Photography by John Holliger

07/02/2023

Images of Spring wildflowers at Clifton Gorge

07/02/2023

Spring at Clifton Gorge Ohio

04/27/2021

Beauty. Are you undernourished of Beauty?
I send out several new fine art photographs of natural beauty in my newsletter. just go to www.https://www.photographybyjohnholliger.net/blog and be nourished. subscribe. It's easy.

11/08/2019

Why Do We photograph?

Fine Art Photographer, John Holliger, explores with humor and fun, twelve “Principles of Classic Photography.” Starting with amusing images of a gang of pushing-shoving sports and political photographers, John moves quickly into practical suggestions for photographers with cell phones to professionals who have forgotten how many lenses and camera bodies they have and where they’ve put them.
John’s video of Scottish music, funny lines, with photographs of photographers, illustrate the principles of classic photography. John has gathered the principles into one printed page handout for each person.
Bring a jpeg photograph on a flash drive to get John’s reflections to spur a time of light discussion. Pointy fingers are not allowed. You are safe. These guys will keep everyone smiling. That’s my one rule: Smile, Enjoy, laugh.

Interested? let me know

John Holliger
70 Welshire Court
Delaware, Ohio 43015
www.photographybyjohnholliger.net [email protected] Cell: 740-360-0741

10/17/2019

Sunbear Studio

Announces Current Exhibit of
Fine Art Photography

“A Glorious Excess
Autumn’s Colors”

From the Artist, John Holliger
As the growing season diminishes, nature creates a vivid palette of colors. Billions of buckeyes and silver milkweed cover the land, extravagant beauty of hope with such a flourishing of seeds preparing to rest in winter and then… spring. Autumn, the season of hope.
I live a wandering life, walking before the sun appears, sauntering the paths of deer, the forgotten roads that have no name and do not appear on any map.
In those places I am stopped in my tracks by a stand of trees, dancing streams, and the tiny fingers beginning to uncurl on the new fern of spring.
In the soft light of dawn, mist and dew touch the sacred.
Sunbear Studio Represents
John Holliger
www.photographybyjohnholliger.net
70 Welshire Court Delaware, Ohio 43015
740-360-0741 [email protected]

Sunbear Studio
http://sunbearstudio.com/
Tuesday – Saturday 11:00 – 5:00
22 West Main Street
Westerville, Ohio 614-259-3688

11/28/2018

A new exhibit begins December 1st at Innis House, Inniswood Metro Park, Columbus. Here is the story of the exhibit.

The Many Paths of Life
A Fine Art Exhibit
Imprints on Cotton, Created by John Holliger

“There is no path that goes all the way.” 没有一条路可以走。(Méiyǒu yītiáo lù kěyǐ zǒu.)

Han Shan, a Zen monk (627-649), uttered this simple thought many times in his short life.

David Whyte, from Wales, now living on Bainbridge Island near Seattle carries us along:
No Path
“There is no path that goes all the way.
Not that it stops us looking for the full continuation.
The one line in the poem we can start and follow straight to the end.
The fixed belief we can hold facing a stranger
that saves us the trouble of a real conversation…
But still, there is no path that goes all the way,
one conversation leads to another,
One breath to the next until there’s no breath at all…
And then wouldn’t your life have to start all over again
for you to know even a little of who you had been?”

Antonio Machado (1875 – 1939) probably never met Han or David,
but here is one of his best-known poems:
Traveler, your footprints
“Caminante, no hay camino, “Traveler, there is no road;
se hace camino al andar. you make your own path as you walk.
Al andar se hace el camino, As you walk, you make your own road,
y al volver la vista atrás and when you look back
se ve la senda que nunca you see the path
se ha de volver a pisar. you will never travel again.
Caminante, no hay camino Traveler, there is no road;
sino estelas en la mar.” only a ship's wake on the sea.”

Most Recently, Parker Palmer, a Philadelphia Quaker (born 1939) looking back many decades noticed how confused and lost he was in his 20’s. In his 30’s one mentor came into his life for a while, then moved on once. Parker had learned what his mentor had to give him.
Another mentor appeared and ask him different questions but so right in that moment. Again this mentor deepened Parker’s sense of who he was becoming. With this new clarity the mentor invited Parker into a new direction, a new path. One after another they arrived and left. And then there were no more. He realized his leading was to become a mentor for other young men who were as lost and confused as he had been.

David Whyte gives us the pivotal question.

Where do I start?

“Start with
The ground you know,
The pale ground
Beneath your feet…
Start with the first
Thing
Close in
The step
You don’t want to take.
Don’t take the second step
Or the third,
Start with the first thing
Close in,
The step you don’t want to take”

Our paths, like mentors, can guide us so far, and then disappear.

Santiago by David Whyte

“The road seen,
then not seen,
the hillside hiding
then revealing
the way you should take…”

You will be drawn to one work of art in this exhibit.
What path or memory is evoked as you contemplate this work?

10/05/2018

The Beauty of the Meadow

10/05/2018

A Threshold Not of Our Making


From thoughtfully crafted words,
Within hand-thrown pottery,
A presence
reaches out
to you,
a gentle breeze
opening a space within.

Sometimes
a silent whisper,
“stop.”

You put down your brush,
Your needle,
Your stylus.

You do not know the source of this sotto voce
from the deep within,
your creating image before you,
your rough poem,
The first lines of your cross-cut stitching,

Presences open a space within you,
A new horizon
A faint deer path
Leading to a threshold.

The decision is yours.

You have lived an illusion;
You can control your attentiveness
Where you want to go.

But now
wide-eyed,
You did not create this open space
This new horizon
The almost visible deer path
Leading to a threshold
You could never have imagined in your world of dreams.

The decision is yours.

When I lay a chaos of prints before me,
an awareness goes its own way,
to certain prints and not others.

They speak to each other,
where they belong
to tell the story.

Your part in making the story is humbling,
As is the telling of your story,

Like this one.

When the potter sits down at a potter’s wheel
for the first time,
age twenty,
a space silently opens within.

A decision about this unexpected horizon
Is before him.

The young man,
Knows immediately this is what he wants to do
for the rest of his life,

Before he knows anything about
Skillfully throwing a pot.

When I stand with
my legs interwoven with the legs of the tripod,
my legs and feet root themselves in the earth,
my upper body weaves and tilts,
angles and dances freely in an open space
I have not opened.

Our energy follows where our attention leads the way.

When making a path in a gallery,
an exhibit,
a museum,
in solitude,

take note,

the sensations and impulses.

Our awareness goes its own way to reveal the faint path.

Be attentive to way opening,

this space you did not create

will change everything.

What will you do?

John Holliger©2018

09/30/2018

Why are you slowing down?

A presence,
a livingness, reach out for our attentiveness
from thoughtfully crafted words,
hand-thrown pottery,
a painting that has had may resting places, sometimes lasting months, before the way opens again.

When looking at a work of art,
including yourself,
a work of art has many resting places.
Two forms of presence are woven together;
your own presence
and the livingness of the work of art.
Both,
as one,
may softly long for your attentiveness.
Both presences often open a space within you,
a space invites a decisive change of direction.

We imagine we control our attentiveness,
but our awareness has a life of its own.

Where has your attentiveness gone, on its own?

When I lay a series of prints on the floor before me,
my awareness often goes
on its own
to certain prints and not others.
When the potter sat down at a potter’s wheel for the first time,
age twenty,
a space opened within.
The young man,
now in that space,
realizes this is what he wants to do
for the rest of his life.

When I stand behind the tripod
my legs interwoven with the legs of the tripod,
my legs and feet rooting themselves into the earth,
my upper body weaves and tilts,
angles and dances freely in an open space,
I have not opened.

Our energy goes where our attention goes.
When making a path in a gallery,
an exhibit,
a museum,
in your solitude,
take note of your thoughts and sensations,
impulses and nudging feelings.
Our awareness goes its own way to open space within us.
Why am I slowing down?
To be attentive to Way opening within,
to note the space that will change the direction of my life,
if I consider
what this newly open space means.
John Holliger

08/01/2018

" Zen Vision" can be seen on my blog at https://www.weebly.com/editor/main.php #/

Welcome to Photography by John Holliger. To subscribe to this Blog, click here.

04/06/2018

John Holliger is a professional commercial and nature photographer in Delaware, Ohio. He specializes in fine art photography of Ohio and Michigan.