My car came to a screeching halt in Sedona in September 1995. I was moving from the Outer Banks of North Carolina to my home state of Oregon when I decided to spend part of one day seeing Sedona and the Red Rock Country. I banked south off I-40 on a Saturday night and began my descent down Oak Creek Canyon. Something began to shift that night and I intuitively knew I had entered a magical and mystical place. Not Knowing a soul or having seen the area in daylight, I knew by sunrise I was meant to be here for what purpose I did not know. I had arrived with a heavy heart and I felt a sense of peace I had not known for a long time. I slept in my car under a rimrock that night and by noon the next day I had rented a place to live.
Then my Journey began in earnest. I attended a sweat lodge, followed by a solo vision quest into the desert wilderness. These experiences were profound and I began to feel as if I was undergoing thermonuclear change at every level of my being. The magic continued as I photographed the desert landscape on an almost daily basis. I met people and made friends with a local artist and his wife. They in turn introduced me to a man two weeks prior to his death. I only met this man once but offered my assistance to my friend and his wife in setting up his outdoor memorial service. I had heard another man speak of the deceased man in such moving terms that I knew my friend and his wife must be profoundly grieving their loss of him. They graciously accepted my help. I had intended to quietly leave when all preparations had been made but I was asked to photograph the service by the man's friends and family.
The family provided three rolls of film at the service and, after shooting the pictures, I gave the rolls to them at the conclusion. A week later I was invited to look at the prints and especially two that seemed rather extraordinary. One contained a small, pink, opaque, cloud-like image in mid-air in front of the body of my friend responsible for the service. The other image was more an oval, transparent and violet shape surrounding the head of one of the deceased man's grandchildren. I stared at these images, and in all honesty told the widow and family I did not know how this had occurred or what they ultimately meant. I had never seen anything like this in my work before and I could not tell them how it happened, what it was, or what it meant. I simply did not know.
In the months that followed I photographed hundreds of desert images with nothing out of the ordinary occurring until February 22, 1996. It was on that day that I shot the Bell Rock Series now on display at numerous establishments in the area. I had waited all winter to shoot a day like this and I chose Bell Rock as the subject matter. The famous rock formation appeared from a distance as a gateway to the Red Rocks and it is with that perspective in mind that I began the shoot. A winter storm was breaking up with fast moving cloud formations revealing blue sky in contrast with the silver and gray values. The afternoon light was perfect. I worked my way toward the formation and concluded the shoot at its base, followed by a few shots of the Madonna rock formation located near the Chapel of the Holy Cross.
I received the prints from the lab on March 12th and was stunned at what I saw in them.
There appeared values and effects I did not see at the time or through the camera lens.
Lightning like "energy bolts," looping "light entities," values of violet "auras" permeated the
images in a way that seemed to enhance each image rather than detract from them.
Are these pictures simply the result of a technical flaw such as defective film, aperture flare, light leaks, moisture, chemical wash or processing error? Perhaps. However, the values show clearly on the negatives, and an independent lab employee said that to get this many workable images off one roll of film would be like hitting the lottery 10 times in a row. No special processing or lab work was done to produce the images. Many of them have a celestial quality and feel to them that defy rational explanation when viewed from a spiritual perspective. At the very least, it makes one ponder the mysteries of the universe and those found within each of us. It is in that context that they have been released to the public.
I personally believe these photos are a gift of Spirit no matter how they came to be. The images speak for themselves and I believe their purpose and intent are to help others see their own truth through the Light of God's Love. May your own Journey be filled with Love and Light always!
e-mail: 
GaiaVisions c/o Paul Foster
