There is really nothing connecting these two photographs.
There is no logical reason for posting them together.


The green image came to my attention before it was green.  A few days ago I came across it in a folder while looking for something else. Immediately becoming distracted from my quest,  I put it into software to heighten some color area,  only to accidentally turn it green. I liked what it did to the original image, which I was drawn to basically for it's composition.

I found the second image tonight, shot last year in NYC, while looking for something to pair with a poem. This one didn't work out for that, but it held my attention, wondering what is the story it seems to be implying?

Perhaps tomorrow I'll find the perfect photographic companion for my poem, or maybe write a poem to go with this photo, instead.

Overall, I think the 2 photos probably do connect, if only in context of the disjointed drifting my consciousness awareness is experiencing lately.  Days are not externally structured very much, which being currently unemployed largely creates.....my mind wanders down side streets and dashes off-road when let off leash for periods of time, before being reeled by mantras back into the inner silence.




Photographs © Ellen Giamportone All rights reserved.

India - Hampi Power Journey part 2

This is the next batch of images, created in the attempt to reflect visually, the visceral and internal experiences of being in Hampi, India.

                     
                                Photographs © Ellen Giamportone All rights reserved.

India - Hampi Power Journey part 1

Much time has past and many transformative experiences have happened  since my last post...(of cats, no less!)

I've been back home from a 4-1/2 month stay in Shiva Sai Mandir ashram located in Penukonda, which is in the southern part of India, a few hours drive from Bangalore.

Photos that will be posted here will not be from the ashram, but areas outside, where I traveled.

Hampi is an ancient village, a five hour bump-fest away on a small bus for us, 13 students of Sri Kaleshwar, on a 6 day trip.

This first series was shot from the bus, the first morning bouncing along barely formed roads from the hotel to the Tungabahara River area, where we hiked in off road to greet the rising sun, and meditate on boulders that dotted the river banks and hillsides.

Photographs © Ellen Giamportone All rights reserved.

CAT x 3

By reason of not having any other freelance jobs going on the first two weeks of this month, I accepted a request from a friend to house sit for 3 cats when they went on a trip. 

So here I am, one week in, having decided to see it all as being on a retreat, albeit it's only about three miles from my own home.  Change of scenery, change of habits....sort of.

Anyway, one thing's still consistent; I'm shooting images of what shows up while going about my life. Cat x 3.

(When my daughter was young we had a huge white cat named Oh Daddy for many years. Since then, the only "pet"  I have had is the large brass whippit-like dog that stands gazing out of the front window. Good dog. No muss, no fuss.....an occasional dusting is all. My kind of animal.)

I discovered how beautiful the light is in the living room,  just after the too-early-for-me morning feeding.

Here then are portraits of Snickers, Max and Paws.

                                             Snickers
 

                                                Max

                                           Paws


Photographs © Ellen Giamportone All rights reserved.

Concealment - Someonetohold

 For about 5 or so years much of my"serious" photography dealt with night time, with the theme of "Lifting the Veil of Night." The exploration of darkness and concealment began to include other tenets of concealment including a series called Trapped Spirits. 

Those images started from photographing found dolls, figurines and the like in antique and second hand stores. For the last year or so they've been laying dormant rolled up in the closet inked onto large Kinko paper and as pixels in a hard drive.  Lately I've returned to working on the Trapped Spirits, to which this image above seems to have no connection.

My good friend/artist/ex-husband encouraged me to return to them, to dive deeper into the idea of  their "concealment" which is what drew me to them in the first place, but only documenting them as they appeared.

Over the last few weeks, late at night, I bring them out and we play the game of seeking what they are hiding/concealing.  So, why am I talking about Trapped Spirits and showing a photograph that seems to have nothing to do with that?

Well, what I've been noticing since exploring how concealment operates,  is that it's has taken on farther reaching aspects than I originally noticed. 

The photograph above was shot in LA when the movie sheet on the kiosk was just out. I only recently came across it again while looking for something else. (which is usually the case considering my less than organized filing system...)

Anyway, tonight  I removed the title,  leaving only the tag line...."how do you hold on to someone you've never met?"  Putting those those words in various combinations and visual placements, juxtaposed with the partially hidden figure, created a completely new concept.

The image came into it's own form where the theme of concealment revealed a new aspect of  how it manifests. ..a new step for intuitively bringing to light that which is hidden,  sometimes operating on many subtle levels.







Photographs © Ellen Giamportone All rights reserved.

Full Moon Again

It's been many months since posting, and it's hard to fill in the blanks, figuratively as well as literally, as to where the time has gone....actually time passed, leaving impressions, memories as well as morphing into experiences that have grown my soul.

Going back to India in February to study and train in energy healing with Sri Kaleshwar taught from ancient teachings scribed on palm leaf manuscripts over a thousand years ago, made distinct indelible growth and changes.

 I was planning to post some photos done during that time there, but as yet, haven't finished editing.

And time moved forward quickly, and has deposited me in this blog box with newer images from just last week: the full moon was Tuesday evening, May 17.  I conducted my first "official" Full Moon Fire Puja, and later in the night, actually about 2:30am,  made a few photos of the moon, which hung behind clouds that were performing a wonderful fast moving dance.

Photographs © Ellen Giamportone All rights reserved.

Melting in the Cold

In 1935, photographer Alfred Stieglitz did a series of photographs of clouds of which New York Times art critic Andy Grundberg said:

The Equivalents "remain photography's most radical demonstration of faith in the existence of a reality behind and beyond that offered by the world of appearances. They are intended to function evocatively, like music, and they express a desire to leave behind the physical world, a desire symbolized by the virtual absence of horizon and scale clues within the frame. Emotion resides solely in form, they assert, not in the specifics of time and place."

This winter of cold has me wrapped up in many layers of clothing, bundled up in body, causing my mind to melt, it seems, by virtue of forced hibernation. Ritually, I climb into my wonderful bed at night and snuggle deeply under the down comforter. Last week, I was reading Just Kids, by Patti Smith. Glancing up from the page completely absorbed in the energy of her recounting her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, my eyes were drawn into the folds and undulations surrounding me; my mind soft and quiet. The inspiration of Patti's words about their passion and process of making art propelled me out of bed, into the cold of the room and into my studio to get a camera. With winter chill in my bones, the spread of the white cotton cloth covered down became like an abstract tundra to explore. In the midst of looking through the lens, the edges of common reality melted, leaving me with the thought that Stieglitz might have felt as I did while he photographed his clouds.

Equivalent #1

Equivalent #2

Equivalent #3

Equivalent #4

Equivalent #5

Equivalent #6

Equivalent #7

Photographs © Ellen Giamportone All rights reserved.