Architecture of Cities: Mapping Beauty 6

Tokyo, Japan: Architect: Hiroshi Nakamura: Michael Kors

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse,

Fear and Joy stand with me in every enterprise; Embracing all of my emotions as if twins enjoined at my irides: If there was another appropriate phrase to coalesce the feeling the camera produces for me- - it might read; The Scent of a Dream- -or Shadow Boxers- -or Twilight Run- - or Dancing with Whales:

The apparent bliss that merely necessitates my eagerness to capture, is seen standing at attention: I snake through cities not seen, alive, but not heard, to see a winter breath only felt. Eyes seeing architecture remind me more of a tapestry than a board game: Elegant and wind torn- - earthen and made; a planted plaid of materials draped across nations is more than what I know:

Architecture of cities hold inadvertent surprises: I imitate my earlier self looking through my Hollywood Vintage 3-D Viewfinder- -The examination reveals what in plain sight is concealed; I witness beyond the gaze what may be amiss.

Los Angeles: Architect Rem Koolhaas: Wilshire Blvd Temple: Pavillion

Sounds lurk sadly and profoundly while I am alone: The entire built universe is seen in every reflection I imagine to encounter- -then I imagine more: The buildings never seek acknowledgement- -They merely ask in stone, glass and everything concrete for my mind to bend, my eye to bow, momentarily: If only to see what may be…My naked eyes are laid bare for all to see:

Prayers and nightmares are what my eyes hear: I see wildly unknown beasts and forgiving recited poems painted atop the streets alongside my lone cameras’ journey:

I need a mere nano second to believe my dreams; recognize voices that will accompany my days among my cities: Every voice calls out as if a chorus of Langston Hughes’ bellows the whispering that is his dispirited Harlem: “What happens to a dream deferred…”. With that in mind, walk with me: Cities and dreams in hand.

I have stood before each and every moment as if illusions illuminate: The infamous French Lascaux cave paintings and Mexicos’ Day of the Dead evening shadows merge as skylit illusory engagements: The deserving lived in shadows and anthropological implications move in real time- - history’s time- -my time:

Dreams gather all of my photographs as one history- -one day: Each moment is a unified reminder of many fragmented days: The dreams invoke the surreal while in real time: Crocodiles warmed by nuclear plants- -Lakota White Buffalo calves dance as omens ghosts- -

Los Angeles: Detail of Los Angeles County Museum

I make photographs with surreal influences: I am always alone with a coterie of architecture ahead:

Mere time is personal: The photographer’s life is not for the faint of heart: A perfect measurement of time to consider is the medieval hooded cloaked headsman perfecting his perfect swiftness crossing in downward motion: The head trembles just this side of life in a space allotted: The chop need be correct: If not so to precision, the blade set in glimmers of light; may be made to dismember his own for eternity:

Equally as fraught as related to timing is the two minute soft-boiled egg: If a sharpened knife cuts across the tippy-top of the shell while missing the exacting blow: The yoke will dribble on the down side of the shell: All is lost - - the moment is so precious:

Equally disconcerting for this photographer is the corner building espied with light from directions unknown: The light moves with the earth: The buildings moment will be lost: I see the light edge just pass the moment: All may be lost: It would akin to Ansel Adams’s imagining and missing “Moonrise, Hernandez”: the earth’s rotation scalped the moment: Gravity shifted: The axis turned: My light became a dance: Shadows of dreams prevailed: If the light does not marry to the earth’s rotation, my camera’s focus will be lost forever: No Adams’ Moonrise- - No two minute eggs: Even if a shadow atop a Gehry, Niemeyer, Wright, Hadid or another missed; the legacy of what might have been is vanished.

Millenniums of built environments are encapsulated in pixelated melded complexions framed in both eyes. The entirety of man accompanies my camera alone. I wait for the whale to breach: I wait for the roulette wheel to stop: I throw the dice in craps: I spin a children’s top: I measure my chances: My fixed lens awaits a simple pleasure: The light of the day- - the pause of nature’s repose- -

I would like to be alone with Roger Fenton’s The Queen’s Target: I would like to be alone with every image before I made my first: I want to wait for the whale to breach and everything that my camera may witness for the first time- - and begin again. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;