“…lose your mind and come to your senses”

Most of us spend most of our time in our brain, in our mind, in our thoughts. Yet our encounters with the world around us begin with our senses, outside of our brain: we see, we hear, we touch, and so on. Collectively these sensations give rise to our primary subjective awareness, experienced in our bodies across an almost infinite range of feelings. These are whisked to our brains, where the sensations are processed at lightning speed, giving rise to analysis, thought, and perhaps, action. While essential to our survival, this process removes us from the direct primary experience of our initial sensory contact with our world: When we bite into a ripe strawberry, once we begin to think about the taste, we lose contact with the delicious sensory moment. We feel with our bodies, and think with our brains…

In my photographs I try to capture a moment that gave rise to a primary feeling within me, and later, perhaps, provoked thought. In the images that follow, I hope that you will take a moment with each, and simply notice what feelings emerge for you, and savor that felt experience before thinking about the picture. Simply put, lose your mind and come to your senses.