Kent Miles

Urban Wabi-sabi

Being a photographer requires that one learn to pay attention to what one sees, especially how that type of attentive seeing makes you feel, and what you feel says about the world we inhabit. Over the last two years Covid19 restrictions has required of us a greater effort to do more with less—less travel, less revenue, less social interaction.

But these same restrictions unlock doors we may not have paid attention to in the past: shadows on pavement, bold and subtle color, texture, pattern, and form found in easily overlooked spaces. In traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi describes a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete". While it is generally understood to apply to the natural world, I try to bring a similar awareness of beautiful or intriguing flaws to the images I make in urban or constructed environments. I want my photographs to reveal just a bit of what I see and feel when when I’m paying attention.