Alvin G. Cash
Through the travels and the discerning eye of the author, you are about to witness two incredible journeys across the United States and beyond. The first is an exquisite foray into the lush wilderness and the undersea worlds of this great planet. See flowers, wildlife, and our material selves in vivid high-resolution photography. The second journey is a delicious verbal adventure into the messages and inspirations that can be found in every flower, every animal, and every circumstance of our daily lives. Absorb messages filled with powerful advice, unique observations, and just plain common sense.
So, does a picture have to be worth a thousand words? No - not if it’s described in the Japanese form of poetry known as haiku, an art form in which a vision or thought is completely expressed in seventeen syllables. This ancient style of poetry is the epitome of verbal efficiency due to its brevity, subtlety and diversity. You will find more thought and inspiration in these seventeen syllables than in any thousand-word description anywhere.
As a result, here we have a wonderful marriage of photography and poetry – two incredible journeys to take you to the far corners of the western hemisphere, as well as to the far reaches of inspiration. Be prepared to use and enjoy the beauty of high quality photography with its accompanying inspirational messages for many of the ups and downs of our everyday lives.
Al Cash lives in West Palm Beach, Florida, with his bride, Martha. As a working couple, they still try to find time for adventure as a means to enhance their marriage, and to collect memories through the lens of an ever-present camera. From the tropical Caribbean to the frozen tundra of Alaska, they have captured thousands of images of the most mundane to the most unusual in this precious country of ours.
The poet in Al has always lived in a little corner of his mind, somewhere between work and play, somewhere between the real and the imagined. Being a man of few but exacting words, haiku became an excellent venue in which to express the inspiration and poignancy available from the images of the world which surrounds us. It is his hope that you will appreciate not only the beauty of our land and seas through the photographs, but also the relationship between the image and its accompanying haiku.
This work began its journey with no goals or destinations, with no witnesses, and no spectators. It echoes with the steel drums of the Caribbean, walks the paths of small local parks, rides into the bowels of the Grand Canyon and sails the inner passage of Alaska’s coastline. Unbeknownst to the author, these adventures were the groundwork and ultimate inspiration for the photographic story you now hold in your hands.
The photographs that document this great journey are, in some instances, mere snapshots – afterthoughts of an indefinable impulse to capture the moment as a random recollection. Several photos were quite deliberate in their set-up, lighting, and focal attributes, and were meant to preserve the visual and emotional impact of the setting at that time.
From the beginning, which actually goes back to 1984 with the partial lunar eclipse, every photograph had its own story and its own significance. However, those stories and their significance had a small audience. It became painfully obvious that the photographs alone would not have the appeal and the substance to warrant sharing on a scale as grand as a publication. But, I still felt they had to be shared.
It wasn’t until the winter of 2005 did the concept of a manuscript begin to gel. Realizing the photographs needed a presentation with greater substance than their own merit, I began to look deeper into the images. What transpired was a complete melding of my own natural positive outlook and the Japanese poetry style known as haiku.
On the following pages are the results of that delicious mixture of imagery and poetry. What has evolved into book form is my desire to share the stories and significance of these photographs acquired across many years. This has been my sincerest desire - to reveal their larger stories – those of the often overlooked details of nature, the thrill of adventure, and the poignancy of everyday life.
