My love for photography and the creative process as always brought me peace and kept me going. Sometimes that can sway like a tree branch in the wind. People will steal what you do. Business people will promise you the golden calf to get you to do what They want. They end of the day the Artist will continue to creative and evolve. What drives an artist comes from within. Whether it's a haunting past, or some inner drive and passion, his/her fire is eternal. Stealing someone's else's stuff is like stealing someone else's tree branch on fire. Once the branch is consumed you will have to find another branch to steal. The artist will find paper, coal, gas or wood, they know how to ignite it.
(C) Jack Roman

Living in short moments between the cameras shutter
Brief moments of quiet before the shutter is released again
A dark cavern
Waiting for the next moment
The next exposure
Refueling in the dark quiet
Click after click after click
Soon the refueling station needs to be replenished
Digging to find a deeper well
A lake of calm I can take a drink from
Sipping from a mug to remember
The dreams
The excitement
The passion
Digesting
Or trying to
Stomach Is turning with things swallowed as an adult
Taking on what was not part of us
Now shifting thru the dirt
Having lived thru the pain and gained the wisdom
Seeking to reclaim
Reintroduce
Mix old with the new
Creating a new glass to sip from

"My camera all too often an interpretive box that allows me a glimpse into connecting with another Spirit. Even if only for a Split Second."

Deep in the caverns
Mystic Rhythms course thru my body
Continuous Explosions of light ripping thru my spirit
Fire and Water mix in a pit of chaos
Buried in the vapors of emotions
Sources of eternal passion and pain
Pleasure and terror
Isolated
Claws used for climbing out, dig and rip flesh
The empty chamber of the heart is used to bring life
Passion is flowing river of lava
Destroying and creating simultaneously
A blade cutting the skin
Cracking ribs to allow more space for the soul to radiate

Imagination swirling around clouds of doubt
A pin cushion heart that feels
Losing the battles
Fighting an evil King who has jars of happiness locked away
Escaping
Floating down the river of conformity
Alive
But not living
A crystal heart being hammered by demands
The worlds sand dulling the shine
A puppet growing tired of the puppeteer
Yet no muscle mass to command movement
Pushing a shark in a fish bowl
Sleeping in a coffin
Trying to accept death
The light on the horizon always seems to stay on the horizon

The warmth and fire of the sun
The cool mysticism of the moon
They are of the same energy
Yet "Night" & "Day" apart
Complex roller coaster of galaxies riding along in my heart
Striving to better
Getting closer to perfection
While imagination questions the process
My favorite time of day is dusk
To my right to sky is exploding with reds and oranges hues
To my left quietly creeping in a blanket of mystery approaching
A ball of fire to my right
An ocean of darkness with a touch of royal to my left
Above my head countless shades live
Looking right to left
It's impressive to witness the sky's ability to hold space for it all
Imaginations fire driving to be set free
Busting thru the clouds
It's blazing fury determined to reach out
Licking the midnight blue
The cool depth of perfectionism squeezing the fire while the sky erupts with sun beams defined by the dark
Is it the madness of the darkness that makes us brilliant?
Dusk is my favorite time
Sometimes watching the smoothest transitions
Pondering the ease in which it blends it all
Sometimes witnessing violent explosions of contrast
I close my eyes
Feeling the Sun & Moon Dance in my Heart

My mind is full of streams of consciousness
Rivers and streams
Sometimes vast oceans
Sometimes stagnant ponds
Under the surface I find the most interesting ones
Water rich in minerals and nutrients
River beds untouched
Flowing yet surface unbroken
Mirror like glass
Yearning for touch
A finger slowly pushes in
Moving past the surface tension
As the hand sinks further in
The water rejoices and dances around 5 fingers
10 gateways and a multitude of swirling dancing energy
That's just 1 hand
What about 2
What about a whole body
What about a city
Our consciousness
A complex urban jungle of thoughts feelings and desires
How would it feel to submerge it
Allowing the water to caress in combinations never thought of
There are streams of consciousness with surfaces never breached
Some as small as a capillary
Some as large as a light trail of a nearby galaxy as it spirals into a black hole
Some Itches have never been scratched
Rooms inside my mind unvisited
Some rich like the Taj Mahal
Others abandon ghettos
Each one containing their own unique beauty
Each one harboring untold secrets
Treasures are boundless
Just not in plain sight
Seeking sweetness on your lips
Turning the crank
Lowering the bucket deep into my well
Take a sip of my essence

Imagination has been my best friend
It's kept me company
Held my hand when I was afraid
A shoulder to cry on
Sitting in my creative box
A vast array of colors to choose from
A world of endless possibilities
No matter how hard I try all the crayon colors seem unable to make it past the threshold
Worlds collide
Reality restrains sink its teeth in
Gnawing at the heart
Wings try to take flight
Chains of doubt gnawing the imagination
Cold history icing a warm heart
Formalities casting an uptight shadow
Like a straight jacket for the soul
A drop of poison
In the pond of the mind
With no water to replenish the pond
The small drip can effectually contaminate the well

That feeling of being known
Not just a couple general characteristics
But some of the nuances as well
I am simple and yet in many ways not
It takes time to learn each of our pathways and crevices
Some tunnels run deep
A complex network
We can not begin to understand or remember 1/2 those routes with a simple hello
That shit takes time
Moments walking along together
We begin to understand some of each other's maps
Not 2 dimensional
A living breathing evolving 3D chart
Not all walks take us down into the caverns
Simple walks down trails filled with green grass and beautiful flowers
We are complex ever growing and changing beings
So time spent walking together smelling flowers
Simultaneously hatchets cut crude courses in the jungle as we find and explore new inner sections of our beings
Some among us never pick up a shovel or hatchet to dig deeper and explore the mines below
Simple mother fuckers
Just always walking along smelling flowers and at worst maybe enduring an occasional thunderstorm
Now my judgements aside
At times there is a beauty to such simplicity
However the limitations of conversation and being witnessed are huge
You can not talk about rubys or diamonds
Those only exist deeper underground
You could not share the loss of breath over tunnels collapsing
It would be like if my being was a single galaxy and I tried to have a conversation with a piece of paper
Maybe it's a pretty unique hand made parchment and there can be an a brief moment of acknowledgment
Although the drawback being, the Galaxy also wants to share and been seen
Gravity
Shooting comets
Pulsars
Conflicts of solar systems colliding
There in lays a huge offset
However once a certain level of awarness is reached understanding happens even if exact circumstances differ
If your system had dual Suns and the gravity stretching, dynamicly pulling ur tides and emotions in different directions
With my system not having dual Suns
Yet I understand the effects of gravity on my tides in my systems
So empathy is present
Comparing my consciousness to a galaxy in no way makes me supreme
There are more systems out there in unique combinations I have yet to even think of
But the understanding is there
However I do struggle
Quantum mechanics for example
Those little fuckers behave unlike all the others
Still not 100% embodying my own influence over them
So in any event
I contuine to explore and develop my own personal map
While seeking fellow Intergalactic Soul Pirate Explorers
Something like Indiana Jones meets Journey to the Center of the Earth meets Deep Space 9
To participate and discuss our journeys
To share our treasures
While helping each of us to better understand our individual pitfalls

The Hope that things will get better
Is the disappointment that makes it worse
I can feel my greatness evaporating
Leaving an empty vessel
Barely a ghost in a shell
Momentum as kept my limps moving
Slowing down
Ideas seem to be but a shadow of my  former self
Laying in a graveyard
Feelings digging in
Witnessing the beauty of the sky
While death and decay seeps in
Filling the void left by Hopes Broken Promise