Never the Same

Posted on July 4, 2015 by Jeff Smack

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” This idea is at the root of why I love to take sunrise shots of the river. On one hand, I get better at understanding my lens and my light all the time. On the other hand, even if I didn’t, the shot would be different every single time. The sunrise moment on this strip of land in front of this channel to the bay is my existential pinpoint of home. I coined my own mantra for this intersection of place and time. “The river takes me home.”

Construct, Diagram

Posted on May 1, 2015 by Jeff Smack

anchored by what may free you

Meditation Modes

Posted on March 30, 2015 by Jeff Smack

My new year’s resolution this year was to do better with sleep and practice meditation. On the back end of a 10 mile run, in a deep meditative state, I had an experience. A breakthrough more or less. It took me months to process it but it sort of felt like this. An objective interpretation of a subjective experience.

Bones & Muscle Memory

Posted on February 26, 2015 by Jeff Smack

I draw a lot of skulls, abstract forms and floral patterns. I spent many younger years exploring this type imagery and it’s stored in my muscle memory as much as my imagination. If I sit in front of blank paper too long, it just starts drawing itself.

Church Hill

Posted on January 25, 2015 by Jeff Smack

A couple of Saturdays back, the Smack family got in the car to escape the house after a rainy morning cooped up inside. All of the usual parks and playgrounds were too soggy for the kids to enjoy.

We headed for high ground and went to Libby Hill Park to stroll a bit. I fired off some fairly haphazard shots with a Canon point-and-shoot and got this pic that I really love.

It’s kind of cruel. I actually like this instagram filtered, autofocused, image-grab better than anything I’ve shot, with much nicer equipment, in a pretty long time. And we’re always learning.

Analog Out

Posted on September 1, 2014 by Jeff Smack

Digital progress has made everyone a designer. Every eCommerce site offers WYSIWYG design customization via a menu of templates and stock assets. Every now and then breaking out some paper and putting ink to page is really satisfying. And somewhere in between the two is the humorously dated media of photocopy and fax machine. Everything is a medium for expression.