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As a photographer, Paul Davies
(London, 1962) is inspired by two key, and interconnected, sources: nature and
Zen Buddhism. The great Japanese Zen master Ehei Dogen (1200-1253) wrote: “It is not only that there is
water in the world, but there is a world in water”. The series Aguas, a continuing body of work which
started in the summer of 2009, is at the heart of the photographer’s attempt to
look as deeply as possible into this world of water.
What we see when we look at water is
not only the water itself but the relationship of the water to its environment.
The colour of the water we see depends on the sky, the presence or absence of
sun and clouds. To look at water is also to see reflections. We look at a pool
or a river water and all that we are seeing is water. And yet we may see trees
in the water. The trees are not there, yet they are there. As we look at these
reflections, we might reflect on the relationship between the trees and the
water. The trees depend for their lives upon the water in which we see their
reflections.
The Aguas series, and the author’s
photography practice, is inspired too by a contemporary Zen master, the late
John Daido Loori (1931-2009), who was also a nature photographer who studied
with Minor White. Describing the meditative attitude to be adopted before
approaching the subject of a photograph, Daido Loori writes:
If we
are patient, letting go of thoughts and letting the mind settle down, then the hidden faces of the objects rise
to the surface, and subtlety and richness return.
A shift takes place, a resonance appears that allows for real intimacy with the subject.
Many of the
photographs in this series were taken after the author had spent time sitting
alongside the waters that would be photographed, practising zazen zazen (meditation zen), and maybe
thereby become somewhat more intimate with the subject. A substantial part of
the series comprises photographs taken at the Zen River monastery in the north
of Holland, which the photographer visits regularly to study with Zen master Tenkei
Roshi. Other photographs were taken in Spain, in the parks and squares of
Madrid, in Gijón, and in mountains near his adopted home town of San Lorenzo de
El Escorial.
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