Ain't Afraid of No Thug

This weekend I held an art event at the Cemetery were Martin Luther King Senior was laid to rest. Some of you may recall that the last time I attempted to take pictures in this cemetery I was mugged and all my equipment taken. That is why I decided to have an event the same day and time I was mugged. I wanted to reclaim that space in a peaceful way. The event went off without any trouble and we all had a real good time.

The artistic spectrum was interesting. We had some violin practice, toe nail painting, Tarot Card reading, photographs of course, and the usual deep philosophical discussions.

On top of all of this excitement I also used it as another opportunity to play around with many of the new features of my fancy new camera. I am using a Sony a55 now, replacing the Canon Rebel sx that was stolen. The Sony is quite amazing. Since I am a Zen photographer and do no post editing, I am falling in love with its real time filters. For instance the shot above was shot using its Black and White Posterizing effect.

All in all life for the photo-monk is good.

Caleb Storms

The Photo-Monk

The Urban Jungle

I haven't kept up this blog as much lately, I'm sure that will come and go. In my travels I am almost positive that I will have interesting stories to tell almost daily. Here in a city that's strangeness i'm used to, everything seems typical to me. I was reminded however that my life is not typical and that I do have amazing adventures all the time. So i'm going to try to get into the habit of telling them here.

Two or so weeks ago while heading into a cemetery, I was stopped by a man with a gun. At first I wasn't sure what he wanted, I didn't see the gun and couldn't understand his ramblings. I'm used to running into drug addled zombies in Atlanta. I thought this was no different, although I must admit I felt uneasy and had for a block or so and had been chanting silently as a result. When I noticed the gun and it occurred to me what was going on, I must have looked dumbfounded. It was after all 3pm on a Sunday. Cars going by, people out and about. Not then though, as I looked around, no one came to my aid, no one was in sight. They of course took everything, my fancy phone, my trusty electronic eye and my wallet.

As I wondered away wanting only to get out of there and get home I stopped at a car garage, I looked at the men and told them I had just been mugged and they said they couldn't help me. At this point I realized I had wondered into a section of town were no one wanted to be a target, so no one wanted to get involved. So I walked home and only then called the police.

Of course through out this whole event, I was thinking of my trip and what I would do if something like that happened to me far away from home, far away from people. It caused me to think about this urban jungle I live in and how in many ways it has prepared me for this journey. I mean Atlanta is the 3rd most violent city and I am walking around it all the time. Looking at all this the bears don't freak me out as much as the thugs.

I am glad that I was unharmed and the love and support I got from those around me was amazing. I mean its about two weeks and I have almost replaced all my equipment with the love and support of family and friends. The Photo-Monk project is still on schedule and still going to happen.

So I guess I do have adventures to right about after all. Most of them are even uplifting!

Be Safe

The Photo-Monk

ravenous

The hardest part about being an artist for me is keeping a hold of my original passion for any project that I am working on and seeing it though to the end. It isn't that I loose interest in projects its more that artistic vision sometimes clashes with material reality. The result is most often this feeling of banging my head against a wall.

What makes an artist an artist is that they see the world in a different way or they can communicate the way we all see the world in a way that makes sense. Both has within them a beauty and a curse. If you see the world differently then you end up spending a lot of time explaining or defending your art. If you show what we all are thinking then this can give rise to anger and ridicule because people don't like to feel exposed.

I have faced all of this over the years, yet here I am ready to take on yet another crazy project that has the potential to be amazing or disastrous. The question that most people ask is why I would even want to do such a thing as walk across the country. When I answer them my passions rise and the artist takes over. By the end of it they are on my side cheering me on. It is this ravenous artistic passion that attracts people to the artist and his crazy ideas. It is this same passion that will carry an artist through to the end of a project even if it seems doomed, impossible or ineffective.

I look at artists as being holy men and holy men as the interpreters of art. Both see and feel things that not everyone takes the time to. Both get swept away with inspiration that seems fanatical and perhaps even insane to some. Both would gladly live without rather than give up what they feel gives them life. Both feel like the world must one day understand or perish in there own ignorance. Both the holy man and the artist give us hope, show us god, reveal our own divinity and unmask for us our vulnerable humanness. We tremble before both wondering how they could possibly live the way they do, for the reasons they do. Yet, in our time of need when we are groping in the dark trying to understand the universe around us we turn to them.

All of these ideas are behind the Photo-Monk Project, for in this life of mine, I have walked on both paths. That of an artist and a spiritual seeker. I have faced every trial imaginable and yet still want to walk across the country. I want to walk alone as a monk, documenting the journey as an artist. I can not think of a more insane and beautiful gesture to celebrate my love for life and all other sentient beings.

I do realize like many artists and holy men, I stand a good chance of going completely insane on this journey. I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing. It seems to me that many of our problems exist within the mind so leaving it from time to time can be very helpful.

Regardless, everyday it gets more and more clear that I am actually going to do this. I am going to walk across the country, or at least start, on a photographic pilgrimage. My own artistic experiment in human kindness. That both excites me and overwhelms me. It fills me with that very passion that I've been talking about. It doesn't even matter if anyone else cares or gets it. I care, I get it, I care about you and your story. I get your struggle.

I'll see ya on the road !!!

Caleb Storms

The Photo-Monk

photo-monk.com

Doubts

It is getting closer to my departure date and I must say I am facing some doubts. I feel this is a good thing, I mean I don't want to walk blindly into something that has a great potential to be either really, really great or to go horribly wrong. Like this young chap, I want some safety ropes tide to me. Like him as well I am looking at what i'm about to do and questioning if I really want to.

I believe the idea of bravery or strength is not the absence of fear. I really believe that it is the idea of being afraid and doing it anyway. Again like this chap I want to face all of my fears and do it anyway. I want to tackle the unknown with an adventurous spirit and monastic discipline.

Yesterday I stood under a blue tent in a cemetery hiding from the storm. I laughed to myself wondering how many moments like that I would have in my travels. Then my phone's battery died, I had no GPS and because of the storm had got turned around running for shelter. So I was wet, tired, lost and cut off from the world in the middle of a cemetery. A very boring cemetery I might add. As I stood underneath a blue tarp that was the shelter for countless open graves I had to ask myself if I was completely insane for wanting to walk across the country. Of course I am completely insane for wanting to do this. Chances are I will be even more insane after my travels. None of that bothers me. I rather like being out of my mind considering most of all of our problems come from the mind. Being out of it also means a limited amount of suffering. So I will take this wonderful opportunity to embrace my insanity and walk out into the wild frontier. See ya on the road.

Caleb Storms

The Photo-Monk

Joy and Suffering

Many moons ago when I was a much different person and a very different photographer. I did a lot of photographs depicting human suffering. These days I really try to stay more on the side of joy.

However I do not ignore the human condition and try to take images that will invoke a sense of compassion within us. If I see something that has a sadness to it, I will take a shot of it. However if I see someone suffering I will not in most cases. I do not want to make a profit off of someone's suffering. I think that is were I draw the line. I do not mind pointing out the suffering of humanity in general in order to invoke a sense of compassion for our fellow humans. I do not however want to single out an individuals suffering and exploit it for my own gain.

So although while I am walking about I see all kinds of things. Many of them very profound and heart wrenching. It is only the shots that are more general in nature that end up being shown. This shopping cart is a perfect example of what I"m talking about. I only took it because whoever collected all these things was not in the shot. So the picture becomes more about us as sentient beings and less about the suffering of a single sentient being. After all, there plight is also mine and yours and everyone's.l

I want someone to walk away from my photos thinking about there own life in a way that helps them to identify with the poor soul on the street. If I was to simply take a picture of a homeless man sleeping, then it would be easy to ask questions about him and never about ourselves. I don't think any of us our free until we all are free. So I'm hoping my images reflect that Idea. I'm your cheering section humanity. Go team go!

Caleb Storms

The Photo-Monk

Graven Images

Many may have noticed that with my obsession with churches. I also have an obsession with graveyards. I think there are about as many reasons for this as there are cemeteries.

First as a friend of mine pointed out you can do any kind of photography that you want to at a cemetery. You can do portrait style. You can do landscapes, still life. You name it. So for a photographer like myself that likes to jump all over the place I love that I can do architectural and portraits in the same place.

Deeper than that I truly like to be face to face with mortality. It puts things into perspective for me. I can look around a cemetery and get reminded that my time is very precious and I should be using it wisely. It truly helps me put things in there proper place in my life. Suddenly the newest fancy gadget doesn't seem as important as enjoying a sunset or watching a child play, or noticing a leaf fall off a tree.

I also really enjoy the quiet of a cemetery, not very many people bother you when your walking around. It is a sacred place were we all greet the non-permanence of our existence and all that we love. It is a place that causes reflection and contemplation on its deepest level. It is only through death that we learn of life, the wise ones have a habit of saying. I find much truth in that.

I have a hard time passing up a cemetery for those reasons, old or new, big or small I will always try to walk through them and give my respects. I hope some of the images I capture will show the great many lessons that I have taken from them.

The Photo-Monk

Caleb Storms

Fresh Fruit

It is summer time and as I walk around I find ripe berries everywhere. I remember as a kid picking mulberries and eating them while outside playing. I remember in fact eating many things I found in the woods, its amazing I didn't get sick. Anyway, I have been tempted through my walks to start picking some of this great looking fruit and snacking as I walked. I didn't however, mainly because the berries were scattered all over the ground and in the gutters. So my mind thought right away that there must be something "wrong" with them if no one else was eating them.

This brings me to the real topic of this post. The Photo-Monk has been exposed to some real poverty, not only in this country but I have also met many people from other countries were starvation is part of their everyday existence. The thought of berries falling and rotting on the ground would be very strange to them. The idea that I just past all this free fruit by would also not make any sense to them. I thought about this quite a bit this week. I then started to notice all the things I passed just walking around the city. I passed strawberries, blackberries, mulberries, something that may have been cranberries. There could have been some good prickly pears out there and so on.

Out of this I decided a couple of things. We are certainly spoiled here and I need to get an edible plant guide so I don't have to pass up such a beautiful banquet of fruit because of my ignorance. For the other thing that I realized is as a child I knew what everything was, growing up in rural Indiana. As an adult if its not clearly marked on the package, I'm not sure what I"m eating.

So next time you have a picnic, try serving a wild berry salad, how cool would that be?

Caleb Storms

Then Photo-Monk