Make Light Real

Neil April 18th, 2011

I am Seeking 1000 supporters willing to give $6 for water development issues around the world!

Mind As Water – is an ancient saying passed from teacher to student in far eastern cultures for generations to show the lessons illustrated in nature.

I had heard of such instruction – but never practiced it. Until I was confronted with the exit of my lover and the mother of my children from my life, in an unwanted divorce after 11 years of relationship. I felt more pain than I knew was possible. Pain that stopped me from functioning, burned down my personality, and stole my will to live. So I had to find a way out, and that way was a way in — a practice that allowed me to experience the pain. In opening up to that experience, I could allow healing to flow in like warm water. The separation from my children, and life change from a stay at home dad whose life was filled by caring for his children — to single father was an unnatural pain that left a raw, gaping hole. As soon as I was willing to stare the pain in the face, God was there to fill and heal my heart with the warmth and gentleness of water.

Naturally, I tried to make pictures about ‘it’…

…here we are over a year later, and I have shared this experience with over 100 subjects.

I believe that warmth and gentleness instilled in me, is changing the world around me though this project – and I wish to focus that change. Your support of my project will kick-start my imagery for showing in a large scale exhibit. The gallery event is designed as a fundraiser event for water awareness and development organizations to use to further their cause by engaging the public in a face to face experience with water. Right now I have over 33,000 images of humans experiencing water. My imagery has been created across the US with as many cultural groups and age groups as I have been able to gain access. I will continue producing imagery until I get a solid cross section of the global population, however I think the time is right to make the show available for events. (will you support water development now with $6?)

The goal in presentation of the show is to display a COMPOSITE PORTRAIT. To achieve this visual effect on the gallery walls I wish to mount the show prints edge to edge. My choice of presentation method contrasts to the gallery standard of framing images individually. The wall will become the image from floor to ceiling, and show the individual images in a comparative sense as they tie individual experiences into the whole. For this reason, there are a lot of prints to be made. Each print costs $32 from the lab, and I estimate the average gallery space will need between 160-220prints. I am seeking 1000 people to invest $6 raising $6,000 to print, mount and package the show so that I can begin to offer it as a fine art event to water development organizations. (will you support water development now with $6?)

Mind As Water shows my personal commitment to pouring out my own healing into positive change in the world. To date I have not taken a cent for the images or sessions while I have personally invested $2000 into the Ugandan economy on behalf of water development. I will treat your dollars with the same high regard for the sacrifice you have made to obtain them. I believe your dollars will see a generous return as your kick-start inspires others to give to water development in the future. Please donate a minimum of $6 and receive my mailings to stay up to date on my project. If you are not able to donate $6, please suggest my project to someone you know who would be impacted by this imagery and intent. Please become a subject! Young or old (especially old) contact me to schedule your shoot when I am in your city. I am especially looking to connect with aged subjects, 60+ years old. If you know of an agency, editor or other creatives working in Uganda or with water topics, interested in a book project – please make an introduction for me – as I am seeking a creative partner/editor for possible. (will you support water development now with $6?)

• Comments(0)
• Inspiration , Mind Like Water , spirituality

Neil February 2nd, 2011

The Mind as Water Creative Journal kit

1. A 6×8 organic fair trade handmade book from Nepal
2. Customized painted and mounted Mind As Water images in acrylic with ink
3. Your own Mind As Water Portraits if you have been a subject!
4. 16gb digital memory stick for storage of video journals or digital files
5. $100 of your purchase is invested in the Ugandan economy for water development
6. Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance by Julia Cameron = textbook for guidance

Order Now HERE

For Creative Retreat teachers and organizers

If you are teaching creativity, artistic direction, meditation, yoga or awareness consider using the Mind as Water experience for your students to have an immediate experience and container for reflection. Neil will photograph each of your participants mindfulness in water and present them with a custom, hand made journal with their own images before your event concludes. This reverential, thought provoking and challenging experience resonates with lasting change in the heart which is guided into lasting change in the world’s ecological balance. Contact Neil directly to check on timing and group package rates.

• Comments(0)
• Creativity , Inspiration , learning , Mind Like Water , Self Assignment , Workshop

Neil November 26th, 2010

‘The Way to Love’ by Anthony de Mello

If you allow yourself to really feel the pains of this hell on earth, the utter emptiness it brings, you might experience within you a revolt,

a disgust so powerful that it will shatter the chains of dependence

and the deceit that have been forged around your soul and you will break loose into the kingdom of innocence where mystics and children dwell.

(that is why I say ‘hear the shadows’)

• Comments(0)
• Hear the Shadows , Mind Like Water , Quotes , spirituality

Neil November 10th, 2010

to speak with conviction

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• Creativity , Inspiration , Philosophy

Neil November 9th, 2010

The trick to doing artistic photo retouching effects is to keep them simple.

In this image, I used an An image from my Organic Vignette package to bring a slight dreamy quality to the image.

I knew what I was looking for when I started, but let me outline the art theory principles behind what I ‘saw’ in my minds eye before I completed the image.

Hue

First, hue I knew that I wanted to blend and tie in the warm yellow skin tones, and the blues/purples of the grooms suit and boutonnière. The dreamlike quality of the image comes from the blended and smudged look of the tonalities so their close relationship in Hue is very important. The clever part of my texture sets is their interrelationships within the close Hue relationships-here that close relationship is yellow to orange, with a vignette in the complementary color of blue. Here is the sample image form the texture set for you to see what it looked like:

Luminance

If you notice carefully there is a rim of natural light on the bride’s right cheek – the sunshine was coming through trees near sunset, and the bride and groom had their backs to it. So the overall contrast in the luminance of this photo is not very high – that’s good for applying a lighting effect or texture…because you can trick the viewer more easily. So it’s important to note that I’m starting with an image basically lit by open shade…nice and soft. The Hue of the overlay image is important because I want a unified color theme – but also because it creates a brighter spot of sunlight (of sorts) on her dress. That dapple of bright highlight where her hair ends and the semicircle of her necklace dips rounds out the counterpoint of her smile in the composition.  The rest of the image’s contrast is burned down by the vignette pushing the viewer’s attention to the warm emotional embrace, and the warm sunshine dappled across their embrace.

The simple steps to getting this done in Photoshop is to use a “Hard Light” layer of somewhere between 15-25%.  You want to look to smudge the tones, but not make the texture file in any way prominent to the main  image’s subject matter.

• Comments(3)
• Color Theory , contrast , How To: , Inspiration , Photoshop Retouching , Real-light Overlays , Textures

Neil September 19th, 2010

Fast water

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• Mind Like Water , spirituality

Neil September 7th, 2010

Josh Garrells – Zion & Babylon

Oh great mammon of form and function
Careless consumerist consumption
Dangerous dysfunction
Described as expensive taste
I’m a people disgraced
By what I claim I need
And what I want to waste
I take no account for nothing
If it’s not mine
It’s a misappropriation of funds
Protect my ninety percent with my guns
Whose side am I on?
Well who’s winning?
My kingdom’s built with the blood of slaves
Orphans, widows, and homeless graves
I sold their souls just to build my private mansion

• Comments(0)
• Inspiration , spirituality , Video

Neil August 25th, 2010

Tao Te Ching.org – #42

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• Mind Like Water , Philosophy , Quotes , spirituality , Tao

Neil April 29th, 2010

…download this cool texture file from Flickr.

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• Inspiration

Neil April 22nd, 2010

Training Your Focus – Enhance Your Reality

How is your focus? Do you find it easy to concentrate for longer chunks of time or are you easily distracted? Do you enjoy doing the same thing at the same focus level over and over again, or are you easily bored?

I used to think that focus is a function of pleasure: I can concentrate on this because I like it. I do some stuff better than other because I like it. While loving what you do can keep your concentration high, at least in the beginning, maintaining a constant, high focus is not a function of pleasure at all. It’s a function of will.

Focus can be trained. It can be enhanced, it can be shaped the way you want. It can serve you well, if you treat it well. In today’s post I’ll share some of my observations regarding focus and how one can work this tool the same way you work your muscles in your daily workout.

Read the rest to enhance Your Reality

• Comments(0)
• Inspiration , Mind Like Water , Motivation