Contributors1_0To achieve moody, evocative images like those accompanying “Focusing,” photographer Abelardo Morell uses a centuries-old technique called camera obscura (Latin for “darkened room”), precursor to modern photography. Morell first covers the windows of a room in black plastic, creating a totally dark space. He then cuts a small hole in the plastic, through which an upside-down image of the exterior scene is projected onto the walls, floors, and ceiling of the room, and superimposed on its contents. Creating these surreal images has taken Morell—a Cuban native who now lives near Boston—from “my own living room to all sorts of interiors around the world,” he says. “One of the satisfactions I get from making this imagery comes from seeing the weird yet natural marriage of the inside and outside.”

Contributors2Colin Beavan (“Intuitive Action”) pops up everywhere nowadays: as a guest on the Colbert Report, as the subject of a New Yorker profile, as one of MSN’s Ten Most Influential Men—the list goes on. His year-long experiment in low-impact, locavore living, which included no shopping, no trash but compost, no carbon-fueled transportation (in New York City, no less), made him a media phenomenon.

Beavan is the founder and executive director of the No Impact Project, an international nonprofit fostering lifestyles that regenerate the planet and promote happier, healthier lives. Author of No Impact Man, published in 2009, he’s also the subject of a documentary of the same name. Now a messenger for Bill McKibben’s 350.org, a grassroots climatecontrol movement, he’s also a teacher in the Kwam Um School of Zen, where he has practiced for 15 years.

Join us in September, when Colin Beavan will lead the Tricycle Community’s “No Impact Experiment” at tricycle.com.

Contributors3“Buddhists are often up for anything,” says Joshi Radin, this issue’s cover photographer, whose work also appears in “True Dharma Eye.” That’s why, she tells us, Buddhists are such great subjects for her photography.

Radin, who grew up on a “hippie Buddhist commune,” could be a great subject herself. After a short stint at divinity school, a winter monastic training season, some retreats at Mount Baldy Zen Center, and a few seasons at Wisdom Publications, she decided to pursue a career as a photographer. A resident of Boston, Radin shoots editorial and commercial portraits and architecture. If you grew up on a commune, she would like to photograph you, too.

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