The Network

I am constantly thinking and rethinking about photography, what is it, what it ought to be, what I want to make of it. As a stay-at-home dad, I have a lot of time to think (laundry does not do itself, alas, but neither does it demand much mental energy). I do take pictures sometimes, though, I promise! Not that I long ago I wrote up some ideas about trame on this very web site. The present remarks overlap, but are I think different.
Over the last few years I have developed a mild obsession with certain Buddhist concepts, as well as the ideas around so-called natural navigation, the processes by which ancient cultures were able to reliably travel across oceans, find water and find home  in vast deserts, and so forth. The common ground here is an idea of presence, of being present in wherever you are, the idea of perceiving what is really there and what is important.
The Polynesian ocean navigator is aware of the wind, the waves, and the ocean swell. He (in ancient times it was always He...