Art Spotlight
Austin Green Photography
Our eyes do not see. They are merely the vehicle through which we view the world around us. Light enters our eyes and strikes the lenses within—exciting nerves, and sending a message to our brain. It is our brain which interprets this information and creates an image of what we are viewing. We are merely scratching the surface, viewing the world through filters of preconceived notions. Have you ever considered that our environments only appear the way they do because we think they look that way? As a photographer, I strive to challenge perception… to shine light onto that which rests beneath the surface.
According to Dr. Alan Watts, “We suffer from a hallucination, from a false and distorted sensation of our own existence as living organisms. Most of us have the sensation that ‘I myself’ is a separate center of feeling and action, living inside and bounded by the physical body—a center which ‘confronts’ an ‘external’ world of people and things, making contact through the senses with a universe both alien and strange.” The result of this illusion, “…is that our attitude to the world ‘outside’ us is largely hostile. We are forever ‘conquering’ nature, space, mountains deserts, bacteria, and insects instead of learning to cooperate with them in harmonious order…The hostile attitude of conquering nature ignores the basic interdependence of all things and events—that the world beyond the skin is actually an extension of our own bodies—and will end in destroying the very environment from which we emerge and upon which our whole life depends…” My cure for this hallucination, for this false and distorted sensation of human existence, is a culture shift—facilitated through a lifetime of photo documentation. I dedicate my life to producing compelling images highlighting the infinite instances of joy, wonder, and love which persist through our world of constant confliction. We have seemingly wiped our world of clean of magic, and I intend to produce artwork which restores our sense of wonder and imagination. I believe in miracles.
-Austin Green Weinstein
November 9th, 2012
