Twilight Card

Michael Mendizza

Michael is an author, educator, documentary filmmaker and founder of Touch the Future, a nonprofit learning design center. He is the author of two books: Magical Parent-Magical Child, the Art of Joyful Parenting, co-authored with Joseph Chilton Pearce, applies research on optimum states to parenting and to education and Flowering, a collection of dramatic floral images and quotes by Krishnamurti.

His visual arts began early. Being mildly dyslexic as a child symbolic language was challenging. Compensating he picked up a camera at age twelve and began his photographic carrier. His technical skills were sharpened working in high school and college in a local retail camera store and shot weddings on weekends. This lead to a degree in film, television and theater which evolved into independent documentary production throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, North Africa and India.

His current photography portfolio emerged from the simple and personal pleasure of just taking pictures. Then large format printers became available and he could go big, something he always wanted to do but the cost was prohibited. Now it’s not. Opening the gallery provided walls for display and a steady audience. With some amazement others loved the images he loved and here we are.

It is the composition, a way of seeing that shapes his style, often relying on pattern, shape, implied movement, texture and dramatic natural lighting. The Zen-Garden seascapes are especially unique. A precise combination of shutter speed and time of day, moments after the sunsets, creates a paintbrush effect that captures the energy and movement of the ocean, contrasted to stationary rocks. This is, in fact, what the Zen Garden represents, raked sand being the ocean moving effortlessly around rocks, a philosophy and a peaceful way of life.