Infinite Waters(Suiten Mugen)

My home in the mountains is ten kilometers inland yet I can "hear" the sea. The clouds flowing across the sky direct my thoughts toward the coast. Eyeing the light, I hop in the always-loaded van, and head for one of my favorite points.

Down at the beach watching the flow of the waves, the rhythmic movements stir up images. How many times have I been here? How familiar, yet how new and fresh it is. How to capture the feeling of the moment, the light of the season, the breath of the wind. Thoughts go through my mind as I "prepare" to make pinhole photos of the sea.

I say go through the mind but it is partly unconscious. It is a feeling or intuition, combined with memories of inner landscapes. The desire to share the experience with others encourages me to get out the camera.

And why the pinhole camera instead of another device? I don't really see this world in fractions of a second as modern cameras do. Taking in a scene with all the senses, with the heart and mind, for 15 seconds, a minute, or an hour is for me a contemplation of life itself. When I view the ocean in all its vastness, it is recorded in my memory.

On the edge of a rice paddy, deep in the woods by a forest stream, in front of a sparkling waterfall, looking up with an uncluttered view of the sky, these all provoke the same response.

As a tool, the pinhole camera helps me to express what I feel in those intimate moments in nature. The eye is the aperture; the image is imprinted on my light sensitive inner being. "Satori" enlightenment may come in an instant, but it is the culmination of something accrued over time.

The pinhole camera becomes the witness to my ongoing journey. Together the camera and I observe, preserve, and take the scene home with us.

Edward Levinson (2001)