The Contemplative Eye

Actually, it’s a red kuri winter squash, cut in half, baked and fresh out of the oven, poked with a fork, and shot under a lightbulb with an iPhone by a photographer using one hand while juggling the hot pan … Continue reading →

I like pictures I’m not sure I like. I just finished reading Geoff Dyer’s wonderful The Ongoing Moment, an improvisatory muse suggesting there are interrelated contents and meanings in a long string of famous photos. It struck me that many … Continue reading →

About a year ago, my friend Dave the photographer told me to stop shooting Maine waterfronts because I was repeating myself. He was right. But every once in a while, I sneak back anyway and try a new tack—if only … Continue reading →

“The secret of beginning a life of deep awareness and sensitivity lies in our willingness to pay attention. “Our growth as conscious, awake human beings is marked not so much by grand gestures and visible renunciations as by extending loving … Continue reading →

Sometimes a photo shows something that has the effect of being contemplative even when the person who snapped it probably had no notion of being a contemplative photographer. I found the photo you see here online; it shows Newfoundland in … Continue reading →

I had a true shock—really like seeing a ghost—at Starbuck’s the other day. While the clerk was getting my coffee, I noticed there was a wheat penny in the tips jar. Wheat pennies are U.S. Lincoln-head cents minted from 1909 … Continue reading →

Mary and I went to New Bedford, Mass., not long ago to visit her sister, brother-in-law and niece and to participate in the city’s “open studios” weekend holiday art sale. The trip eventuated in an excursion to a nearby liquor … Continue reading →

When I was a little boy, I lived behind the building you see here, just off Main Street in the seacoast town of Branford, Connecticut. It wasn’t called “Panache” in those days, needless to say. It was a branch office … Continue reading →

Round and round she goes. When I was a little boy, I went to Tony’s Barber Shop in Branford, Connecticut, and sat on a wooden board across the barber’s chair so I’d be tall enough for Tony to do the … Continue reading →

One of my fabulous nieces got married in a double ceremony last July—a Christian (I guess, sort of) ceremony in Chicago and, two weeks later, a decidedly Hindu ceremony in New Jersey. Just so we’re clear: She married the same … Continue reading →

The brilliant beach you see here is in the sizzling tropical splendor of—well—Chicago. It’s true. I was there last July with Mary for a niece’s wedding, and it was ding-dong hot. Two weeks later, the groom’s Indian parents hosted a … Continue reading →

For some time now, Mary and I’ve been planning a two-week excursion for January 2008 to Mexico’s San Miguel de Allende. San Miguel is a well-known art colony, a city of 60,000 (including 12,000 foreign residents, most of them American … Continue reading →