Suppose we say say that it {wilderness} invokes nostalgia ... it means something lost and something still present, something remote and at the same time intimate, something buried in our blood and nerves, something beyond us and without limit. It is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only home we shall ever know {as Carl Sagan alluded to in his fine, eloquent commencement address of which the infamous excerpt has been since referred to as the Pale Blue Dot}, the only paradise we ever need – if only we had the eyes to see.

I was really impressed by my sister's writing and, though my crap photography pales in compare, it seemed for some reason like a good idea to pair the two together. We'll see how it turns out. Cheers.

I've decided to go against the trend of all articles concerning The Veils, and include a picture of Sophia Burn instead of Finn Andrews - as wonderful as his songwriting/singing is, she writes the awesome blog posts on The Veils' MySpace page, and she's nicer on the eyes.

Many years ago, in my hopes I would someday have enough images to compile together into one volume, I came upon the idea to combine two perhaps unconnectable elements – the prose of a great writer, who also happens to be my confidant and sister, along with my feeble attempts at photography. I was unsure of at the time – and am at this moment still uncertain – if this could be passed off with any measure of success, the aim being to be the very disconnection of the elements; their separateness. At best, two individual impressions of a time, a place, of a being – anything. There would of course be some sort of obscurity to the reasoning, but so it would have to be.

The idea would certainly not have been brought to fruition had there not been a defining moment that rekindled the thought – an afternoon of perfect light while traveling through Utah (now three years past). I have worked for so many years strictly from a black-and-white perspective, looking for light and contrast as black-and-white film captures it, that I have not "seen" in colour for as long and thought perhaps I had nearly lost the ability. But on an afternoon in early October (2005) while traveling across southeast Utah, I was very aware of the changing atmospheres around me – a storm had been brewing from the south and chasing us northeast as we went, finally catching up to us while passing through Arches National Park.

The light was like none I had ever seen, but would have been impossible to capture with black-and-white film. And so it was with a stroke of luck I had a measly digital camera with me that was able to capture – as best it could – the subtleties of the light and contrasts that surrounded me. I was struck with this excitement that only happens when light and essence and composition all come together in one moment and was busily composing and recomposing as everything laid out before me changed from one moment to the next. I hoped I had captured something spectacular, but it was only after getting home and reviewing some of the images that I realized, more or less and if only to myself, I had. And so I was again struck with the idea to put together a volume of my work to date, and to do so by combining the abstractness of my sister's writings, other quotations I have come across over the years that seemed appropriate and my own photography.

And such then is this volume.

An attempt to bring together two very different viewpoints and insights. One through a pen. One through a lens. It may not be much, may not make sense, may seem absurd – and hopefully it is all of those things and more.

In memory of ATHEISTS IN FOXHOLES and the countless FREETHINKERS who have served this country with honor and distinction. Presented by the national FREEDOM FROM RELIGION FOUNDATION with hope that in the future humankind may learn to avoid all war.

San Francisco
September 30,1925

My Dear Virginia,

During the last few weeks I have been thinking and thinking mighty hard. I have thought of my music and what I am to make of it; I have thought of my future life, and what it will amount to; I have thought of present conditions and circumstances and of future ones as well. I have tried to work everything out with a reasonable mind, and with a fair appreciation of "values." I have arrived at some rather tremendous conclusions. Here they are:

I. It will require six to ten years to complete my musical education, or rather, to bring it to a point where I may call myself an Artist. I am just beginning to realize this. You know, I have done very few years of serious musical work, and there is so much to be done.

II. If I come forward at this time as a teacher and enter into the work with the seriousness required to handle responsibilities, my musical study will be almost entirely arrested. To undertake my profession at this early stage would mean that I would be but a neighborhood teacher – nothing more. I would earn a precarious and uncertain living, and I would be filled with sorrow and bitterness that I had not perfected my Art to the limit of my ability. And this condition of heart and finances would bring naught but misery on those dependent on me.

III. I know above almost all things that a fine instrument is essential to my artistic development. None that I had were of sufficient quality for my work.

IV. I know that if I teach, I must have a proper studio – an impossibility at the present time especially in view of all the other considerations.

V. I know that God has bestowed upon me a great gift, which in itself is a most tremendous responsibility. To neglect it would be criminal indeed.

VI. I know that for the last several years I have been entirely unaware of, and passive towards, my abilities; I was living in a dream world, no real plans, ideas or objects to work for.

VII. I realize now more than ever before my duty to my mother and father. They have given me everything – I have returned nothing. I must present them with accomplishment. I must prove worthy of them.

These are conclusions based on deep and earnest thought. Carpenter says, "It is all straightforward." That is what I wish this letter to be. I have put all the energies of my mind into these thoughts; I have weighed advice; I have called pure reason to the fore. I feel deep in my heart that what I have written here is a correct expression of a sincere and reasonable line of thought, and that it is righteous. I say this in justice to you, to my parents, to the world, and to myself. My life now unfolds before me. What do I see? Years of painstaking work – patient plodding, towards the perfection of my music. Fulfillment of my life's duty. For if I do not carry my Art to the crest of my ability, my life shall be blasted and the lives of all dependent upon me. "To thine own self be true." – I dedicate my life to my Art.

I have taken the first step on the new road: I have purchased a Mason and Hamlin Grand Piano, the finest instrument that money can buy. So confident was I of the righteousness of my new resolve that I ordered the piano into the home with almost religious awe and reverence, as a symbol of my new life. I shall put all my heart into my work: some day I shall be an artist. Stretching far into the great, mysterious future I see –

"The path that God would send me shining fair."

I know you are sensible, and will understand all that I have written here. It has been a tremendous thing for me to do, but I have done it, and I give myself unto the mercy of God, with the prayer that He will, in His perfect understanding, direct and use my life for the good of all the world.

I trust that I shall hear from you soon.

With love,
Ansel

Oh, how one wishes sometimes to escape from the meaningless dullness of human eloquence, from all those sublime phrases, to take refuge in nature, apparently so inarticulate, or in the wordlessness of long, grinding labor, of sound sleep, of true music, or of a human understanding rendered speechless by emotion!

1) Keep it short: unless you're a blood relation, my boss or happen to be in a position to single-handedly affect mine and the company's net worth, do not expect me to read more than, say, a hundred words, max. Save the deep thoughts and purdy paragraphs for your PowerPoint presentation at the carefully-scheduled meeting I'll make my very best effort to skip.

2) Avoid responding unless required: Howard from accounting probably just wanted to knock one more thing off his to-do list; he really doesn't need to hear back from you. Most of the time, not responding is the polite thing to do.

3) Resist the "Reply All" temptation: ninety-nine percent of the time, it's better to respond only to the sender. Do all 143 recipients on this mass e-mail really need to see your three-word response ("Got it, thanks!"). Do we all have to endure your laborious deconstruction of the sender's assumptions and bear witness to your brilliance and acumen? Remember: with your perceived cleverness, your boss's email is filling up with more useless crap.

4) No gossip: Never say anything personal about anyone–or about yourself–in an e-mail. Period. E-mail eliminates that time-honored, age-old, rock-solid defense against accusations of gossip and slander: bold-faced lying. It takes approximately eighty-four minutes for an incriminating e-mail to go completely viral, zipping across three continents before boomeranging back.

5) Think twice before forwarding: Ever had one of those colleagues who bad-mouth everyone else? He may be entertaining at first, but it doesn't take long to realize he's probably bad-mouthing you to anyone who'll listen. Don't be that guy. Nobody trusts him. Just like nobody trusts the guy who blindly forwards e-mail that was clearly intended to benefit from some degree of confidentiality. Forwarding e-mail can be a serious violation of trust. And while we're on the subject of forwarding: nobody likes the dude who indiscriminately forwards every lame joke, photo, or time-sucking YouTube video he stumbles across.

6) No lewd comments, sexual innuendo, or off-color humor: I think this is big so read this next sentence carefully: Never send anything you wouldn't be comfortable hearing read back to you in an entirely different context. Like your boss's office. Or a courtroom. Just ask Mark Foley. Deleting the e-mail you've just sent or received only creates the illusion of security; the fact is, it's probably still on your company's servers. Google Laura Zubulake if you don't believe me. So here's a tip: anytime you find yourself tempted to include the abbreviation NSFW in the subject line, you might want to think twice before hitting "send."

7) Avoid sarcasm: It does not translate well in e-mail. Which is why otherwise decent adults wind up resorting to winky-eyed emoticons (see below) and coming across like sarcastic 14-year-old girls.

8) Recognize that actual human contact still has a place in the world: E-mail is so efficient and pervasive that we–particularly the more passive-aggressive/confrontation-averse among us–tend to use it for everything. But it's a terrible medium for delivering bad news or conducting arguments, where tone of voice, facial expression and body language communicate as much as words.

9) Beware the BCC: This hideous little function can be useful when sending an e-mail to multiple recipients who might not want their addresses published to others on the list, but if you're just trying to sandbag some of your colleagues by secretly including a few folks on the communication, your cover will be blown when–not if–one of your BCC recipients responds by hitting "reply all."

10) Never EUI: That's "E-mail Under the Influence"–of alcohol, drugs, or particularly anger. If I'm exceedingly pissed off, I'll type my rants without having put any names in the address field. Nine times out of ten, I delete the e-mail after I've vented. The other time, I'll send the e-mail to myself so I can read it over later–and maybe I'll wind up editing out some of the bile and sending the message along. But if you've ever experienced that sickening feeling you get immediately after having sent an ill-conceived e-mail, you know what I'm talking about. It is a uniquely modern sensation so distinctive it gets its own word: e-gret.

But we little know until tried how much the uncontrollable there is in us, urging across glaciers and torrents, and up dangerous heights, let the judgment forbid as it may.