This is a broad explanatory note on the project:
A great landscape photographer is aware of the Heraclitean maxim, 'You never step into the same river twice'. What does that mean? It means
that American master photographer Ron Rosenstock has been exploring the mysterious and ever-delightful hinterland of Westport for the past half-century without ever
tiring of it! Today's disease is, 'Been there, done that.' Have you really been there? Have you been anywhere? Without awareness, without mindfulness you've been nowhere. And if you go back, do you think it's going to be the same place? How could it be? Heraclitus says, Panta rhei, all is flux! Even in the space of half an hour, the landscapes of Co. Mayo, so prized by Ron Rosenstock, can change in a second.
A cloud appears that wasn't there before. The light begins to work its magic, to announce the coming of twilight. These ever-changing variations of light and shade create landscapes which bewitch and invite not only the photographer, but the haikuist as well. The haikuist is conscious of a living landscape and when the two artforms come
together, photography and haiku, we can create meditative moments together. The experience, when repeated over and over again, can sharpen and enrich our awareness of the living world and contribute to mindfulness.
I have followed Ron on his photographic tours and odysseys, to Morocco, Scotland, the Faroe Islands - and Mayo! - not as a chronicler. To describe what I see would be tautologous. What the haikuist does is somehow to reflect the spiritual or poetic effect which the photograph has on his consciousness. I view Ron's photographs as
masterpieces. I can return to a photo I haven't looked at in a year and write a completely new haiku to match it. It seems to me that each photograph is mysteriously alive!
Print version from Foyles