David McElroy

For my entire life, I’ve struggled to bridge the gap between two worlds. I’ve had one foot in the scientific, material world and another foot in the mystical, spiritual world. They both felt real and true to me, but the two worlds seemed to be at constant war with one another.

I feel those two worlds come together when I experience beauty and when I create art. When I see the trees of a forest in front of me and feel their color and light and shadow hit me like a pounding symphony, I feel as though I’m been transported to another world while I photograph it and then create the finished piece.

This place (in the photo above) exists in the material world. I saw it with my own eyes when I photographed it Friday afternoon. But my rendition of what it looked like and what it felt like to me — that’s something which didn’t come from the camera. That came from something mystical which I can’t explain.

I experience the collision of the material and spiritual worlds when I create something. There have been a few other times I’ve experienced it, too, through transcendent spiritual experiences which thrill me and frighten me. For years, I’ve needed to find a way to unify these two worlds — and an elderly Czech psychiatrist might have just pointed me in the right direction.

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