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Unscripted Lives

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The Injustice of Poverty

Matthew Irving December 6, 2019

We see the inequality. The unfairness; The world has left you behind, staggering across the desert. Hungry and alone; chasing after an idea that the slow march of time will one day stop for you to catch up.

We hear you cry out, begging to be heard. Pleading to an unseen creator. “Help me”, you shout. Your neck craned upward toward the heavens. Your voice drown out by the bitter winds of selfishness and greed.

We feel your heartache at the injustice of poverty. The painful recognition that you have done nothing to deserve the life that you live, that simply because you came into existence you will be trapped until you die.

We act as though you don’t exist, placated by the thought that your time will come in the afterlife, when the unseen creator will bestow upon you the glory that you deserve.

We refuse to admit that we are wrong.

Tags niger, fuji, instax, cameltrain, photography, africa, nomad, tuareg, film, hardship, injustice, inequality, famine, hunger, greed, unfairness, desert, camels, creator, help

Something Greater

Matthew Irving September 11, 2017

What moves us to that moment of silence?
When we stop and listen to the world while it speaks to us.
When, instead of rushing through life,
We stand with the stillness of a mountain, breathing in the sunset,
Letting the evening light fill our lungs,
The warmth wash over our body.

Eyes closed, we feel the flowers sway side to side through ribbons of light.
Mountains fade over time, only to rise again.
Life and death interweave, recycling themselves over again.

Our awe for the immensity of the world around us and what it feels like to find love are reflections,
Identical emotions running parallel through the deepest reaches of our hearts.
An overwhelming sense of belonging to something greater.
Filled with an inescapable feeling that we are not hopeless.
A fear we confront when faced with the silence of the unknown.

Tags bozeman, deep creek, fire, flowers, fuji, medium format, montana, old burn, rolleiflex, unscripted lives, velvia, wildfire, wildflower, wildland fire

Heaven and Earth

Matthew Irving September 26, 2016

Washington - Heaven and earth pass before us, arcing out across the skies, and yet we are transfixed on what is out of reach. The inconsequential buries us beneath a mound of insecurities, consuming our lives but we rearrange our priorities to accommodate. For what? Is it isolation that we seek? Is it solitude?

When we wake do we dream of the eternal, or do our dreams waste away in a sea of likes and comments? Our infinite wasted, our potential squandered. We float through space, among the stars and galaxies, selfishly consuming the vast quantity of garbage that inhabits the void, but the world rotates and we continue our journey on an unknown path.

The path leads us into the woods, walking through the trees, feeling the mist of water against our skin, the thundering sound reverberates deep within us. hope illuminates the horizon, trees silhouette against the mountains. The earth exhales and we feel it's warmth. It speaks and we listen. If only we listen.

Tags bessa, earth, eternal, film, fuji, galaxies, garbage, heaven, horizon, illuminates, inconsequential, infinite, insecurities, mountains, poem, silhouette, skies, solitude, stars, sun, unscripted lives, void, voigtlander, washington, waterfall