I think about seasons as temporary transformations of emotion, physicality and the obvious surrounding environs. To me, winter is dark, cold, unforgiving, and often turbulent. A time of rest, thick socks, hot wood-burning stoves, and dark beers to ease my moodier outlook of the external world. Being from the Pacific Northwest, winter is more or less all those things, but milder with intermittent wind storms and snow that lasts a day or two before melting into a brown slushy soup that you can’t help but wish away sooner rather than later. Back to the rain.
However, as a father with two daughters, it is a season of new adventures and explorations. Getting the young outside to discover is no easy task. The layering, the timing, the coaxing with gallons of hot chocolate… It is never for naught, but an opportunity to expand the horizons and see the new; the soft tones of grays, whites, blacks and muted greens, with the occasional shocking blues. And it is a time to go within, to be still and watch the passing clouds and the water drops fall from the eves. In the PNW the sun is forever low on the winter horizon, if it appears at all, and the shadows always long, creating the ever contrasted frames of intrigue. Wherever you look, there is a place to go and train your eye.
I love when the light pierces through the canopy. I love when patterns and symmetry line up. I love when a tree stands out, tall like a monolith, a representation of the ages still strong, still remaining, like a wise sage oblivious to it all. I love when it all comes crashing down: When the light is flat and the waters still. When the forms shatter and chaos creates the creative imagination. When there is busy-ness infused with light and darkness. I think this is what makes the world go round, the brain taking in all the senses every waking hour and the heart making sense of it all through one simple thing – a feeling.
“To examine oneself makes good use of sight.” – Chuang Tzu
This is my winter monologue; an exposé of images, thoughts, examinations, feelings and wonderment. It is a time of cabin fevers and extreme endurance. A place of stillness and wild abandon, often digging deep to remain true to oneself or simply to remain alive per the elements. All outcomes are a possibility.
CAMERON KARSTEN PHOTOGRAPHY
Active, Lifestyle, Portrait | Photographer + Director
