2020 Diving Deeper Into Photography

This past year I started engaging with photography with more intention, connecting with people and resources at Lillstreet Art Center, Latitude, Filter Photo and Shambhala Chicago - courses, critique groups and digital printers. Much of that has been documented in this blog.

My goal as been to develop a personal practice which includes photography and meditation, which connects mind and body, heart and soul, in ways that are emergent and holistic as well as analytic and reductionist. A personal practice that has daily activities, rituals that feed the hands and eyes, the mind and the body.

I want

• community of others similarly engaged
• teachings on photography and art making
• structure that encourages regularly creating and sharing work

A term that keeps coming up is mastery. Mastery of the technical aspects of photography, creating and displaying images (on-line, on the wall and in books), making a polishing them, even when that means leaving them rough. It's a commitment to time and process (the famous ten thousand hours to world-class performance, or this version of ten thousand experiments).

I am considering a range of projects, from personal ones to some addressing the needs of organizations. Some themes that come to mind:

• Queer/LGBT
• Buddha dharma
• Health/Equity/Wellness
• Health IT/Data
• Jewish Roots/Antisemitism/Judeophobia

Delight and surprise

Love of the doing

Courses to Start 2020

I'm taking a deeper dive, starting the year with a few simultaneous courses

• Levi Shand - Working the Frame: New Ways of Seeing (5 weeks, Monday evenings)
• Shterna Goldbloom - Looking Inwards: Self Portrait Photography (8 weeks, Saturday, mid-day)
• Shawn Rowe - Guided Projects in Photography (8 weeks, Wednesday evenings)

At the same time, I plan to complete the Shambhala Art sequence of five programs

• Rebekah Younger and Miriam Hall - Shambhala Art Part 5: Art in Everyday Life