"Now & Zen" by Laurence Bouchard

Now and Zen

Laurence Bouchard

Now and Zen

•

Laurence Bouchard

Now and Zen

Laurence Bouchard

TITLE

Now and Zen AUTHOR

Laurence Bouchard PUBLISHING HOUSE

Almalusa, Portugal https://issuu.com/almalusa.org PUBLISHER

Jorge Pinto Guedes DESIGN & PRODUCTION

B&B for Almalusa PUBLICATION DATE

April, 2022

administracao@almalusa.org © Copyright of the Book: Almalusa

PREFACE BY BRENDAN Ó SÉ The act of taking a photograph takes but a fraction of a second. In fact, for the time it takes a second to pass, the shutter could close and shut multiple times at speeds of, let’s say, a thousandth of a second.

A snap! Yet, for a photographer, while they work in fractions of a second, the art of photography consumes all their time.

Looking a lot at a photograph Laurence Bouchard has taken can trick you. You may feel that it is incredible to be able to see, react and compose instantaneously. But the truth is the moment Laurence lifts his camera to capture a scene is much like the moment a restaurant waiter places on your table what a master chef has spent so much time in creating.

composition together in harmony. It can be a single plane traversing the sky overhead, the white smoke trail etching a path on the clear blue sky, but he presents it to us through the filter of raindrops. There is a patience in his work, evident in scenes where architecture dwarfs the human element and the combination of light and shadow tell of the passing and inevitability of time.

Proving the old adage that photography is not about expensive cameras or lenses, Laurence is an innovative photographer and some of his best work has been shot on iPhones, although to look at the work, there are no tell-tale signs of the limitations of these smartphone cameras.

Laurence is meticulous in his craft. He is a student of light and its progression through the day and the year.

He sees this dance through space and learns of how and when it can cause a shadow to fall or lift and from that preparations are in place to be ready to capture light and movement, in what are but fractions of seconds.

There is a search for beauty in his images and a skill to craft beautiful scenes from the ordinary.

There is a curiosity which goes beyond the visual and in his photographs you will encounter emotion that is residual and makes you want to return to his work again and again.

I have long believed that photography is as much about what you cannot see as what you can see. In the photography of Laurence, we are so often presented with ordinary scenes transformed into the extraordinary when he brings the visual elements of

As you do, remember what you are seeing is not reactionary; is not a snapshot, but rather is the work of an artist who studies his visual landscape and imagines how it may look if the element of light is captured correctly in its dance.

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The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

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Not just another digit

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19637

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Alone in the city

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Toltalitarian Tiptoe

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Covid 1984

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The Great Reset

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Walking the dog

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Now and Zen

Laurence Bouchard

Now and Zen

•

Laurence Bouchard