Our purpose at the Ralph Dunning Studio is to quietly inspire a relaxed approach to life.
Staying relaxed. Being relaxed.
One of the greatest gifts of life is relaxation.
It removes stress.
It inspires a calm mind.
It allows us to be present.
Relaxing, however, is not as easy as it seems.
Our mind is racing and we need to learn to relax.
This takes patience.
This takes practice.
Patience is one of the hardest things in life to embrace and understand because we are programmed to expect what we want immediately. I have been an apparel entrepreneur for 30 years and I still feel that I've only scratched the surface.
My dedication to creating a body of work with photography has grown for the past 15 years. Art, photography and creating are not for everyone. It's important to realize that many people will not like or understand your work.
It doesn’t matter.
It's about the patience it takes to commit to something that you are curious or passionate about. The interesting part is when you have the patience to do this—the universe opens up and people find you. When they do and word spreads organically—not forced—There is no better feeling.
The photograph you see above is so much about patience.
I was in Tofino working on Foreign Rider and every morning and early evening, I would go out with my old Nikon D700. I walked and walked and was taken in by the wind, the sounds of waves crashing and the incredible scent that comes with being beside the ocean. It also rained pretty much the whole time I was there.
It was perfect in every way.
I left early for Cox Bay and just sat on a log watching people surf. Then I watched a couple come out of the trees to my left through a very small passage. I asked them where they were coming from because it didn’t appear to be a path to or from anywhere. They pointed to the top of a massive formation of trees and told me to look for a giant rock that I can hike up to and sit.
They told me it was about a 2km hike. I figured that it would take me 30 minutes to get up there.
It took me over 2 hours to hike up.
There was no path or trail so to speak—just openings and you had to guess which one to take. I took a lot of wrong directions and got stuck in areas I didn’t know how I would get back out of. Huge fallen branches, wet steep rock formations and tons of mud. Finally, I got to the top and sat there for an hour in the rain with my camera in my hand.
It was not the safest of spots but it forced me to be totally present and take in what was in front of me. Taking photographs in these rainy and slippery conditions took a lot of patience because I could feel what was in front of me was special.
Getting up to the top and just finding the entrance that I had no idea existed took patience and stillness as I sat on that log on the beach.
Now I had to get back down a very steep descent in old Blundstone’s and a pair of selvedge jeans I had broken-in to perfection. They hadn’t been in a washing machine once in that 3 years. Hand-washed and hung to dry.
Once I got back on the beach and walked to my car it was now pouring.
I sat in my car and thought about how the experience of that was incredibly beautiful and provided a level of stillness I had rarely felt before. It was a solid, real test of patience—something I have fought for my whole life.
The more I shoot, the more still I become internally.
Still. Calm. Patient. Grateful. Peaceful.
Thanks for reading…
Ralph | The Absence of Motion Project
