Henri Cartier-Bresson taught that great photographs come about in that fraction of a second when the head, heart, and eye find prefect alignment in the axis of the spirit. Over the years, I have traveled great distances, climbed many mountains, searching for that perfect alignment. More recently, I found many subjects waiting on my third floor for me to discover them.
From the west facing deck, I photographed clouds (The Beauty of Clouds, 2015). I performed a variation of Newton’s 1672 prism experiments by placing crystal wine glasses and bowls in the stream of light from my beveled window (samples on the left; Spectral Splendor, 2017). Over the past two winters sitting in front of my fireplace, I captured the dance of the flames and the glowing embers. This March (2021), I photographed the rainbow hues on my oak floor (right page) and in April shifted my attention to the fleeting colored patterns on the walls.
Each image highlights the uniqueness of a moment.
This April, by serendipity, I found Maria Yudina’s 1953 recording of Profokiev’s Visions Fugitives. In August, 1917, in response to Prokofiev playing these twenty piano miniatures, Konstantin Balmont, a Russian poet, immediately wrote a sonnet which he titled Mimolyotnosti —“things flying past”. Outside of Russia, the title became Visions Fugitives. Balmont wrote about rainbow hues, clouds, and fire—precisely what I had been photographing.
Looking at these images, I understood that they were part of a larger family and have included other family members in this collection.
Come dream with Balmont and wonder if Prokofiev had the opportunity to see these images what music he would have written.