Panoramas

You can click on the images to see them in a larger scale

Quote of the day

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.   Joseph Campbell

A Wisdom wish for 2010

The Angel of Wisdom

Image and text both from the amazing "The Angel Oracle" by Ambika Wauters. This beautiful blessed card collection consists of 36 illustrated angel cards, one for each of the angels in the heavenly realm, it also comes with a 112 page illustrated book .. 

I love them all and recommend !

 

This is the Angel bearer of God's wisdom, which is carried throughout the universe to all those who seek to know The Word of God. This angel helps us find wisdom by opening ourselves to the depths of our experience and knowing what is true for us.

When we give ourselves the opportunity to reflect, synthesize and distil our personal experiences we find wisdom. With it we can progress along our path, enriching our understanding and deepening our spirituality. 

We are really only now beginning to see the wisdom in ancient teachings and re-apply it to our health and life-styles. Wisdom is an internal awareness which is projected on to the world around us so that we can live in peace and harmony.

The Angel of Wisdom brings us the gift of wisdom. It says in the Bible that wisdom is more valuable than gold. Certainly we need wisdom for our growth and spiritual development. Without wisdom we are at the mercy of the material world, and can easily lose our integrity and personal identity.

Wisdom is something all cultures have honoured and acknowledged. Ancient civilizations respected and revered those who through their experiences had come to understand the inner meaning of life and were able to make sense of loss, trauma and separation. This quality of wisdom is something we are bringing to re-evaluate in our modern world and, it is to be hoped, respect. We can seek the help of The Angel of Wisdom to guide us to the wisdom within ourselves . It is from this place that we can make healthy and wise choices for our well-being and happiness. 

We can offer our prayers to The Angel of Wisdom to show us how to make sense of the experiences of our life and how to find the meaning for ourselves. We can ask for wisdom for our healing and for the healing of our planet. It is surely through the gift of wisdom that we are able to find our bliss in life. 

The Angel of Wisdom is there to help us all find the wise and healing path.

Deus diligo righteous vir

tamen vobis quisnam veneratio meus nomen , sol solis of righteousness mos orior oriri ortus per curatio in suus pennae. quod vos mos progredior quod insulto amo calves privatus ex coma. tunc vos mos protero down scelestus quod iniustus they ero cinis cineris sub soles of vestri feet in dies ut EGO operor illa res says Senior Omnipotens.

But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall.  Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things," says the LORD Almighty.

Malachi 4: 2-3

Neptune, Pyramid and Flying foxes

These three photos were made at the Sydney Botanical Gardens, which is a beautiful and peaceful place with very few people around... and with a 22,000 flying fox colony.

Very interesting quote ...!

Jesus would have been one of the best photographers that ever existed. He was always looking at the beauty of people souls. In fact Jesus was constantly making pictures of God in people's life by looking at their souls and exposing them to his light. - Francis Bacon

Brotherhood

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

 Martin Luther King, Jr.

Quote of the day

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain. - Author Unknown -

Sydney harbour south headland

This is a special place my wife and I visit when we need some respite from the noise and business of city life. Its the southern tip of the headland that forms Sydney's harbour, it houses old military dig outs, bird filled National park and a peaceful walk from the harbour around to the ocean cliffs.

 

Hi !

I was early to photograph a wedding in the Rocks in Sydney where I  stopped to chat with this talented street vending cartoonist and before I knew it he had pen to paper and well ... this is me !!!

You too can download this to your screen saver .... :) !!

 

Dream guitar

This photo was taken in 1999 with an old Hasselblad I used to have. I was visiting the north of the Brazilian coast and one morning I was walking down the road and I saw this boy playing with an old guitar arm, singing and pretending he was a rock star .... Interesting fact is that only after I processed the film I noticed that the branches of the bush behind the boy formed the "body of the actual guitar" ....!!!! I didn't see that at the moment I photographed. Magic (I would say miracles) happen.... ;) 

I actually made a few photos of some other kids on that day and in 2003 I went back to the same place to visit again and hand the prints to the families... many of the parents got very emotional and happy when I gave the photos since they never expected....

Woman and horse

You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.  Mark Twain

Stargazers

I walked and got close to them, very close.

Because I wanted to see and feel...

Their energy embraced me like the sun enfolds the earth.

And I felt at home.

When I got back Anne asked me who they were and what they were doing there.

I said they are the stargazers;

Because they were just there, being, under the sun, the morning dew, the afternoon skies...

Contemplating...

Watching the trees, the birds,

the stars,

and ourselves.

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.

He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Even though I walk trough the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Sydney monday morning

Sunday morning

THE LOVE BUS

Shire afternoon

My friend Calvin

You are so beautiful my friend Calvin, Im sure we will meet again soon ..... Love you and miss you.

Cairns

The Archangel

The voice of the archangel falls,

(From the top of colored towers,

among arrows and stained windows, 

from the top of miranets, from the top of gothic steeples,

from the height of curved domes, from the fine golden crescent,

from the large baroque belfries,

from these cold jesuitical triangles,

from the arms of the crosses, 

from the clouds, from the tree,

from the jet of water,

from the doves wings,

from the little corolla of the frail anemone...)

The voice of the invisible Archangel falls.

Lonesome.

Solitary.

(Tell me if you have ever heard it, thus: far off, full of sorrow, centuries old.)

Cecilia Meirelles 

(one of the greatest Brasilian poets)

Washerwomans beach, NSW

Phil's hands

Adobe rhythm

Poem of the day

All That is Gold Does Not Glitter
All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king.  John Ronald Reuel Tolkien .

Somewhere in New Zealand ....

I took this photo in New Zealand's south island, I don't remember the name  of the place..... it was cold, there were nobody around and the place is amazing. The vignette and the overlaying effects are caused by double exposing the film on the camera.

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Tamarama Beach, Sydney

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All Saints Church, Sydney

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Hyde Park, Sydney

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Point Perpendicular, Jervis Bay NSW

Your sacred place is where you can find yourself again and again. -Joseph Campbell

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Quote of the day

Photography is a love affair with life. - Burk Uzzle

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MIMBRES ART

Mimbres Art. Called black and white is misleading. The paint is often earthtones on buff or gray. It was expressed on pottery and canyon walls (petroglyphs). The Mimbres culture lived in several hundred small villages in the isolated mountain valleys and hot deserts of southwestern  Arizona and southwestern New Mexico around 1000 AD to 1200 AD.

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El caballo y la flor

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A Poem

Photography

Author: Unknown

by James Metcalfe

A photograph is more than just
A gift to bring or send.
And more than just the likeness of
A relative or friend.

It is a kindly greeting and
A memory to hold.
Of happy times and pleasant things.
However new or old.

It is a mirror that reflects
Companionship and cheer.
And now and then the wistfulness
That turns into a tear.

A photograph is something to
Adorn a desk or wall.
Or carry in a pocket and
Display to one and all.

It is a faithful portrait
The smile that friendship shares
To add its sunshine and to show
That someone really cares.

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Quote of the day

When people ask what equipment I use - I tell them my eyes. - Anonymous

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Trust

Having the courage to take the steps we always wanted to take is the only way to show we trust in God.... from the book Brida by Paulo Coelho

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We are

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21 Grams

They say we all loose 21 grams at the exact

moment of our death.

Everyone.

21 grams.

The weight of a stack of 5 nickels,

the weight of a chocolate bar,

the weight of a hummingbird.

"from the movie 21 Grams by Alejandro González Iñárritu"

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Autumn wander

The Autumn Months Splendor

The Autumn Months Melody
The hot summer days are gone and rolled by
The cool autumn months have once again arrived
The autumn majestic spirit permeates the land
It is another new day of autumn 
The far sun above the horizon sends its rays and gentle warmth
on the valleys, mountains and hamlets
Nature has dressed in beautiful colors
The jolly trees are painted with red, yellow and brown
The autumn trees adorn the valleys and mountains that hug the skies
It is a portrait of panoramic dazzle
The brisk wind blows over the meadows
The cool wind sweeps the plains and fields
The tall trees dance and bow gently in grace
The tree branches hiss, swing and sway
The shivering leaves quiver with the wind 
The green pastures are dotted with a mosaic 
of dried brownish scattered leaves
Joining autumn happy symphony
The singing joyous birds, the playful beavers
The swimming silver fish in the water streams
All bring a solemn joy 
The sun slowly climbs the immense skies
The autumn patchy clouds cast their shadows on the peaceful land
All painting an awesome picture of beauty, love and harmony
How beautiful are the melodies and splendor of the autumn months! 

Sherif Monem 

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Collective consciousness study

A Poem by Mary Oliver

Some Questions You Might Ask

Is the soul solid, like iron?

Or is it tender and breakable, like

the wings of a moth in the beak of the owl?

Who has it, and who doesn't?

I keep looking around me.

The face of the moose is as sad 

as the face of Jesus.

The swan opens her white wings slowly.

in the fall, the black bear carries leaves into the darkness.

One question leads to another.

Does it have a shape? Like an iceberg?

Like the eye of the hummingbird?

Does it have one lung. like the snake and the scallop?

Why should I have it, and not the anteater 

who loves her children?

Why should I have it, and not the camel?

Come to think of it, what about the maple trees?

What about the blue iris?

What about all the little stones, sitting alone in the moonlight?

What about the roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves?

What about the grass?

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Newborn

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intuition

intuition |ˌint(y)oōˈi sh ən|
noun
the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning : we shall allow our intuition to guide us.
• a thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning : your insights and intuitions as a native speaker are positively sought.

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Guitarra

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First quote of the year

Inside movement there is one moment in which the elements are in balance. Photography must seize the importance of this moment and hold immobile the equilibrium of it.- Henri Cartier-Bresson

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flight

I recently went to a motocross show near Sydney. I was very impressed, these guys are nuts ......!!

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nuances

These images are from my book "Nuances", they are about the subtle transformations that occur minute to minute everywhere and go seemingly unnoticed.

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sonhos coloridos

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Quote of the day

The enemy of photography is the convention, the fixed rules of 'how to do'. The salvation of photography comes from the experiment. - Anonymous

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church sign

I love church boards and the way they use language, how a simple phrase can be spiritual, humorous and captivating.

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Quote of the day

The unconscious obsession that we photographers have is that wherever we go we want to find the theme that we carry inside ourselves. - Graciela Iturbide

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Cronulla, New South Wales

This is one of the many Cronulla swimming pools, being an ocean pool it is tidal and regularly has waves breaking into it... Australian city beaches practically all have these kind of nice structures.

Below is a favorite poem of my niece, she asks me "where is the colour in your photos .. ? "

Blue 
By Dr. Holly

Blueberries and swimming pools are blue; 
I’ve seen blue birds, and blue fish too. 
Blue is the ocean, blue is the sky, 
And some people have two bright blue eyes;

Dresses, shirts, and pants can be blue 
Houses, bicycles, balls, and shoes. 
Look all around you and then tell me 
Everything blue that you can see!

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Helena and the Swan ":)

Helena and the swan at Centennial Park, happy days !

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Fijian Fire Dancers

This was a beautiful presentation we had the fortune to see in Fiji during a wedding.

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Play

This photo is in Brazil, it was made with a plastic toy camera and 120mm colour film. The vignettes are part of the original negative, no photoshop. I call this photo play, because I believe that Love brings all the light we need to live. This following quote is from the Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho's book titled By The River Piedra I Sat and Wept (amazing book...!) " The moment we set off in search of love, it sets off in search of us. And saves us"

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Fiji Time .....

I just came back from Fantastic Fiji where I shot Jodi and Ben's wedding .... it is for sure one of the most special places I've been all my life, not only for its magnificent nature and weather but especially for the Fijian people, they are incredibly happy with an amazing energy. Most of my work was done with film so when I have them processed, I'll post more photos.

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Quote of the day

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly,; what is essential is invisible to the eye. - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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The Polaroid Portrait

This is a portrait taken with my Rollei + Polaroid back...sometimes I buy some Pola film to play around with... it produces images with such a nice texture

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JUMP

If you are considering visiting Brasil, I strongly recommend Fernando de Noronha Island in your itinerary. The place is a natural sanctuary. I took this photo using a 150mm lens on my old Hasselblad... and it gave this interesting "dimension" to the image. Thanks to my surf mate Rogerio for his courage to make the jump..!

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Itamambuca, Brasil

I've been scanning some of my negatives and I've been reminded of some of my old work which I really like.... this is my friend Daniel at Itamambuca (a paradise for surfers on the north coast of Sao Paulo, Brasil) ... this photo was taken with a plastic toy camera and Kodak 400VC film

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Some more Sydney bats ...

This photo was taken on a sunday afternoon in Sydney with my old Hasselblad

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Every day

When I first moved to Australia, I used to walk through this street in Sydney's CBD almost every day...one day, I took my camera.

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St Mary's

I'm doing some photos of Sydney at night .... this project will take some time to be completed but I think it will look interesting in the end ... Im using Kodak E100 vivid saturation slide film on this project.

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Bari's hands

This is Bari's hands fine-tuning a pottery piece .... I like the simplicity of this image... this photo was taken in 2002 in New Mexico.

My pot leans over, relaxed
stretching to reach the sun that pours through the window
defying gravity in search of a sunbeam
it's little pot soul stretching towards the divine
seeking Nirvanna or something close.

My pot lies down
Having reached its fullness
and comforted by thoughts of hands
dies quietly and waits to be reborn.

     pottery poetry at the Yellowknife Guild

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Warriors of Light

"The warrior of light calmly goes to his sacred place and puts on the cloak of faith. Faith parries all blows. Faith transforms poison into crystalline water."

"The warrior of light knows that intuition is God's alphabet and he continues listening to the wind and talking to the stars"

           From the book The Manual of the Warrior of Light.

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Quote of the day

My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph. - Richard Avedon

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Professor Okay

Professor Okay is the head of the largest children's cancer research hospital in South America, an incredibly intelligent man. The world needs more people like him....These photos were taken at his vacation house on an island in Brazil. Thank you professor for the opportunity to photograph you.

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BAM BAM

BAM-BAM boxing training... A very good man and friend, a very good heart. These shots were made in studio using a Pentax 6x7 .

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Vicce, o menino do mar (Vicce the boy from the ocean..)

Brazil in 2004, we stopped on the side of the road during a weekend surf trip to the coast of Sao Paulo ...this is my friend Vicce with his beautiful magic yellow gun ....we had a couple of amazing surfing days that weekend.. miss you my brother, I'll visit you soon and we will ride more waves together, and laugh..

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Some quotes

When the sitting is over, I feel kind of embarrassed about what we’ve shared. It’s so intense. Snapshots that have been taken of me working show something I was not aware of at all, that over and over again I’m holding my own body or my own hands exactly like the person I’m photographing. I never knew I did that, and obviously what I’m doing is trying to feel, actually physically feel, the way he or she feels at the moment I’m photographing them in order to deepen the sense of connection. - Richard Avedon -

There are three phases to awareness: to look, to see, and to perceive. A camera looks. A mind sees. A heart perceives. - Anonymous

If a subject has a delicate surface to it, you do not want to go charging in there. You need to establish some kind of presence and understanding. I will say, 'Try to forget I'm here. I won't ask you to pose, I won't ask you to do anything.' It's important that I just be allowed to be around, to be present. Photographing people requires a willingness to be rejected. So, I think the best approach is to be honest and direct. Very often, I tell them, "You don't know me. There's no reason why you should trust me...the only thing I can promise is that I'll try to do the most honest work I can. Ultimately, it comes down to somehow being able to instill confidence. I don't think you can bullshit your way into that, because a lot of these people can see through walls. If you want to photograph people, you'd better know something about them. [Allard often credits "Serendipity" for the success of his pictures.] I like to explore, to be sensitive to the rhythms of the moment. Exploration means seeking out what I think is there, and yet often finding something finer, something closer to the center, that no amount of research could have led me to. I tend to react more than direct. You have to be receptive [to your subject]. You have to care. You can't do good work if you don't care. That's not necessarily a strength, but it gives you strength. - William Albert Allard

The artists must see all things as if he were seeing them for the first time. All his life he must see as he did when he was a child. - Henri Matisse

If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough. - Robert Capa - before he got too close to mine that killed him, while covering Indochina.

To photograph is to hold one's breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It's at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy. - Henri Cartier-Bresson

Photography is nothing--it's life that interests me. - Henri Cartier-Bresson

It is light that reveals, light that obscures, light that communicates. It is light I "listen" to. The light late in the day has a distinct quality, as it fades toward the darkness of evening. After sunset there is a gentle leaving of the light, the air begins to still, and a quiet descends. I see magic in the quiet light of dusk. I feel quite, yet intense energy in the natural elements of our habitat. A sense of magic prevails. A sense of mystery. It is a time for contemplation, for listening - a time for making photographs. - John Sexton

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Opera House

The Opera House is such a magnificent architectural construction and it was the image I had of Sydney for many years before moving to Australia. I find it so difficult to photograph, there are  so many choices of angles and compositions... I've chosen this recent image to share, exposure was 1/8s, f8 using Tmax 100. 

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Sydney Harbour Bridge at dusk

I did this photo last week from the Opera House. Exposure was 30 seconds with f16 and film was Tmax 100 ISO. 

I must say that I love this bridge, its huge and impressive. One of my favorite places in Sydney.

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Bronte winter morning

Bronte swimming pool, 7 am.

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Box Head

Box Head from Brisbane Waters National Park, Central Coast NSW. This photo was made with Kodak E100 G slide film, my favourite positive film for landscapes... I don't remember the exposure but I had the camera handheld. 

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Abundance

I always thought the ocean as an immense source of power and life ... this photo makes me feel and "breath" that abundance of energy. 

This is a photo of the ocean out of focus .... and the white dots are the reflected sun light.

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