Haiku & Wabi-Sabi

Haiku in English is a spare, minimalist poem that employs two phrases to express a poignant moment in the writer's life. Some haiku express a sentiment about transience, that all things, including the poet's life, must end.

rambling through old age –
she looks behind
to see if I'm still there

~ Ken Jones

Photographers try to frame images that simplify the chaos of nature. In that sense, photography is like haiku – a minimalist presentation of a moment in the photographer's visit to a place.

About the Image on the Right

Last fall, I visited an auto wrecker's yard because I had seen some compelling images taken of old automobiles by my photographer friends. As you can likely imagine, the yard immense wasteland, broken glass, pools of oil, piles of rusting and broken cars – not a likely place to search for beauty. Yet within that ruined landscape, the scene on the right caught my breath. It represents aging and transience through an aged berry bush that has grown into a well-rusted automobile. It's not what we think of as a nature scene. I spent a half-hour framing the scene and trying to capture a form to represent the beauty and the light in just the right moment of saturation to highlight the rust and plant colors. And after photographing this and several other scenes, I was glad for having made the visit. My name for the image is "Fall Romance".

Ken Jones' thoughts on haiku, haibun and Zen Buddhism and his haiku-genre books can be found on his zen website.

Auto Wrecker's Yard, Ontario, Canada