A Brian Riley Blog

February 5 2009

2009-02-05T04:15:00.000-08:00

A new body of work soon to come......
Just looked back and found some great shapes...
My work moves and flows and I am now returning to the archives and reworking things with some fun and exciting results
I will have some of the new work up soon.
Its a return to vintage and the addition of time.
It is feeling great to get back in ands work.

January 25 2009

2009-01-25T05:28:00.000-08:00

All souls were created in the beginning and are finding
their way back to whence they came.

Edgar Cayce

january 24 2009

2009-01-24T07:00:00.000-08:00

When the power of love
overcomes the love of power,
the world will know peace.

~ Jimi Hendrix ~

January 23 2009

2009-01-23T04:45:00.000-08:00

It is important
from time to time
to slow down,
to go away by yourself,
and simply Be.

~ Eileen Caddy ~

I feel so close to this statement after having run into an old friend last night.
Yesterday, sitting for my state board exam, at a small wooden desk in the ARC building at Pratt Institute was the end of an amazing journey for me. This was the same place I sat in 1989 as a wide eyed kid with my portfolio of pictures applying for collage. I spent the day standing in line for The Cooper Union, my eyes fixed and my goal set to get myself in.........

14 years latter I decided to go back to school and study massage therapy at The Swedish Institute.
Little did I know that it was going to be such an amazing experience.
Each and every day was intensely filled with learning, healing, and wonder.

My old friend reminded me of a time in my life when things were so different yet so the same.
When I sat in a small back room of a restaurant 4 days a week for 2 years with 5 people folding napkins before our shift started.
Each of those days, also filled with learning, healing and wonder...

I know it goes back and back and back, to the moments when I am so in the place that I am that I can truly feel life.
When I am so in the now, locked into my center and working form my soul. Massage has shown me a way to bring this gift of healing and intention to people and create a moment where they fell safe and open to heal, feel and simply be.

January 22 2009

2009-01-22T05:06:00.000-08:00

Once you make a decision,
the universe conspires to make it happen.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have been wanting for some time to Photograph Tattoo.
I put it out into the universe and....
I feel I was given an amazing gift to have found my new collaborator
Rodrigo Melo a truly amazing Tattoo artist in NYC.

January 21 2009

2009-01-21T07:13:00.000-08:00

Live in Joy, In love,
Even among those who hate.

Live in joy, In health,
Even among the afflicted.

Live in joy, In peace,
Even among the troubled.

Look within. Be still.
Free from fear and attachment,
Know the sweet joy of living in the way.

~

There is no fire like greed,
No crime like hatred,
No sorrow like separation,
No sickness like hunger of heart,
And no joy like the joy of freedom.

Health, contentment and trust
Are your greatest possessions,
And freedom your greatest joy.

Look within. Be still.
Free from fear and attachment,
Know the sweet joy of living in the way.

from the Dhammapada, Words of the Buddha

January 20 2009

2009-01-20T05:17:00.000-08:00

It's not them, it's you.
It's not there, it's here.
It's not then, it's now.

January 18 2009

2009-01-18T05:40:00.001-08:00

Today there is snow.
I am back to school for the third day of review classes before the test.
I needed words to make me smile....

Life is a song ... sing it.
Life is a game ... play it.
Life is a challenge ... meet it.
Life is a dream ... realize it.
Life is a sacrifice ... offer it.
Life is love ... enjoy it.

~ Sai Baba ~

january 17 2009

2009-01-17T16:28:00.001-08:00

"You don't get to vote on what is.
Have you noticed?"

~ Byron Katie ~

January 17 2009

2009-01-17T05:42:00.000-08:00

Follow your bliss.
If you do follow your bliss,
you put yourself on a kind of track
that has been there all the while waiting for you,
and the life you ought to be living
is the one you are living.
When you can see that,
you begin to meet people
who are in the field of your bliss,
and they open the doors to you.
I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid,
and doors will open
where you didn't know they were going to be.
If you follow your bliss,
doors will open for you that wouldn't have opened for anyone else.
Joseph Campbell

January 16 2009

2009-01-16T19:35:00.000-08:00

O' GREAT SPIRIT
help me always
to speak the truth quietly,
to listen with an open mind
when others speak,
and to remember the peace
that may be found in silence.

Cherokee Praye

January 16 2009

2009-01-16T06:39:00.000-08:00

A thing is complete
when you can let it be.
~ Gita Bellin

January 15 2009

2009-01-15T05:46:00.000-08:00

Keep your thoughts positive,
because your thoughts become your words.
Keep your words positive,
because your words become your behaviours.
Keep your behaviours positive,
because your behaviours become your habits.
Keep your habits positive,
because your habits become your values.
Keep your values positive,
because your values become your destiny.

~ Gandhi ~

January 14 2009

2009-01-14T05:27:00.000-08:00

I have learned silence from the talkative,
tolerance from the intolerant
and kindness from the unkind.
I should not be ungrateful to those teachers.

Kahlil Gibran

January 13 2009

2009-01-13T09:48:00.000-08:00

Life is a gift. Don't create a rift and don't drift. Be with it. Life doesn't give you morale, you give life morale. Life doesn't give you ethics, you give life ethics. Life doesn't give you manners, you give life manners. Life doesn't give you lies, you give life lies. Life didn't tell you what is truth, you make up truth. It's all wrong in your head. Nothing is wrong with your heart. Forget searching this, searching that, doing this, doing that. The time you waste in logic, reason, argument, fantasies, all that-that's a waste of happiness. Happiness is me and me within myself. Touch somebody- the magnetic field will change, the psyche will change. You don't have to do a thing. You don't have to say a word.
-Yogi Bhajan

January 13 2009

2009-01-13T05:09:00.001-08:00

Duality is not merely a philosophy; it is a physical state of being as well. The very atoms that make up our cells are based on positive and negative charges whose opposition sustains a certain life-form. Lipton has coined the phrase the “biology of consciousness” to summarize the transformational idea that living organisms, including humans, rather than being empirical givens, are actually malleable thought-forms. In other words, adopting a quantum perspective, we are basically waves that only cohere as particles through an act of consciousness. By changing our consciousness, we change our physical form and functioning.

~ Sol Luckman

2009-01-12T11:01:00.000-08:00

In the beginning you are you, in the middle you are you, in the end you are God. There's nothing else. If you can't close your eyes, you can't open your eyes, that's the end of the eyes. There's nothing to it. Nothing was, nothing is, nothing shall be.
-Yogi Bhajan

January 11 2009

2009-01-11T02:27:00.001-08:00

When you understand who and what you are, your radiance projects into the universal radiance and everything around you becomes creative and full of opportunity.

Yogi Bhajan

January 9 2009

2009-01-09T07:25:00.000-08:00

“If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.”
—Albert Einstein (1875-1955), theoretical physicist, philosopher

January 8 2009

2009-01-08T06:45:00.000-08:00

Your vision will become clear  only when you look into your heart ... Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.  ~ Carl Jung (1875-1961), Psychologist ~

January 7 2009

2009-01-07T18:02:00.001-08:00

I love light, shape, form, pattern, balance, composition.
I love to look closely at the negative space around the body.
I like to play with the way light both enhances the figure and then creates compositions in the back ground.
I love the shapes in the body and how they all fit together so perfectly.
I love to close my mind and shoot images using my intuition.
My intention is simply to make photographs that I like to look at.
My work is not about sexuality, Its deeper, it about the energy of the body and the beauty of life.

January 7 2009

2009-01-07T07:22:00.000-08:00

Its a rainy grey morning in Union City N.J
I am sitting in my sun room looking out at a grey sky with the faint outline of New York City on the horizon. I spent yesterday at the studio, working to edit the last 5 years of images and continue to organize my body of figurative photos.
Today, the color gray outside my window is a slightly lighter shade then on the walls of my studio on Broadway in Manhattan. A space that I love with every ounce of my being. I thank the gods everyday for this blessing.
I did a shoot yesterday that turned out wonderful. I have been working hard and photographing a lot over the past few weeks, so I decided that I would start the new Blog off with NEW images. I have been working with some amazing ASIAN men, each one of them has brought such interesting energy into my work, I would like to thank them for sharing their bodies and shen with me.
Who ever this reaches I hope you like and send me a comment.
Tell me where you are, who you are, and send a nice word. Also If you would like to purchase a Print for your wall LET ME KNOW its a great time to invest in ART!!!!!!!!!!!