Visioning the invisible - an interview with the photographer Shalom Ormsby - Co-founder of Blend Images

John: I know you as a photographer, cutting-edge research in your approach is to not only photography, but life. Their work is dramatic, sensitive and polished.

Shalom: from someone as talented and inspiring as you are, that means a lot to me. Thanks. I am honored.

John: You were one of the first core group of founding members of Blend Images, are also under the name of the company. You have always encouraged me to risk to find new ways and developmy creativity.

Shalom: It's because I your work, John Love. I was so happy when I make the leap and cooperation with our company decided Blend, and you have made an important contribution to the success story that was Blend.

John: You can get a bit 'with us on the journey that brought you where you are now a photographer?

Shalom: What we try to do my job, "Vision of the Unseen" - use the physical, material expressions, animals, people, plants, andplaces to show what is secret, that the soul and their life, vitality and character. I'm not on effort, something that can see through appearances, but to show what's inside appearances. This has the flavor of a koan for me - a Zen riddle that can not be answered logically, whose purpose is to engage the thoughts from his habitual way of functioning.

This transition from ordinary ways of thinking, seeing and operating costs for the embodiment of aThe clarity and freshness of being, of course, that's fun, free improvisation and ... this is my daily commute. Sometimes, for some reason are not able to switch them for days, weeks or even longer to do. This happens when caught in an intellectual and creative version of "business as usual". This is a difficult time for me and vulnerable.

I can think my way out of the freshness of being in a moment, but I can not do that on my way in his back. In addition, there is no formula to follow, the. Producing Therefore, I use the "vision of the invisible" to describe what I do in those days. It 'a reminder for me to stay cool and relaxed, and that commuters substantial on which to base my vocation is.

John: There are photographers who have helped to have your approach or you most admire?

Shalom: There are so many - photographers, painters, sculptors, architects, poets, dancers, comic book artist, designers, physicists, mystics, musicians and friends. It would betake a book to list them all, and to describe how they moved me ... and the book would have to grow every day, as the case may be a great burst of creativity today, all around us.

Here are a couple of important inspiration in no particular order - Leonardo Da Vinci (for different reasons), Egon Schiele (without fear for the sake of his line), Stan Lee (for the birth of the comic that inspired me to start create art), George Lucas (for sparking my mind with the 'Force was young, as it was), the Wachowski brothers (of the deep, wild ride of the matrix), Benoit Mandelbrot (for his work on fractals), Byron Katie (the radical way in which it is used the junction for the confusion) and the haiku master stroke of old Japan, and the Buddha.

None of these people are photographers, but they are all powerful creator of images and insights. This is what I shall be dismissed. Photographer Glen Wexler (further inspiration for me), oncehe said - and has always stayed with me - that his work did not take pictures, it is about creating images. Anyone can take a picture, but it's a rare ability to be able to create images that touch something real and alive inside and unknown. So it's not really the image - is what helps us to access the images within. The invisible.

Dr. Kenneth Libbrecht is a photographer who is also a physicist. I see it as a "future vision of the invisible" clearly with snowflakesas his subjects. We all know that no two snowflakes are alike, but his work really brings the magic of this fact. Go out there and take the snowflakes in the air (like butterflies) and shoot with high magnification and fresh, light, high contrast, revealing their intricate crystalline structures. Some of them are so beautiful it takes your breath away.

His book The Art of the Snowflake is, with pictures of many expressions full of organic, holyGeometry ... and these are just a few hundred flakes of snow. What exploded in my head is all the snowflakes that never in all the time, all the masterpieces of the volatile design, each of which has been dropped entirely original thought. So, my consciousness expanded with the beauty of every snowflake in an appreciation of the mysterious creative power, which emerged from the snow. The invisible.

And that's just talking about snowflakes! If we expand by several orders of magnitudeto talk about plants, animals and people, of course, the same true - everyone is unique, the only of its kind in the entire history of the universe.

Each plant, when they looked quite detailed in the vicinity, not just a "job" - is a mysterious person with a vascular system that shuttles smart fluids, minerals and photosynthetic products in the system. His knowledge of light and convert carbon dioxide and oxygen into energy (which togetherwith others of its kind, and transfers from generation to generation), provides the essential, basic support for life on Earth. If we increase the complexity and see the people ... that's where I have no words ...
It 's easy to forget what a, colossal mystery, all I ask is ... because we are constantly surrounded by them. We are all for the wonderful, the beautiful scenery of the temporal power used. My job is to make the miracle of every dayagain. The invisible and the visible, living together, each helping to define the other.

John: I know you have an interest in 3D. Plan the inclusion of this in the pictures? I know you have your feet wet with film material. Can you tell us about your experience so far, and what role you play in the future of your movement?

Shalom: I want to answer these questions together, because for me, are linked. Both include an additional dimension based ontraditional photography. 3D adds depth to otherwise flat images of apparent and stills adds the dimension of movement through time.

One of the things that you know, to me, John, is that I'm very excited. And the idea of ​​expanding my work in the third and fourth dimension, you can contact me so excited that sound quite absurd, as I probably our photography forum. So I will try to get a sense of sobriety to this, I will probably not their works.
Bit [off on a clever man I "met" on Twitter called Marvin.

He recently wrote on Twitter that "The secret of success for the longer wheelbase of the leg and then chew like hell." As I read this, I saw that without realizing consciously that is what I did for most of my life ... and I will do now with the 3D and video material.]

The shift in the third and fourth dimension feels like a natural, inevitable development for me because it feels like aExpand your range of skills and creative storytelling.

What I found is that with each additional dimension, with each extension of the creative possibilities, the complexity increases by an order of magnitude. So while my creative abilities will be expanded, it is also an enormous amount of information and tool set that I have to learn, and new ways of going about things wrong. So in terms of 3D movies, are about to do a lot of mistakes.

This does not applyAnger me ... I actually expect to happen. I'm just looking for new mistakes instead of repeating old. So I have to learn (such as chewing the hell).

In addition, make too many mistakes and movies in 3D, I have some things that inspire me, many of which are still under wraps, or are just sketches of things I want to expand further established.

There is a gold mine of ideas and inspiration in this area that I am eager to explore. My challenge is to divide attentionResource time and energy so that to keep my personal work with my many, many inspirations and inclinations, the payment of bills with my commercial work balanced balanced.

John: Where do you see yourself in five years?

Shalom: I have no idea where I am now five hours, so that the'm a difficult question. I can only say that I am grateful that my current life with my vision of the future, I was five years ago would have been limited. That is, I believe that one ofimportant practice often ponder this question ... and also to take a step back and reflect (where possible) on the immanence of death. Not to be morbid or have someone freak out in any way, only to realize that our time is limited, and that our candles burn only so long.

At the sight of me in cultivates an appreciation of the valuable resource in the universe: life. Sometimes it takes something drastic to awaken this consciousness in us.Sometimes there is the grace that allows us to spend hours, days or even longer inhabit this consciousness and life, life that are expressive of the limitless possibilities of our precious human life.

So five years ago, is my desire to find myself still deeply immersed in all I'm talking to you. Talk is cheap. Walking the talk - that's my plan for the next five years (and for how long I have on this beautiful planet) is. I also have pragmatic goals, such ascreative contribution to the development community to help create wealth for myself and others who work with visionaries who help the world a better place to be created.

I would also like a hard Tesla. I am very inspired by what makes Elon Musk and Tesla Motors Tesla with the team, and the feeling that their way of helping in a new, sustainable, virtuous paradigm for our economy and the nation.

Tesla is not cheap. So to be able to make such a contributionstimulation of the new economy (and my personal aesthetic), is a perfect balance between creative production and income needed. Ultimately I would like my art and my business, must make payment of invoices of a work unit. In fact this has already happened in large part.

But I still feel like I've just started. I feel restless and anxious and dissatisfied with what I've already created. I feel by all the incredible, the incredible work that has fallenthere - through the work of other photographers, Blend, through the work of colleagues Getty photographers, many images on Flickr, find and enjoy all things ... the visual creativity that flow through each strand of the web.

It can be totally transfixing contact, crushing, humiliating and debilitating, witnesses, creativity ... unless it maintains adequate mental health and creativity. To me, this includes a firm commitment not to me or my work to compare with others, butappreciate the beauty and drink in the inspiration of creativity that are out there. This also means demanding that I take, what a wide berth dissonant frequencies, so I surf the resonance.

John: You have a new blog. How do you see social media installation in your plans?

Shalom: I see social media as an element of a quantum shift in power away from traditional, centralized, top-down communication (led by corporate interests and thePrioritization of profits, especially) for a new paradigm that is being developed and defined as we speak. At the moment, it seems the new era of non-traditional, decentralized and bottom.

The barriers that were previously held by individuals to address a large audience smashed. Almost anyone can publish their blog ... and if the content is interesting or valuable enough, someone blog has the potential for the public, reaching the range of rivalslarge networks. Although this is the institution of traditional media to scare, life has never been a more exciting time for creative people who use new technologies to enjoy their vision, share pictures and ideas with the world.

The purpose of my blog is a resource for people to give to receive, along with serving resonance inspiration and creativity. How to swing frequency sounds to create something bigger than themselves in the process. My job is to serve them, boththrough the creation of images showing the visible and invisible, meaning a community space, where join other reasons and may, to inspire to win the dynamics and depth over time can create ... create a virtuous circle of creative inspiration that power in turn catalyzes more creativity.

John: All the thoughts that you would like to leave us?

Shalom: A short story, because I have so much time. At the end of a lecture by the Dalai Lama wastrue happiness, was asked what was the happiest day of his life. The Dalai Lama smiled and said softly. "Would be today" in May that it was the best day of your life today.

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