October 6, 2014

Star Trails - Zion Canyon

Star Trails over Zion National Park

3 hours. 363 photos. They are the ingredients of this photograph, tracking the stars last night over Zion National Park, my home for the next two months. In celebration of this time, I quote a favorite passage from Robinson Jeffers' "De Rerum Virtute":

I believe the first living cell Had echoes of the future in it, and felt Direction and the great animals, the deep green forest And whale’s-track sea; I believe this globed earth Not all by chance and fortune brings forth her broods, But feels and chooses. And the Galaxy, the firewheel On which we are pinned, the whirlwind of stars in which our sun is one dust-grain, one electron, this giant atom of the universe Is not blind force, but fulfils its life and intends its courses.

What Jeffers felt in the marrow of his bones, I feel here. Everywhere there is cause and effect, intention, purpose. What may appear random simply veils deep intricate workings of causality. Around me is humbling enormity, bewildering complexity, the most graceful fragility. In my photography I try to honor this, give voice to it, spark awareness, even inspiration. And grow. As an individual, a friend, a lover, a father, a citizen. I want to feel the whirlwind, spin with the firewheel, know my intentions align with a greater course.

Inspirations

The more you photograph, the more you realize what can and what can't be photographed. You just have to keep doing it.

Eliot Porter

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