in any language
word enough for pleasure that
fills you as sun warms

Adapted from The Sun by Mary Oliver …

Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone–
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance–
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love–
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed–
or have you too
turned from this world–

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?

where clouds are going
discover dreams never knew
sky above is blue

Adapted from the song, Flora by Enya.

Lovers in the long grass
Look above them
Only they can see
Where the clouds are going

Only to discover
Dust and sunlight
Ever make the sky so blue
Afternoon is hazy
River flowing

All around the sounds
Moving closer to them
Telling them the story
Told by Flora

Dreams they never knew
Silver willows
Tears from Persia
Those who come

From a far-off island
Winter Chanterelle lies
Under cover
Glory of the sun in blue

Some they know as passion
Some as freedom
Some they know as love
And the way it leaves them

Summer snowflake
For a season
When the sky above is blue
When the sky above is blue

Lying in the long grass
Close beside her
Giving her the name
Of the one the moon loves

This will be the day she
Will remember
When she knew his heart was
Loving in the long grass

Close beside her
Whispering of love
And the way it leaves them
Lying in the long grass

In the sunlight
They believe it’s true love
And from all around them
Flora’s secret

Telling them of love
And the way it breathes, and
Looking up from eyes of
Amarantine

They can see the sky is blue
Knowing that their love is true
Dreams they never knew
And the sky above is blue

that imaginative
quality is expected from
any form of art

For me, a photograph begins as the visualization of the image which represents the excitement and the perception of that moment and situation.

The print represents excitement, perception, and expression (performance).

Meaning is found in the final print and only in terms of the print itself.

For me, this meaning may vary a little over time and circumstance.

For the viewer, the meaning of the print is his meaning.

If I try to impose mine by intruding descriptive titles, I insult the viewer, the print, and myself.

From The Autobiography of Ansel Adams by Ansel Adams, Little, Brown and Company, New York, 1985.

As I understand it, from the writings of Ansel Adams, Mr. Adams could visualize the print he could make from a photograph of something in front of him.

The process was to capture the scene on a negative and then create the image in his mind through the print.

And once Mr. Adams got into the darkroom, he began to paint with light or so says one of his assistants.

He said something along the line of that the negative was the score and the print was the music.

While I miss my darkroom days, I am not sure I miss it so much CT with what can be done today … and I would enjoy seeing what Mr. Adams could do with his images.

It is still the person who begins the visualization of an image in much the same way you might say it is the cook, not the kitchen.

When Artificial Intelligence can begin as the visualization of the image which represents the excitement and the perception of that moment and situation, call me

climbing carrying
carrying farther, higher
until string breaks and …

Air from another life and time and place,
Pale blue heavenly air is supporting
A white wing beating high against the breeze,

And yes, it is a kite! As when one afternoon
All of us there trooped out
Among the briar hedges and stripped thorn,

I take my stand again, halt opposite
Anahorish Hill to scan the blue,
Back in that field to launch our long-tailed comet.

And now it hovers, tugs, veers, dives askew,
Lifts itself, goes with the wind until
It rises to loud cheers from us below.

Rises, and my hand is like a spindle
Unspooling, the kite a thin-stemmed flower
Climbing and carrying, carrying farther, higher

The longing in the breast and planted feet
And gazing face and heart of the kite flier
Until string breaks and — separate, elate—

The kite takes off, itself alone, a windfall.

A Kite for Aibhin by Seamus Heaney as it appears in Human Chain by Seamus Heaney (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010).