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This has been one of the roughest emotional weeks ever — especially (but not exclusively!) for women. The righteous anger meter has moved so high it is off the scale.
We need some self care in order to be effective in countering the wrongs that are being committed against our democracy and people. It is helpful to remember that the world is much bigger than small people.
Please use this diary to offer your own suggestions for self care.
For myself, today I find myself thinking of the profound and numinously peaceful feeling I felt when I wandered into an exhibit at the Sackler Gallery in Washington, DC (my favorite Smithsonian museum): Kenro Izu: Sacred Sites along the Silk Road. It took my breath away, it was so stunning.
How often is it that a photography exhibition just transports you? Kenro Izu’s photographs of Angor Wat were especially enrapturing for me. They were huge, 14” x 20” for the singles but there were some consisting of three prints joined together to make a sort of panorama. They were contact prints — yes, you read that right. Kenro Izu had a special camera made to his specifications and then he packed it in to some very, very remote places to get these special images:
Izu's photographs are taken using a custom-made 14-by-20-inch large format camera. His film is special ordered from Kodak and his photographs are contact printed on paper to which he has himself applied the emulsion. This resulting product is a matte image that is literally seeped into the fibers of the paper. "To capture the spirituality I feel in stone remains and the density of atmosphere that embraces them, I can think of no other medium than platinum prints made by contact printing with large format negatives," he says.
Where possible traveling by jeep, Izu uses horses, donkeys and yaks to reach the remote mountainous sacred sites he photographs. Each trip lasts approximately one month, during which time he takes only 80 exposures, often waiting hours for the spiritual essence of the site to become apparent.
Here is the man explaining his process and the camera he uses.
The following video contains images of flowers and rather classic nudes as well as portraits and landscapes. How Kenro Izu manages to make the curves human body remind you of the flowers is real art.
These are very spiritual images, indeed. But they have brought more than beauty into the world. Kenro Izu, having spent time in Cambodia, founded a charity to benefit the children there, Friends Without a Border. Funds raised from the sale of his photos and books raised the money to get this started. The charity has now expanded to Laos, as well.
When I think of things like this, it brings perspective. I look at the images and Kenro Izu’s good works and think how things can be better. I hope they have brought you a little peace this evening.
There are lots more beautiful images to be found on Kenro Izu's own website.
The weekend begins now. Please come in, be comfortable, and share your day, your plans for the weekend, your menus. This is an open thread.