more forgiving than Thy blessings!

I worship the towel and blanket, the bed and window; the floor and ceiling spin around me! When I finally crawled out of my distress, like a diseased worm that burrowed itself in my sickly soul, you protected me throughout the night in the hour of death’s delirium! And you did not abandon me. I worship Thee and rejoice in the blind dog’s sickness sacrificed at Thy feet!

To the Priestess of love’s Tenderness and Torment, accept my admiration: Thy curses are more lenient than Thy blessings!

I worship your pizza, cheese, coffee and beer. Your ice water, dripping from the tap of the ghetto, burned my throat and scalded my mouth and tongue with blisters and sores; it didn’t matter. Still, even with my handicap and disabilities, I waited for you to come to me and carry me into the Clear White Light of death’s delirium. From dust to dust and bone to bone you sat up with me until forgiveness passed over my bed like the plague. And you never left me desolate and barren; you did not sterilize me. I worship Thee and rejoice in the blind dog’s fever burning at Thy feet!

To the Priestess of love’s Grief and Sorrow, accept my esteem: Thy curses are more compassionate than Thy blessings!

I worship the unholy ground of Thy graveyard and crypt. O, may your phone, your door and your lock and keys rapture me from these intolerable restraints! O, tear me away and rip me apart from the chains of my body and soul, those manacles of my Mind that tie my wrists to a beam and bind me to the nauseating mist floating above the fog. You did not get rid of me or throw me to the pack of wild dogs scratching at my bedroom door: death’s everlasting delirium. Nor did you punish me for being infertile, artificial and lazy, nor did you repeal the pardon you gave me for swearing an oath to worship Thee and rejoice always with the blind dog dying at Thy feet!

Rhio9

More Photos and Poetry
Rachel Profiling
Occult Symbolism

The last Days at Hotel Pain

For More New Works
New Directions

Art Noir Galleries

Boots

Vesuvio's

R9

Cafe

Rhio9 Photos San Francisco

Hospital Series

MORE Hospital Series

Photography as a Carnival

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Joelton Carnival
Nashville Carnival

Tosca

How I Escaped from a San Francisco Hospital

Am I Turning Into the Lenny Bruce of Bad Medical Humor?

Holga 120N b&w

Larger Holga Images

The hardest photos for me to take....

Photos

Photos

Photos

Collections

Streets

Collection

Photo te Ching (based on Lao Tsu's Tao te Ching)

The End of Absurdity

I asked the guy what he wanted with his photos?

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Portraits

Mirror Work

Bed Legs

Portraits

Coffee House Confessions

The Scam

NEW! Hospital Series of Photos!

New Photos From San Francisco Feb. 2009

San Franciso

Family Tradition

Lucy

Photo looking thru a kitchen window.

Pirates in San Francisco Bay

Oceans and Boats

Smoke

Jazz People

"The Nearness of You"

The Girl. The Painter. The Dragon.

Side Mirror

NEW! American Homeless

Suggested Reading and Photo Essay Brother Can You Spare A Dime?

NEW! Camera Phone Photos

For More Camera Phone Photos
Confessions of a Camera Phone
bad food but plenty of it
In Solitary Confinement
Shooting From the Hipster
Ravages of a Camera Phone
Camera Phone Photos
Observations
Flickr Gallery Photostream
pbase Gallery Early Works

Confessions of a Camera Phone

For More Camera Phone Photos
NEW! Camera Phone Photos
bad food but plenty of it
In Solitary Confinement
Shooting From the Hipster
Ravages of a Camera Phone
Camera Phone Photos
Observations
Flickr Gallery Photostream
pbase Gallery Early Works

Randomity

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City Themes
San Francisco
Nashville Collection

Self-Portraits

For More Self-Portraits
Rhio9 Self-Portraits
The Photographer

New Photo Art

This is a series of original photos of distorted and manipulated paper worked into a facsimile of pen-and-ink drawings or representations thereof. My JPG gallery site had several photos I did using a technique I discovered for myself using manipulated and distorted paper to get the images I wanted.

What I wanted to communicate or express or cause to occur in the mind of the viewer was a kind of disconnect, a kind of loneliness, a kind of despair, a kind of human contradiction leveraging itself against beauty and ugliness in a world where the future clashes with an empty and meaningless now.

I took these photos, first using a technique I made up using manipulation and distortion of paper by relying on random chance, chaos, accidental lighting and general spontaneity and alcohol. I may not be, and probably I am not, the first one to do this, so I'm taking no claim to being "the first" at anything.....but it was The First with me, and that's what matters! After I lived with these images for a time, there was more I could do in exploring the dynamics and energy of self-love and self-destruction, not as opposites but as competitors.

I wanted these photos to express the bare minimum, minimalism in its most minimal dimension. I wanted my photography to transcend itself, to go beyond what I could see or think I could see. I wanted to take all the color, all the noise, all the background and especially the meaning and significance it all has, or what I think it has and reduce it (or expand it?) to its most minimal human emotion, whatever that may be. Every photo I take is obese with MEANING and I'm sick of it. I want something else, something that doesn't compel a meaning and something that stimulates my imagination to create a new meaning or no meaning at all! (More to come as I add more photos.)

For More Art Galleries
Art Noir Galleries
New Directions

bad food but plenty of it

For More Camera Phone Photos
Confessions of a Camera Phone
In Solitary Confinement
Shooting From the Hipster
Ravages of a Camera Phone
Camera Phone Photos
Observations
Flickr Gallery Photostream
pbase Gallery Early Works
NEW! Camera Phone Photos

Partially Nude Woman in a Tub of Milk

More Photos
Art Noir Galleries
New Directions

The Sagittarius

Beauty on the Beach

For More Images
Beauty On the Beach

Photos of people on the street

One of the most exciting and exhilarating aspects of photography is to take pictures of people walking on a street. These are a few of the photos I've taken, recently re-discovered on some backup disks, never-before seen, of people walking on streets in San Francisco. At the time, I only had a Nikon film camera. Before that, I only had a polaroid. Now I've got to find THOSE photos.

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San Francisco Galleries
People on a Bus

Photos of People on a bus

7 November 2008
I used to stand around bus stops in San Francisco, or sit at sidewalk cafes drinking coffee or a brandy or Jack Daniels, and with my camera and some patience I'd wait for buses to stop to pick people up. Then I'd snap a shot. These are some of those photos.

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People On A Bus (and BART)

Little Marrowbone Creek, Tennessee

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Little Marrowbone Creek
Landscapes and Rural Images

The Identity of a Photograph

Axiom 1

An "identity" is all theoretical; nobody has actually seen one.

Axiom 2

An "identity" is presumed to be something that can be had, or possessed, or assumed, or changed, or stolen.

Axiom 3

(Part One) An "identity" can only be defined and described; it is never experienced or distinguished. (Part Two) An "identity" is a utility only; it is never creative.

Axiom 4

An "identity" cannot be understood, but it can be annoying and frustrating. Efforts to understand Identity Theory results in the capture and prosecution of Minds.

Axiom 5

Functionalism is the exact opposite of an "identity", with the exception that it, too, has never actually been seen.

Axiom 6

Functionalism is a statement of futility (i.e., failure) provoked by the survival of an identity.

Axiom 7

The impracticality of Leibniz's Law is a form of resistance to both "identity" and "functionalism", rendering the two theories dysfunctional. This phenomenon is an occult practice known commonly as the "persistence of resistance" and is better left alone.

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Rural Backroads

The American Homeless

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Homeless Gallery

Masks

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Art Noir Galleries