Circles

of

Return

A Portfolio of Palladium and Cyanotype Prints

from Pinhole Photographs

by

Jan Kapoor

Decamber, 1996

Autumn

Memory

Spirituality

The Cycle of the Seasons

Mystical Interconnectionsof Man and Earth

The Coexistence of Past and Present

Death

Transformation

Rebirth

This project began as a straightforward, historical portrayal of time, past and present, in the small North Georgia town of Roswell.

To a degree unusual in post-Sherman Georgia, Roswell's ante-bellum past has been spared and is lovingly nurtured by its people.

Summer's Dirge: A Fragment

Bring dead flowers for the maiden's head,
Bring dead flowers for her feet;
They mind us of the hopes that led
Us on, with gay and gladsome tread,
To meadow lands, where ruin spread
Are not for passers fleet.
Bring dead flowers for the maiden's breast,
In silence lay them down;
Then lay her pallid form to rest
Where earth has donned her crimson vest
In the gay chamber of the West,
While Autumn claims her crown.

W.E.P.

Click on small images to see a larger version

As I began making these photographs, larger, more universal themes surfaced, manifesting themselves with a power which could not be ignored.
The southern landscape is not pristine virginal wilderness. Hunting ground and home of generations, both Native American and European, it is a palimpsest, containing many layers of meaning, of time and traditions.

Trails developed from animal tracks; roads evolved from old trails. In the woods, crumbling walls merge with the earth, hidden in lush vegetation.. The land has been surveyed, mapped, parceled out and named, over and over again.

Much has been forgotten, much has faded, much has been transformed beyond recognition; yet to those who listen, the land is a speaking presence and living witness of the past.

The Days Gone By

By D. Hardy, Jr.

How fair and beautiful they seem,
The days, the days gone by,
Their light is resting on us yet,
Like star-gleams from the sky;
Their memories come thronging 'round,
As fancies in a dream,
Or mist-shapes, that, at eventide,
Sail down upon the stream.

We ever love to wander back
To childhood's sunny hours,
When earth seemed all so beautiful,
Our life-path filled with flowers;
Out from their lone sepulchral halls
A thousand fancies start,
Then, like the hues of sunset skies,
The fleeting dreams depart.

Send comments, questions and remarks to: jkapoor@jankapoor.net