My black and white camera has begun to do the work I hoped it would do, it is helping me to see things I did not see before. I believe I came to consciousness late in life, I was blind, loveless and terrified for so long. The great thing about cracking up – I don’t recommend it, is that if you survive it – you can put some of the pieces together again.

I did find love, I began to see the world and most of my fear was left behind in the smoldering ashes of my other life. My love opened me to the world, my blog kept my sanity and my writing alive, my photography led me to see the world in a completely different way.

Even a few years ago, the idea of taking a camera into the deep woods and looking for – or even seeing the great beauty there – would have been unthinkable. It would never have occurred to me. Now, when I walk in the woods, I see astonishingly beautiful things every time, trees with character, beautiful sculptures, markings and shapes.

It helps to walk in the woods with my wife, a pagan and good witch, she talks to trees all the time, taps them, hugs them, listens to them. I can thing of some people who would not wish to walk in the woods with me in that context. We open one another up to new experience.

I have been eyeing this beautiful sculpture for awhile, and I have the camera for it, the monochrome and my 35 mm lens seizes on the foreground and shades the background. The sculpture stands out and gets the attention it deserves.

Maria can never guess what it is I am taking a picture of, we see different things. I thought this was a work of art, I could see it clearly in a museum.