Have you ever been immersed in a natural environment, and had the sense that there was more “presence” than what you can actually see? Did you ever wonder if there was something else out there, something intangible, mysterious, ineffable, something truly beyond your powers of perception? Maybe the croaking frogs or the wind flowing through the trees or the creaking of branches under your feet gives subtle hints that something else exists, something we can’t see or hear. More like a spirit, an archetype, a presence that goes beyond our human comprehension, or perhaps it’s a substrate of our own mind being reflected in the stillness and silence.
Ken Kauffman seems to have captured that quality, visually and beyond words, through mysteriously beautiful photographic images. He describes his photography as a “wonderful visual adventure.” In his photograph, Untitled, he seems to allude to that mystery, creating an alluring and stunningly beautiful photograph. As Kauffman states: “When I can surrender my preconceived notions of what a wild place is a revealing phenomenon occurs: I encounter my personal motifs projected onto the world. At other times there seems to be a vision beyond the subjective…” Definitively a show-stopping conversation piece.
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