by Steve Tanham
4:30 wake up, 5 a.m. leaving, 5:30 a.m. breakfast, 6 a.m start… It was the final communication before they set off… With 47 miles of gruelling mountain trail ahead, our intrepid walking companions – John and Angela, launched themselves into the dawn of a beautiful May morning, along with hundreds of other walkers, each determined to pit themselves against an entire circuit of all … Read More A LAP with the Gods
+ #Silenti, Ancient Sacred Sites, Christianity and modern mysticism, Consciousness, English Lake District, esoteric psychology, Photography, Silent Eye School
by Steve Tanham
For the mystic, Easter is about symbols… Being doesn’t break through the barriers into normal life very often, though it is the very substance and energy of its existence. The journeys in the gospels are those of the individual soul, learning the fundamental truths of their own existence – which then expands to be existence, itself. For me and many others, Easter is about … Read More Death and Resurrection
+ #Silenti, Consciousness, esoteric psychology, Lake District, Mystery Schools, mystical travel, Photography
by Steve Tanham
I received a nice little present from WordPress the other day: a certificate to say I had been blogging with them for ten years! Ten years… Where did they go… Back then, Sue Vincent was our Silent Eye blogger – and she already had a large online following. Persuading her to join the fledgling Silent Eye was doubly beneficial: I got an excellent foundational … Read More Musings on a Silent Night
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by Steve Tanham
I read a lot into nature… I study the natural world around me carefully; a lot of my joy in taking photographs is that it helps me to ‘see’ what’s there in more clarity. It’s remarkable what being considered with a landscape can do, and how it deepens your sense of truly ‘being there’. Such acts of considering were central to what the philosopher … Read More Images of Consideration
+ #Silenti, Consciousness, Lake District, landscapes, Mindfulness, Photographic techniques, Photography, Places and Prose
by Steve Tanham
It’s amusing to watch your own progress with a pastime, hobby, or even a skill. I was new to creative photography a few years ago, and set about it with the usual Gemini enthusiasm. It doesn’t take long before you’ve taken hundreds of shots, some of them credible renderings of beautiful things – like our local River Kent, or buildings, or even skies – … Read More Lines on Stone
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by Steve Tanham
We could imagine ourselves as a leading actor in a play. There are other actors, but we have something unique… The play is written around our character. We are the only performer who can describe the play from the inside – our ‘inside’. We infer that others can do this, but we have a unique perspective on our view of the play. We have … Read More All the world’s a stage…
by Steve Tanham
The River Kent forms a natural heart to the village of Sedgwick. The river has many faces. In 2015 it saw some of the worst floods in the region’s history. But most of the time, it’s peaceful and beautiful. It has some special moods, but you have to be there to photograph them. Not a matter of skill, rather right place at the right … Read More Time, place and lens
by Steve Tanham
The raw picture had some pleasing elements. The ‘follow-line’ from the foliage down to the sea was attractive, but the width of the foreground diluted the impact. The first step was to deepen the ‘feel’ with a number of tonal changes. There’s no instant fix. It’s a process of trial and error. There is a danger of going overboard with the effects and making … Read More The subtle art of cropping
by Steve Tanham
In dream I woke and stood bewitched Before a door of oak and cedar To hear a voice that played upon A song of keys, part lost, part won And tugged and pulled my heart to be there With haunting glimpse of lifetime fixed As though my past had been remixed ➰ Who knocks? – In truth, I had not yet A saving grace … Read More Nightmare in Béziers
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by Steve Tanham
Geographically, it’s an unlikely partnership… One person in Victoria, Australia, the other in Cumbria… Giselle Bolotin is an Australian artist, but was born in Europe. She and I have never met, face to face, but have established a good working relationship via the virtual world of the internet. We are collaborating on a set of images to illustrate the Silent Eye’s new ‘Oracle’ deck … Read More An Artist named Giselle
by Steve Tanham
I thought you might like a walk through Bowness-on-Windermere. It’s the place that most people think of as ‘Windermere’, but the actual town of Windermere is a 45 min walk up the hill from the lake: the final station on the rail line from Kendal, and as close as the Victorian engineers could get to the lake from the surrounding hills. Holidaymakers arrive in … Read More Lakeland in Winter (1) Bowness-on-Windermere
by Steve Tanham
I remember finishing the count… And being astonished that there were fourteen of them. Suits… two and three piece suits. For younger readers, the three-piece ones were so called because they had matching waistcoats…whose bottom button was never fastened. Fourteen is quite a number. They were all expensive, mainly double-breasted, and made of the lovely variety of silky textiles that so proliferated in the … Read More Forever in blue jeans
Sun in Gemini 