Coastal shooting

Series VII, Roll 4 (Pentax K2, Tri-X):


Frame 7 - Seacliff. I have other shots of this structure from the outside. I don't know where it came from, what it was before, or what it was doing there.


Frame 8 - Now this was a curiosity. Baker Beach, a well-known nude beach was maybe a mile to the east. These two couples seemed completely unfazed. I considered them fair game.

Ocean Beach from Sutro Heights:

Frame 12


Frame 17 - apparently a warm day from the number of people.

Tennis Pooh

Series VII, Roll 4 (Pentax K2, Tri-X):


Frame 2 - Shooting in artsy mode.


Frame 3 - Poh, pronounced 'pooh'. As in Winnie, not poo.

Series VII, Roll 3 (Pentax K2, Tri-X):

Sutro Baths, Seacliff:


Frame 15

Josephine braving the wind on top of Twin Peaks:


Frame 26

SFMoma

Series VII, Roll 2 (Pentax IQZoom 115, Tri-X):


Frame 8 - Mem and Pooh


Frame 9 - Poh and shadows on the top floor bridge.

198 Shakespeare St., San Francisco

I ponder the Christian concept of original sin, that we are all sinners by our very existence, by the way we came about existing. Take away the Euro-moralistic tones inherent in the word "sin", and I think there is something also found in Buddhism.

Our being here on earth, our existence, is a "sin" - not to denote immorality, but rather imperfection. It's not because of being bad or doing wrong. But rather any stage of physical human existence is imperfect. Perfection being a state where physical being and attachments are transcended. It's not moral, it's an objective concept of perfection. Christians, due to whatever culture the concept was born in, called it "sin", but in Buddhism it merely denotes an imperfect state of being; and any state of physical being is "imperfect". That's not "bad", it's just fact.

If being in this world, conceiving this world, acting and interacting in this world, and affecting the world to be what it is on a micro and macro level, if all that is the result of our imperfection, then meditation and monks make a whole lot of sense.

Meditation, cessation of thought and emotion, concentration, discipline - it's all to some extent removal from our physical surroundings, trying to understand it for what it really is, rather than just accepting it and being a product of it and an actor within it; being pushed and pulled by the tides and eddies of human desire, impulse, and drive.

It moves us farther from the imperfection, and either literally or symbolically, actually or metaphorically, it moves us closer to "perfection" - the state that transcends this reality. And if nothing else, it will help us in our next life, for those who believe, to start off closer to perfection, or with a clearer idea of what perfection is.

Perfection is simply an objective fact, some condition found out there or within us, that is perfect only because we know it is perfect. It's not something that can be imposed on anyone else. It's not necessarily something that can be striven for (I'm not sure what I mean by that).