- Benjamin Collins
Dynamic Stillness
When I listen to Sunburst, I'm instantly brought back to the peace of eating breakfast in the dining hall. I'd see what the day ahead would bring while listening to the sprawling indie-jazz album.
Steam would rise from my coffee, illuminated by the sharp winter sun. When I'd sit down from filling my second cup, friends would join me.
A few muffins and laughs later, we'd all pack up and go our separate ways, some to class, some to meetings, some to the mountains.
It feels like yesterday yet feels like another life.
Now it's summer and the sun shines when it doesn't rain. I find myself coming back to the album while sitting on my front porch. My feet warm in the soft summer sun as my coffee slowly fills me with motivation to start the work day.
Cam's music brings me a peace that no other music has. His album is an invitation to take a moment and exist. The first half feels like a inhale, taking in the world around me, collecting my thoughts. The second half, a sustained exhale. Letting the world accelerate as the sun rises higher in the sky and the day begins.
We had been waiting a long time to work together. Cam and I had been in contact for months before we finally were able to make it happen. For the shoot, we decided on Leddy Park beach, a stretch of sand on the banks of Lake Champlain. The sunsets on the lake are unlike any others in the world. Night after night, the purple, pink, and blue sky settles over the mountains across the lake.
These photos contain what I like to call a dynamic stillness.
There's a peace to the photos, the calm light and color palette was intentional. I wanted the photographs to have an airy feel. To feel like there are so many places to go to. Yet, when you're at Leddy Park watching the sun set, there is nowhere in the world you'd rather be.
The water under Cam's feet adds motion to the photographs. A rhythm to the sunset.
Gentle waves rise as the sun falls.
For me, when I look into these photographs, I want to continue deeper. I want to explore those mountains, swim around the lake, fly through the pastel sky.
Peace sits within this view. It sits within the music coming from Cam's instruments. And it sits within the album, Sunburst.
I like to think it exists within these photographs as well.
By Ben M. Collins
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