NATURE’S CALL: A RETURN TO SILENCE

PHOTOGRAPHS BY PETER AZRAK

Jedediah Hawkins Inn, Jamesport, New York

May 24 – June 29, 2014

http://www.jedediahhawkinsinn.com

For the past number of weeks I have been preparing for a solo exhibition of my photography.  It is located on the North Fork of Long Island in New York State.  Among the farmland and vineyards, Jedediah Hawkins is a lovely inn.  On the property lies a “barn” with extensive exhibition space for artists to display their work. I feel fortunate to have been given this opportunity to hang my images in such an open space.

Below is the piece I wrote for the exhibition.  It reflects the sense of how Silence has been calling me through the beauty of Nature.  It seems to me Nature carries with it an abstract quality  That is, almost any selection, any slice of Nature offers a sense of harmony––a peaceful place in which the eye rests.

When I discovered the beauty of Nature, which was rather late in life, it was the stark identity of the desert of New Mexico which brought me to my knees. Overwhelmed by the brightness of the sky juxtaposed against the cacti, I was able to appreciate the beauty within the otherness of this rather different kind of Nature.  Accustomed to the hills of the Northeast and the green of the grasses, this Nature said to me: “Stop.  Be still. Take in.”  No longer the romance of soft lines, it was the sharp contrast of a boulder, the soft brush, even the dry bedrock against the blue of the sky, waking a sense of awe within me.  But this awakening, if you will, was to a “place” I had not know before.  In the past Nature appeared pretty and somehow in the background as I drove the winding roads of upstate New York.  Now Nature was calling me to a certain attitude in which I was asked to step into a barren arena and “be with it” in a new way.  More participant, than observer. 

And it was this participation that fostered a conscious wake-up call to my need for Silence, a call, ever present today as it was twenty-five years ago.  When I discovered photography as a serious interest in the desert of New Mexico, it paralleled my pursuit of being an active listener as a psychotherapist in private practice. A rather anxious person, sitting and being with people challenged my restlessness. It was photography’s journey into Nature which somehow quieted me down enough to see how Silence offered an opportunity to change my focus from achievement to just being.

My many walks through the desert opened my eyes to how images are not so much captured but are given by Nature.  Although plenty of times, I hiked without camera in hand, it gave me a chance in the quiet to know a presence which up to then had been a complete mystery to me. It was/is this presence which instilled in me a mind-set open to discovery.  My lens opened up; the quiet brought me a new way to see and photograph images from a place within.  Allowing this presence to sink into my being, my work evolved as I was able to sit-with the Silence, the roar of desert life, the swish of a mountain stream, the ocean breeze. Taking this to wherever we travelled I understood that photography was much more about expressing the change within me than the capturing of any one scene. 

This exhibit represents a cross-section of recent images taken over the past five years and some of the older images which have become favorites of mine.  Recently I have given more attention to the wide open space of landscape hoping to bring to light the beauty of the horizon, along with the intimacy of that one moment—the Spirit alive in this moment.                            

http://www.photographsbypeterazrak.com