Tao

Tao

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©2007 Andrew Ilachinski

My imaging philosophy is very simple. I strive to record the subtle, interconnected web of energy that makes up what we call the world. For me, beauty, which permeates everything around us, appears in its most sublime state when form, color, pattern and texture are all in harmony.

In the same way as all “objects” in this world are fundamentally impermanent, and essentially arbitrary, partitions of an otherwise continuous, unfragmented whole, I view photography as an almost mystical process whereby this illusion of fragmentation is momentarily lifted and the underlying essence of the universe revealed. To “see” the whole, one must first learn see “parts” as mere illusions.

I take pictures of what calms my soul. There may be other, more descriptive or poetic words that may be used to define the “pattern” that connects my images, but the simplest meta-pattern is this: I take snapshots of moments in time and space in which a peace washes gently over me, and during which I sense a deep interconnectedness between my soul and the world. Not Henri Cartier-Bresson’s “Decisive Moment,” but rather a Sudden Stillness. The best moments of all are those in which my focus on nature’s local harmonies runs so deep that distinctions between time and space, between object and ground, and between form and substance, are all blurred and—for a brief instant—disappear altogether. As the boundary between my inner world—my ego—and the outer reality (or what my ego fools itself into believing is an outer reality) temporarily vanishes, I sometimes manage to catch a wispy imprint of that mysterious boundary with my camera. The result is what I call a photograph.

For further information and to see more of Ilachinski ‘s work, go to, www.ilachinski.com