Synchronicity

ANDREW MACPHERSON

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

I believe our existence, the reason we’re here experiencing life’s journey, is for Creation to see its magnificence through our eyes. Photography is both my passion and my way of celebrating its beauty. Daily hikes are my way of staying connected to it, and it was on the trails in the Hollywood Hills that this series began, initially as a diary of the poignant and fleeting exuberance of wildflowers.

In the beginning I’d take pictures with the phone, but they never came out the way I wanted. In a moment of frustration, trying and failing to capture the beauty of an Iris, I jumped onto Amazon and searched for a little and light camera to carry on the hikes. Instantly one popped up for just $12 that had been $900 a year earlier. Sure that it must have been a mistake, I clicked the Buy it Now, and three days later it arrived. That was the first synchronicity.

The phenomenon of synchronicity was initially recognized by Carl Jung, who proposed it was a way of describing a coincidence of events which appear meaningfully related but are not causally connected. I have come to believe it is the evidence that you are in harmony with your soul’s purpose.

The second synchronicity came with the discovery that my serendipitously sourced little camera allowed me to capture the beauty of flowers in an unexpected and unique way. It echoed two of photography’s greats, Weegee, who’s graphic images revealed the underbelly of New York in the 40’s, and Guy Bourdin, who defined Paris fashion in the 70’s. With a conscious nod to their extraordinary work, I started capturing the wildflowers seen on my hikes in earnest. As the days turned to months, the project blossomed into imaging the flora and fauna I’d see on my travels all across the American Southwest.

The third synchronicity took two years to be revealed. When I began this project in 2021, we were in a decade long drought. However, a series of atmospheric rivers that autumn ushered in two exceptionally wet winters, breaking the drought and producing extraordinary super blooms. The subsequent years have been much drier, giving us far fewer wildflowers, those terrible fires, and a stark reminder that water really is the source of all life. When the rains fail life becomes imperiled, but when it falls in abundance, life blooms and blossoms in celebration. I have come to see water as the Goddess of Life.