Architecture of Cities: Magic in the Cities

Hemingway’s descriptions are maps of lives and entreaties. Please see what my words convey, he begs.

My camera was born many years following. My eyes became aware of his eyes before I became…

Now I dream to make visual captures in and about his words.

The human condition maintains a superabundant collection of pleasures: I spar daily with each and every one. I am not fighting them off; I am enjoying the full spectrum of what I am privileged to see. The sparring is like dancing in the ring with Muhammad Ali. Each day I anticipate a moment to be down; Each day I rise to see more than the day before: I am dreaming with my eyes wide open.

Moments past seem so warped in a mind wrapped in digital celluloid. The simple life of a poem spreads its words across my visual memories. My entire life of captures had been immortalized centuries before:

A.E.Housman

“Blue Remembered Hills”

“Into my heart an air that kills

  From yon far country blows:

What are those blue remembered hills,

  What spires, what farms are those?

  That is the land of lost content,

  I see it shining plain,

The happy highways where I went

  And cannot come again.”

Every day I share the cities I have visited: I don’t share my map: Rest assured I am not a wandering Odysseus, conquering Alexander or Genghis: I share to bare witness to the worlds I have seen and not yet seen: Those worlds are the places where magic lives: From my front porch to real-time constellations: The nature of this photographer is not to explore the built environment of nations: It is to explore what magic may be captured in those nations:

My image of me stands alone in a Shenzhen reflection. My image of me is reflected alongside the East Rivers’ United Nations. My image about me is witnessed by thousands inside Grand Central Station. My image of me stands alongside a Zaha Hadid design: Her ghost in this glimpse is mine.

The magic in my captures rests somewhere between piano’s ebony sharps and flats: There is a silence between every key as there is between every multitude of shutter clicks:

Mozart played a key; Yo Yo Ma played a chord.  A billion musicians have played a chord followed by the languid lingering anticipation of a next note. It is what I feel every day: Every day there is a quiet snap that is not a photograph until…:the magic of captures is the silence between chords and keys. The gasping exhale between Houdini’s death and breath. The silence of magic appears only when there is something that wasn’t there becomes. Magic in moments of capture remind me of chasing shadows that have never been: Magic in its entirety is a lovelorn adherence to the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour. The dreams of living in magical times is a mere moment; My dreams may be my reality.

The nature of my light is often unseen. Gamma rays come to mind: So small; So potent. I stand alone. Chaos abounds in surround sound. The camera is calm. An entire second passes: “The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds” comes to mind. My reflection, is captured. Chaos and dreams live between musician’s keys; between magician’s miracles: silent magic captures my moment.