The kitchen sink is such familiar sight in the lives of most people and so ordinary and prosaic that it seldom attracts our photographic interest. It is an unlikely source of esthetically pleasing images, and commonly overlooked by a majority of photographers. In line with the philosophy of this site, and the desire to find magic in the ordinary, this small selection of shots taken of a few dishes and silverware in soapy dishwater is offered. Please note the detailed reflections repeated again and again in the intricate multitude of bubbles. I hope you find them as pleasing as I did.

The shoreline is a magical place of many moods, its shape and surface in constant flux, a creation of sand and waves, high and low tides, and the daily winds that smooth and caress the entire beach. It is a wonderful location for pictures, where the lower angles of the sun bring to life the diverse formations that often last no more than a day. I hope you enjoy this selection of shots I took over the last couple of years on a beach in the Florida panhandle.

Here are some additional photos we took on a return visit to the same rail yards a couple of months later. These old relics offer a seemingly endless source of pictures.

Since our time together is limited, Chris and I took advantage of good light the next afternoon when we discovered a group of boxcars that appeared to have been unused for a long time. Their rusted and fading surfaces offered a wide variety of textures and colors that made composition highly enjoyable. At the same time the setting was itself a great study in the effects of time, with the overgrown and aging tracks serving as additional subjects for photos. We hope you enjoy them.

Chris and I did this series recently when we explored various ways to photographically express the unique characteristics of a few shells that had been collected over several years of intermittent beachcombing. In some, their original color and shape is evident, while others reflect years of exposure to the elements of wind and sand. We both used macro lenses to take the pictures included in this series.

The subjects of this series are leaves gathered a week or so after they had fallen last November. Positioned against a window with bright daylight behind them, each leaf reflects an intricate complexity that is commonly missed when they lay scattered in piles on the ground. They offer yet another example of the magic that can be discovered in the commonplace trappings of our lives. In the alchemy of a macro lens and good light the brittle relics from the summer seemed transformed into gold. I hope you enjoy them.

On a sunny day in early March, I visited Memphis and spent an afternoon taking some photos with my dad. We walked several miles around downtown Memphis, and I have uploaded some of my favorite shots to our account. Interestingly, I usually shoot with a Canon Digital SLR, which does a fantastic job. However, I left my dSLR at home and ended up using my Canon Powershot A540 point and shoot. I gotta say, it does a pretty fine job considering it is a sub-$200 camera.

Hope you enjoy the images as much as I did shooting with my dad. The rest are in my photoset, which you can click to at the top right of the screen.

In any urban environment, it is easy to find office, restaurant or store windows with remarkably dense reflections combined with whatever is seen through the glass. Their surfaces contain images that originate from many different locations. Some are right on the other side of the glass, others visible in the back of the store, or through rear windows and doors in the building. On top of these, outside reflections from both close and distant sources are superimposed. Seen simultaneously on the two dimensional surface of the glass, a fascinating collage of realities, with great richness, subtlety, and ambiguity is often found. From such randomly ordered patchworks of form and color, we are accustomed to finding meaning. This could be thought of as a metaphor suggesting the process that, in actuality, takes place everyday in the ceaseless bombardment of sensual and mental stimulation to which we have, for better or worse, adapted. Based on our individual conditioning and life experience, we find meaning and navigate through the “reality” our minds create. This echoes ancient teachings that say we each carry our own unique world within.

These are shots taken from a fifth balcony of a swimming pool below. I was using a Canon S3 with a 12x zoom, so I could pull in close enough to isolate patterns in the water that were interesting. For me, these simply illustrate the importance of perspective, and are just another example of something we have seen a thousand times looking remarkably different. We have repeatedly found that by taking something out of its customary context, we can often appreciate a freshness of vision and glimpse a reality missed in the past. I hope you enjoy them. By the way, if you haven’t read the artists’ statement (see link above) you might enjoy reading it. It explains in some depth the application of the principles of Zen to photography – the focus on the moment, the unselfconscious process, the magic of the ordinary and the quieting of the mind.

I am drawn to subjects that we are surrounded by but seldom notice. These are a couple of the latest things that have caught my attention. Few would think of toilet paper and cardboard as holding anything of value in the area of photography but I believe that in the pictures that I am posting now you will see that even such prosaic as these can be examined in new and interesting ways.