Zen of Photography

06/24/2015

Announcing a WEEKEND PHOTO RETREAT!
When
Friday, Sept. 25-27, 2015
Description
THE ZEN OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Sept. 25-27, 2015
Expand your skills. Expand your mind. Enjoy your creativity!

This workshop will be a blissful marriage between the study of photographic techniques and the art of mindful freedom. We’ll photograph everything from nature to people to food to props to… whatever we feel led to photograph!

During this 2-night/3-day retreat, we’ll have the semi-structured freedom to explore and learn from each other in a co-creative environment. Some of the many subjects and activities offered:
• Practice creative photographic techniques, with step-by-step demonstrations
• Explore various shooting environments and subjects
• Explore the limitless qualities of light
• Practice “light painting” (day AND night)
• Get to know our cameras and equipment better
• Share and critique each other’s work

And over those 3 days, we’ll infuse aspects of mindful expansion into our explorations, taking wisdom from Chuang-Tzu, Zen, Tao, Native American and other teachings.

Props, costumes, basic lighting, colored gels and other “tools of the trade” will be supplied by the instructors.
This workshop is for the professional photographer, serious amateur, photographic artist, or uncategorizable creative soul.
LOCATION: The beautiful Ranch House at Harbin’s Oneness Institute (15 minute drive from Harbin).
Workshop Fee: $350.00. Includes 24/7 Harbin Hot Springs access, Ranch House pool, 6 delicious all-organic meals, twin beds with bedding or indoor/outdoor camping.

INSTRUCTORS:
Shane Powers, MFA
David Agasi, MFA

Visit our website for more information and to register:
www.zenofphotography.org

Join us for 3 days and 2 nights in the spectacular Oneness Institute at Harbin Hot Springs. Explore your creativity and learn new techniques with expertly guided demonstrations, practice and critique.

04/19/2015

"The world is full of miracles within miracles. And the best miracle is that we get to participate in them all!"
- Harbin minister Ann Prehn:

With a busy, early spring having sprung around us, the miracles of nature have been teaching me so much about... well, everything!

Usually, the best lessons I've found in life have come from nature - from Mother Earth. Over the past few years of wandering around Harbin and the Oneness Institute, I've learned so much about the simplicity amongst all the complexity. Nature challenges my concept of what is living and what is dying. She teaches me about balance. She reminds me to go slowly, and to have patience. She teaches me about perspective every time I lie on the ground and discover an entire otherworld of plants, insects and interactions beyond my comprehension.

One grandmother oak in the middle of the Oneness Institute valley I visit often, marveling at the thousands of ants traveling across her body, endlessly. She towers over large branches scattered around her base, some that were shed years, probably decades ago. One of those branches is smooth, quite large and rests like a banana on its back, its two ends reaching toward the sky. A still-living branch hangs down from the tree and barely touches one end of that grounded branch. Once while sitting on that downed limb, I watched an ant climb up the limb from the ground, make its way to the very highest tip, where another ant had worked its way across that entire world-tree and to the end of the branch hanging down. A gentle breeze moved that living branch so that its tip rested against the tip of the downed branch, where, for just a second, those ants stopped and met each other, communicated in a language I'd like to think humans once knew, and then resumed their journeys and traded worlds - one from below to above, the other from above to below.

We are flowing along a probably endless journey, and this "world" we inhabit is probably just a tree, in a valley, on a continent, on a planet, in a universe within another we haven't even discovered yet. Let's all keep moving and keep learning - just when we think we've reached the end, another miracle awaits.

Namaste,
Shane Powers Photography

02/25/2015

The worlds beneath the Oneness Institute of Harbin Hot Springs

02/20/2015

One of the Mindfulness lessons we'll explore in the workshop will include Chuang-Tzu's "Paradoxes of Differences", and other exercises that will expand our awareness of the world and leave little, if anything, to exclude from our creative process.

02/02/2015

Leaped into the Boundless: Check
Make it your home: Under construction

01/31/2015

Don't hold any part of yourself back from your experience of life, or from your creativity. How can you separate yourself from yourself?

You can't, any more than you can separate yourself from the air you breathe or the water you drink. They both reach into every last part of you. Where they can't, those parts wither.

When you hold yourself back from your full creative experience of life, part of you withers -- and part of the universe withers as well.

Breathe! Drink! And don't just sip, GULP IT DOWN!

01/18/2015

This Morning's Photography Lesson on Mindfulness: NON-ATTACHMENT
* A report on an amazing encounter just a stone's throw from the Zen of Photography workshop location. You'll note I don't have a photo posted with this story. Read on...

I took the dogs on our morning walk, and as usual, debated whether or not to take my camera and lenses. I decided to leave them behind, and felt that familiar pang of "what if" -- what if I saw something amazing? Not necessarily something like Elvis and Sasquatch tossing a football back and forth next to a UFO, but anything from a tiny dew-covered spider web on the ground to some close encounter with wildlife -- the usual mind-blowing stuff.

We hadn't gotten far from the house when I saw one of our resident Northern Harriers (formerly the Marsh Hawk -- I've named ours "Marsha") gliding low over the sea of dead star thistle in her usual morning strafing run for mice and/or gophers. I always love seeing her, and of course I felt a tiny pang of regret for not having my camera handy with a telephoto lens at the ready, but I let it pass and instead, greeted her with a wave and a "Hey, beautiful!", letting goosebumps wash over me at the sight of her. She glided out of sight, and I kept walking. A couple of minutes later, I heard her shrieking nearby, and she was coming back around toward a small grove of giant oak trees about 50 yards away. I then saw ANOTHER Harrier, and felt another surge of pleasure -- with yet another tiny jab of regret for not having my camera. They both landed in an oak tree near each other and called to one another repeatedly.

As if that wasn't amazing enough, I was stunned when a BALD EAGLE flew directly before me, heading toward Marsha and her companion, coming from Putah Creek, where I had photographed one (the same one, probably) almost a year ago. I simply dropped to my knees in the green grass and gray star thistle as the eagle flew around the Harriers in a wide arc, causing them to shriek even louder and drop to lower branches in the tree. I wondered if there would be some kind of battle, but the eagle simply arced back around toward Putah Creek and less than a minute later, landed in the top of a very tall tree.

I laughed with joy, clapped and whistled, and thanked them all for the show.

THE LESSON:
As photographers, most (if not all) of us constantly battle with the urge to capture EVERYTHING -- especially things like what I witnessed this morning. Or at least always be READY to capture whatever comes our way. Had I possessed my camera, I may have been fumbling to get my 500mm lens on the damn thing and missed the EXPERIENCE of the show entirely. And by missing the full experience with my body, heart and mind, I miss a gift from mother earth, something that was given to me alone in that moment.

At least once in a while, we need to allow ourselves to simply WITNESS and EXPERIENCE life with our SELF, and not worry so much about sharing it visually. No matter how good the photograph, no one will REALLY experience what we witnessed like we did while we were there.

Yes, sometimes there are "once-in-a-lifetime" photos that we have to give up -- Lord knows I've missed a few. But don't EVER let the photographer's regret of missing that photo outweigh the thrill of the full experience as a WITNESS. You are FIRST a child of God. Don't trade his gifts for regret!