Returning from a rampage of experience, cameras in tote, it is the photographs made, where the soul shoves the norms of psychology aside, that satisfy me most. Traveling to new destinations of astounding beauty often proves brutal in getting beneath enchanting surface. I’m embattled 24/7 with such desire. Gorgeous photographs with technical precision do absolutely nothing for me that the lived moment already presented. Looking through the many images brought home, I see precisely in the mix when I achieved that deeper gaze, unknowingly, without pretension or apparent striving. Essentially, I’m lost at sea in those moments.
Sonoma County Coast © Michael Ast, 2017
