The Photography of Dr. Jeff Harper

The ubiquitous Buddhist spirit house is seen everywhere in Thailand.  I spotted this one while walking along a sandy road near the beach just north of Hua Hin in January of 2016.

Spirit houses are tended . . . by someone or many someones.  This particular spirit house was in a vacant field, not too far from several beach houses.

On certain Buddha days, people will adorn a spirit house with flower (or plastic flower) garlands.  The real flower garlands dry up and become, to my eye, even more beautiful.

The untended of the tending garlands . . . . magnificent!

Spirit houses are also places for performing Buddhist spiritual practices and rituals.

Various votive items are placed in these spiritual structures.  Some as help or accouterments of need to the inhabitors of the spirit house, and some as Buddhist veneration.

The color and textures of these dried votive garlands are captivating to me.

Even the plastic garlands, when covered with the age of layers of dust, are beautiful in time.

Time, weather, and craft.

I walked on down the sandy road in the heat.  I was happy that I had stopped to really see what was within this spirit house.

My friend Steve lives just south of Aberdeen and Stonehaven in the tiny Scottish seaside village of Catterline, Scotland.

One of my favorite places to eat is the Creel Inn, Catterline.  It's a 200 year old inn with great food and a fine selection of real ales.

After a significant conversation about literature, philosophy, and being-in-the-world, and after a fine lunch at the Creel Inn washed down with a winter ale, we set out on a walk down to Catterline Cove in a bitter, biting 33f degree driving wind.

The cold wind drove zephyrs across the cove.

Only a handful of fishing boats go out from Catterline Harbour any more . . . mostly to supply the tables of the Creel Inn.

The old Catterline Harbour jetty.

Bitingly cold, and blindingly beautiful.

A rugged North Sea coast spreads north from Catterline.

It was odd lighting: a dark cloud coming from the west, full of snow, darkened the foreground while an early setting winter sun lit tall clouds out across the North Sea.

A fisherman's cottage below the Catterline cliffs.

The old fisherman's cottage had a fine weathered red door.

Fisherman's cottage wall detail.

The old boat winch, lost in the weeds.

We walked back up the hill in the fading winter light.

Steve's old fisherman's cottage, up on the cliffs above the North Sea.

I was walking down a dirt road in Hua Hin, Thailand on New Years' Day 2016 and saw some nice light on this palm trunk.

The colors and patterns, and contrast was superb.

Wonderful pattern and color.

On my recent vacation back home in Thailand I took a walk along the Gulf of Thailand shore to take some seascape shots.

I took a number of photos of the low surf crashing against a retaining wall.  As I zoomed my camera view screen to see if it was a clear shot, I noticed something interesting . . . .

. . . there were astounding patterns and forms in the splashes.

Each wave splash created an ethereal and aesthetic world that passed with the gravity it had defied.

These were not large phenomena, maybe only a foot or two high.

But I was mesmurized by their fleeting beauty.

Patterns in patterns, shapes within shapes.

Fascinating.

Some of the captures were suitable for artistic post-processing, including a black and white study:

[All photos captured with a Fuji X-Ti and 56mm f1.2 lens]

I recently returned home to Thailand for a brief vacation.  While there I stayed in an old hotel with a marvelous stairwell lighting fixture.

The light, color, repeating patterns, and ambiguity of space were astonishing.

I climbed those stairs many times choosing multiple angles and compositions.  Pakkred, Thailand, January 2016. [Fuji X-T1 and 10-24mm f4.0 lens]