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“And you? When will you begin that long journey into yourself?” – RUMI
True photography, as a creative medium meant to express (and only rarely just to impress) requires a lifetime of dedication, practice and patience. In an age of ready access to all kinds of photo gear, from low end to high, and near instant self-gratification with “Wow, another stunning shot!” tweets from friends and family admiring our constant stream of smartphone image uploads, it is easy to forget that. The result is not an immediate, but ultimately short-lived, reward; rather, it is a slow, meditative, Zen-like journey toward self-discovery.
I was reminded of this several years ago, upon publication of my first Lenswork portfolio, called Micro Worlds.  In adherence to Lenswork’s policy, I submitted a series of images woven around a single theme (a practice that, not quite by coincidence, I had been slowly evolving to on my own). After showing the published portfolio to my mom, she asked a disarmingly simpl...

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Andy Ilachinski
Andy Ilachinski
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A Ph.D. physicist specializing in modeling complex adaptive systems (by day), Andy spends most of his free time with a camera. A founding member of Lorton Arts Foundation's Workhouse Photographic Society in 2009 (near Occoquan, VA), his photographs have won numerous awards, have been exhibited in many juried solo and group shows, hang in galleries, businesses, and private homes, and have appeared in numerous publications. Featured in Lenswork four times, spotlighted in Black & White twice, Andy also won the international book contest sponsored by the UK Black + White Photography magazine in 2007. His blog (tao-of-digital-photography.blogspot.com, started in 2004) has been named one of the top 100 photography blogs by Photography Colleges (www.photography-colleges.org). Andy has just published a portfolio collection (containing images 2005-2015) along with ten of the most popular essays that have appeared on his blog during the last decade. Link: http://www.blurb.com/b/6472397-suddenstillness
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