We humans like to build walls.  Walls to keep something out.  Walls to keep something in.  Walls to separate the known from the unknown.  Walls of all sizes shapes and materials.  We humans are wall builders.  Some of the walls we construct are purely mental.  We put that wall up in order to block off something that displeases us.  There is something to this wall building that I haven’t quite figured out yet.

However, it doesn’t take much to cause those walls to come tumbling down.  Whether it is the faith of the Israelites as they blew their shofars as they marched around the walled city of Jericho or the walls that have been constructed in our subconscious.  It takes only a few cracks in the wall to begin the process of bringing it crashing to the ground.  It might not happen quickly, it might take eons to deconstruct what we humans have constructed.  But given enough time, and any wall will crack crumble and fall to the earth.

It can start with a lowly weed atop a wall in Ichikawa, Japan.

Even though it is winter here in Tokyo, the autumn leaves are still coming. It seems that they arrived so late that the gingko leaves are carpeting the ground in their warm yellow hues.  The leaves are splattering over the land and bringing some much needed color to the often dreary grays of the urban life.

It is rather simple, isn’t it?

Leaves change and in do time they fall from their branches and drift down to the earth.  They will blow this way or that way for a while before some one comes along and sweeps them all into a plastic garbage bag.  But I have chosen to see them in their glory.  As they stick closely to the ground.  They cover, changes, and become part of my urban landscape, intermingled with those yellow hues that only the gingko tree can bring.

The lack of sleep is catching up with me.  The wandering back to the station seemed like a dream.  I was jut floating on snow the road, being pulled this way of that way by something that caught my eye.  I am not sure the path I took, but i do know that it was the right path for today because I came upon this tree that was shedding violet tears.

Those patches of colors fell from a small street side shrine in Ichikawa.  Violet teardrops on the cold cement side of the road.  There they were just lining up to catch my dream state that I was in.  I just lost myself in the violet bokeh softness as I wandered back to the station.

Shedding those violet tears again.  For a autumn that was too short?  For a winter that will be too long?  I do not know, but there are these purple drops to comfort me in my waking dream.

I came across another publication of mine that had been put aside until I unearthed it while doing my end of the year cleaning.  This one is from Japan Scope Magazine and was published in March 2008 Vol. 17.  It was a feature issue that focused on a glimpse of Japan through foreign eyes and lots of fresh photographs to go with it.  I don’t think the magazine is still being published.  It is kind of nice to find something that I had forgotten about for so long.

Enjoy my view on the Guns & Peace society of Japan.

In Japan there is a tradition of pre New Years house cleaning, so I was going through my closets today and tossing out a year worth of collected nonsense when I came across this newspaper from May 1, 2008.  It was an photograph I had taken of the super fresh Hip Hop beat making duo of Hifana.  I had met Hifana a few weeks when doing a photo shoot and an interview for the French Blackpool Magazine prior to their dope set at the Apple Store in Shibuya.  Hifana rocked a super set, and I snapped up a bunch of pictures of Juicy and Keizo Machine.  A few weeks later Yuya, their manager, sent me the newspaper which my photograph had been published in.

Hifana puts together a great show.  They have toured the world and provide live beats across the globe.  Check them out.

check Hifana mixing it up live

an Okinawian flavored track

I was so excited that I was going to be able to view the full lunar eclipse in Japan.  No the best of my knowledge I had never seen one before, and I was determined to stay awake and alert.  I pretty much knew going into this life time experience that my camera gear was not going to be up to the task of getting those beautiful, clear, images of the moon.  I decided anyway to go ahead and try to see what I can see with both my naked eye and my lens.

I got out my Canon 5D with a sweet 100mm lens and a crappy 300mm zoom lens and my Ricoh GRIV.  I didn’t really expect to get much with these cameras.  It was crazy cold out and I set up my tripod on my patio and took a couple of test sots around 8 p.m. Tokyo time, about 90 minutes for the beginning of the lunar eclipse and about 3 hours from the peak of the red hued moon.  The tests did not come out so well, but I forged ahead.

I jumped in and out onto my patio on and off for the next 4 hours or so.  Looking up into the heavens was beautiful.  I was able to bear witness to an event for the first time in my life.  I will never forget looking up into the skies that cleared up around 11 p.m. and watch the shadow fall across the moon.  The stars and other heavenly bodies are reminders of another ancient way of keeping time.  The moon is not to be worshiped but it is there as an heavenly guide to the times and the seasons.  I thought back to our ancestors that looked to the heavens in accordance to set their calendars and planting, and reaping of their crops.  I became part of this long line of sky watchers.

I hit the sack at about 1 a.m.  Got up the next morning with circles on my mind so I made my wife and I pancakes for breakfast. I started to go through and edit the images from the night before and so many were just blah!  I kept flipping through them until I found that best expressed both my experience and the pushing of my equipment to match that vision.

These three images are a result of that.  I had to use what I have to the best of my ability.  I am sure there were some brilliant images taken last night.  These are not those images.  These images are the best that I could do. The memories of spending the night out on my patio with my wife in the cold winter air will last a life time.

The morning was the coldest that it has been thus far.  And to top it off I was running behind due to the cold and the persistent rain.  I do enjoy the journey out to Chiba in the morning before I make my preparations for the shabbat, but nothing seemed to go right this morning.  I got out of bed late, and had to hurriedly eat my cereal and banana. Then, I made it outside to realize that I had forgotten my iPod on its charger in the house.  I look to my right to see the Number 24 bus, my bus, coming, so I had to kick up my heals to be able to catch the bus on time.  Usually I catch the 7:25 direct train to Tsudanuma station, but I caught the 7:27 one to Tsudanuma.  It doesn’t seem like much, right?  We are only talking about a 2 minute time difference, but it was enough for me to miss the 7:57 bus, and I had to wait 15 minutes in the cold for the next one.

I am not really complaining, because that I know in a few short hours I will be able to put aside all my worldly worries and focus on the shabbat.  When I had finished up my business in Chiba, and the sun had finally come out to greet the sabbath bride.  It was the creator smiling down, showing me the way that things are suppose to be, and where I need to focus my energies.  I need not to fret and worry over such trifle matters as missing my bus.  I need to remember to be thankful and look for that sunshine.

Today was one of those days that I just didn’t want to get out of bed.  It was 6:30 in the morning and the skies were so overcast that it seemed like it was still night.  Not only was it rather gloomy outside, but it was pretty nippy for my south Floridian blood.  I struggled to get out of bed, and made my way to the kitchen to fix up a bowl of granola.  When I was sick I couldn’t eat any milk so I have been craving cereal over steaming oatmeal the last week or so.  I ate quickly as I caught the morning’s international news.  Waited at the bus stop which was more crowded than the day before.   I guess the people were preparing for the rainy weather that was going to come later in the day.

Even though I was wearing a big fluffy fleece hat, I put my headphones on and pushed play on Sekajipo and the Jungle’s first album Revolution of the Mind-State.  I thought that I needed a bit of a boost on this gray Thursday morning.  Sekajipo definitely delivered the goods and helped to elevate my spirits.

I was walking along the path with the song Revolutionary Love coming though my Sennheiser PX 200 headphones.  The vibrations were coming through so clear even though they had to pass though my fleece hat.  That is when I spotted a tiny heart on the side of the road.  A heart that had been placed there by some one.  It was an amazing synchronous moment.  I’ve got Sekajipo in my mind, singing about Revolutionary Love, and then I spy a heart.  I would have said that it was a lost heart.  One of the many lost and found items that I have taken over the years.  But today I saw this heart in completely new way.

This was not a lost heart.  It was a found heart.  It was part of the Revolutionary Love I have been searching for.  There it was.  The love had manifested itself in front of my lens.  Just another reason to be thankful.  I have found a bit of Revolutionary Love that I am sharing with all of you.

The autumn colors have been super late arriving this year in and around where I live.  I has very happy to have found that the Japanese Maple trees around are finally displaying their explosive colors.  These five-pointed leaves are alive rich hues that bound from the deep wine burgundies to multicolored mix and matched colors of yellows and reds.  The hues awaken my senses and I am always amazed at how vibrant these colors can be.

I found these all at a little temple complex on top of a small hill in Ichikawa, Chiba, Japan.  There were all amazing hues that teased my Ricoh GR IV out of my pocket and into my hand.  I searched out those hues that pulled me like a magnet towards them.   I wasn’t the only one wandering around this small complex looking at the autumn leaves.  There were several groups of mainly older Japanese looking at the trees.

Just another reason to be thankful.  I am thankful to the Creator for splashing my cold gray day with the explosions of color from the Mimoji trees.

I am not a big fan of winter time here in Japan.  In fact, I would be the happiest if the temperature here would be springish all year round.  I like wearing coats, and scarfs, and preparing myself for the cold weather.  That being said, in general I prefer mild temperatures that accompany spring and early autumn.

The best gift that we receive in the winter time is the abundance of the mikan fruit.  Sometimes they are referred to as satsuma oranges or mandarin oranges.  They are a close varietal to tangerines, yet their flavors are not quite the same.  They tend to be a bit more squared on the tops and bottoms, and their skin is rather loose and easy to peel once you get one of your fingers popped into the air gap between the skin and the flesh.

The one in the photography came from a friend of my wife’s family from the rural part of Chiba prefecture.  They are much larger than the mikans that I can usually find in the store.  They are less perfect.  They are bumpy.  They have green spots across their dimpled skin.  Because of their imperfections, they are more prefect to me.  These are probably what the first variety of mikans were like before they were farmed on a massive scale.

Enjoy this mikan in its natural state.  The best part about winter in Japan.  The simple fruit in its own packaging.

We still seem to be in the yo-yo throws of the weather.  Cold, wet, and rainy is followed by cool and sunny.  I really don’t mind so much because it allows me to still enjoy the cool clean air without having to be all bundled up.  Not only being reminded of the complete changeability of the the weather, at 5:59 a.m. on Saturday morning a 5.2 earthquake shook us awake.  It wasn’t that powerful of a quake, but its epicenter was not far from where we lay our heads to rest.  As a friend mentioned this morning that with all the shaking it must be like living in a war zone, when you never know when the enemy is going to strike.

I try my hardest to put all of these things into perspective and not let them to disrupt my mediations and focus.  They are more reminders of the delicate nature of life that we have been granted here on the earth.  We need to make the most of it and devote our energies to what really matters.  Reaching out our hands to help others in needs.  Using our time to explore ourselves and the world that we all inhabit.  Looking for those vibrations that speak to our souls.

Sometimes the language being spoken to us is confusing and needs to be translated.  In my case it is my camera that helps me to interpret the world around me.  The lens acts as a mechanism to filter the world, and allows me to see the positivity in the world.  Those positive vibrations might be hidden in plain view, but with my mediation and focus I am blessed to be able to see that beauty.  Those concrete steps, which for some are just concrete steps, take on new meaning to me.  They are an integral part of my worldview.  The plants and life that inhabit the tiny spaces, sometime being taken care of with tenderness, and others being left to the elements to thrive on their own.

These are the images an objects that merge in my lens and allow me to approach the world.  I am open to change.  I look forward to seeing the world through a unique perspective.  These are the gardens of life that are sowed in the streets of my soul.

This is the third addition of the Lucid Thoughts section of the Lucid Communication website.  Today I am going to introduce the photographer who we all affectionately call Brancolina.  I have known Brancolina for about 4 years and she has been kind enough to share my images on her website, that I am thrilled to return the favor and spread her wonderful square images with the Lucid Communication viewers.

Brancolina is an amazing photographer based in Europe and is strongly influenced by the architecture that she comes across in the city.  Her images always show the trace elements of humans beings.  Meaning, that she is most interested in how humans construct their world around them.  This idea is very similar to mine.  In fact, I like to show the work that humans have created, especially when it comes to their private dwelling spaces.  Brancolina’s interest in showing the spaces in often more public settings.

One thing that I really love about Brancolina is that she fully supports the artists that she enjoys.  She curates exhibitions on her Red Square Gallery site, which, she was kind enough to include a selection from Lucid Communication on Geometric Wabi Sabi.  In the Flickr world Brancolina strives hard to write thoughtful provoking comments.  It is always a blessing to receive a comment from Brancolina, because I know the time and energy that it takes to truly absorb an image to be able to write something thoughtful.

She has just released a new book entitled Urban Stories available on blurb.  It is a collection of images that show the city in its beautiful and sometimes changing cities.  In the Brancolina’s lens the geometry comes alive.  The square framings of the city include such lovely details, and allow the viewer to meditate on what the urban environment first of all means to Brancolina, and more importantly how the view then related to her images.  I strongly recommend that you take the time to explore this book.

Urban Stories available on blurb.

I wanted to know a bit more about Brancolina; therefore, I decided to interview her to find out more about how she creates the images that she does, and why building a community of photographers is important for her.

JS – Where is your home?

B – I live in Antwerp, Belgium.

JS – What is it about geometry that attracts you?
B – I am educated as an architect, it is the essential part of my profession to invetigate forms and proportions in the process of designing architectural space. I love geometry and its principles, so I tend to express this affinity in all my creative projects.

JS – Your images (and mine) rarely feature humans, why is that?
B – From the aspect of urban photographer I am more interested in how humans are creating the city’s architecture and adding personal marks to urban environment than in people’s direct presence on the scene. With my photography I often explore architectural structures as boundaries that delineate and define the urban space, on desolate places significant fragments and proportions of urban elements that compose the scenery are better visually emphasized.

(author’s note:  I find this idea intriguing.  It isn’t necessary to show humans in a photograph to be able to show how they have a presence in images without them being there.  I am fascinated by her exploration of the edges of public and private space.  How do humans interact in these spaces without having to be shown.)

JS – Who are your influences?
B – When I joined Flickr in 2008 I met some photographers who inspired me to take a different approach to photography, getting to know the Rhizome group from Fernando Prats and Jef Safi, and Azurebumble’s Cream of fugu and contributing to Y SIN EMBARGO magazine’s issues especially encouraged my photographic activity.

In the last two years I was influenced by photography lessons that I took at Antwerp’s Academy of Fine Arts, but this year I decided to take a pause and independently continue with my photographic activity by following my own ideas and concepts.

(author’s note:  Learning and studying how to do photography is an important step for any photographer to take, but eventually the artist needs to be able to create a pathway to artistic expression that is uniquely theirs.  I am proud to see Brancolina starting to forge her own way.)

JS – What do you want viewers to know about your photography?
B – My main motivation to be busy with photography is the artistic need to express myself with images. I like to create photographic visions that intrigue and excite the observer with more than just the prettiness. I think an artistic photo should act like a visual catalyst for emotive, aesthetic or intellectual impressions that affect mind of the spectator.

JS – You give support and exposure to other artists. Why is that important to you?
B – I’m doing that as a sign of respect for some of my favorite photographers who expose on Flickr and because I enjoy curating. In Shadé group the chosen members were curating thematic exhibitions by selecting photos from the group’s pool, and then those photos were awarded by other members of the group with a goal to publish the best voted works in the annual photo book (edition 2009 and edition 2010). After 2 years of administrating the group and realization of photo books I decided to close it and try a different project.

Since March 2011 I have been administrating the Red Square Gallery, where I am organizing exhibitions of architectural and urban photography. Curated selections of 6-8 images accompanied with the artist’s short interview are presented about 3 times a month on the gallery’s blog, which is channeled via a ‘sister’ gallery on Flickr. I could have probably organized those exhibitions in the galleries on Flickr, but I decided to transfer them to the Wordpres platform, because I like how photos look there, and I hope that WordPress exposure could benefit artists to get extra exposure outside the Flickr domain. It is my goal to create an online directory of photographers by introducing a selection of their works with an interview that reflects their artistic point of view.

JS – What is your internet presence? Web sites, links etc?
B – For the time being I am mainly exposing on Flickr, my blog and Tumblr, my photo-books are available via Blurb publishers.. The website is currently under construction.

My photos have been published in the following internet locations:
Hypo – X – Series, A digital curation by Alan Wilson
Y SIN EMBARGO #16, Du-champ-issue
Y SIN EMBARGO #17, Mess-up mess-age issue
Y SIN EMBARGO #18, Inside-out issue
Y SIN EMBARGO #19, super#F issue
Y SIN EMBARGO #20, Extimacy issue
Y SIN EMBARGO #21, Ink or link issue
Y SIN EMBARGO #22, cap-it-all/off issue
Y SIN EMBARGO #24, In-betwen the net issue
Y SIN EMBARGO #25, Just a memory issue
Y SIN EMBARGO #26, Uroborus issue
Y SIN EMBARGO #28, you/END/me issue
Y SIN EMBARGO # 29, end/s issue
U.K’s The Building Mag
Photographer #8 photos + interview
on Azurebumble’s blog Aesthetic investigations: Brancolina: photography pr. 1, Brancolina: photography pt 2, Breaking the darkness, Blue room and Symmetrical spaces.
DOZE#5, Visionär issue
cameraobscura online photography magazine

JS – If there is anything else you would like to say?
B -Thank you very much for inviting me to introduce myself on the Lucid communications. Greetings to all who will be reading this.

I too would like to thank Brancolina for taking the time to answer my questions and help us to be able to better explore her photography.  She has been an inspiration to me in a way to approach internet communication as a collaborative effort.  I will always be thankful for the lucid communication that we have been able to create together.

Photography is my passion, I love everything about it.  I am happy to share my explorations with a beautiful human being and photographer Brancolina.

I will present a small curation of her images below.  I invite you all to explore her Flickr to see her world through her lens.

the images in this blog posting are copyrighted by Brancolina.

Just a taste of Brancolina’s world.  The geometric shapes that inhabit and live on in the cities.  The lines squares, circles all dance and sing in her photographic squares.  Again, thanks again Brancolina for giving us the beauty that you see in the world.

The calendar now tells me it is winter.  Only two days ago the temperature peaked at 20 degrees celsius, however, the Creator must have looked at the calendar too because the temperature dipped down to 4 degrees celsius last night.  I am up and out of my house the earliest on Friday, which is a good thing.  It is like the sooner I can get my day over with, the sooner I can sit back and be thankful for the allotted time of the Sabbath.

I have to journey out to the boonies of Chiba prefecture, which entails using a train and a local bus.  On rainy days, like today, the bus is always jammed pack.  Today it was especially packed with junior high school students.  They are certainly a noisy bunch.  I got on the bus a bit late, but luckily I could find a seat.  Usually, I am in the back of the bus, today I was in the front sitting in the section that is reserved for elderly, moms, injured and the like.  After I took my seat an elderly man and woman also got on the bus.  I got up, tapped the elderly woman on the shoulder, and offered up my seat.  She, being the polite Japanese woman didn’t want to accept the seat, saying that she was going to get off the bus soon.  Eventually after some back and forth pleading, she took the seat.  I was amazed, but not surprised that none of the kids offered up their seats to the the elderly gentleman.  They all absorbed themselves with studying, or staring into their cellphones.  Quite a lack of respect for their elders.  It was me, the gaijin (foreigner) that set the example, that was ignored by the youth.

After taking care of what I needed to do for the day in Chiba I always take a leisurely walk back to the station to unwind, and to begin my mediations on the Sabbath.  It is the time to change those gears that grind away in my mind, and let them start to ease into a mode where I am able to give thanks, and recoup my mind, body and spirit.  The wind was whipping around my scarf as I wandered down the backstreets.  My eyes taking it all in.  I am on the lookout for that next perfect square to shoot.  I am amazed at how many flowers are still in bloom.  I am not sure if it is because of the late warm weather, or it is just that I never really pains close attention to the changing seasons and the changes in the blossoms that it brings.

Since returning to Japan post the March 11th earthquake disasters, I have been much more in tune with the seasons.  I notice how the blossoms hit their peak one week, then the next begin to whiter away, or change into green fruit.  I am thoroughly enjoying watching the seasons change.  I am fascinated in catching those changes with my camera.  The images are a visual diary of the intersection of my world with the the natural world.

As I continued on I came across an elderly man and woman.  The man had fallen down on the slippery slope and the woman, from what I could gather, was trying to help him.  The mans hand had gotten beaten up and was bleeding.  The woman to had blood on her hand from trying to help the gentleman.  I took the man by the arm and helped get him to his feet.  I rummaged though by bag and found a pack of tissues I had been handed at the station sometime before.  The man just kind of stumbled off. He pretty much refused our help.  The last thing the woman said to me was he probably was drunk.

I am thankful for these vignettes in disguise as life’s lessons.  They are the 24 frames per second that make up our lives.  I am thankful to pause and ponder my place in it all.  If I had taken another way back to the station, I would have missed the man that had fallen, yet I was pulled in that direction.

We should all take the time to respect our elders.  They have been here before us.  They have stories etched into the lines on their faces.  It is just one more piece of the life puzzle that I am thankful for.

May you all enjoy a beautiful day of rest.  Enjoy the time given to regenerate the spirit.