A book of poems and pictures of New York City you may have never seen...

THE EVERYDAY TRANSFORMED There is a very perceptive intelligence behind these photographs. An intelligence that transforms the city's concrete reality, to one that captures the interaction of color, form, architecture, sun, light, shadow, wind and the natural world, and draws you in. Installing his vision into your imagination with the click of a camera. Mr. Taylor goes out into the world, apparently without predetermined purpose and finds the unique and moving quality in every day structures and places. He captures their abstract and emotion-inducing forms and colors, rather than imposing on it. Ken describes taking photos as a passive (my word, not his) experience in which "the picture takes itself" meaning that he receives the world, the moment, rather than imposing his own patterns on it. It is not correct to call this a passive stance; and is a minimization or neglect of the inner process that enables him to perceive and, be fully present at the time of the "right" picture. Ken sees the Beauty of the Creation. The same Creation in which we are all immersed, but pass by. What we usually see is concrete, or bothersome people, noises, and redundancies of city living. We've become preoccupied with the demands and pace of the modern world. Ken goes out into the world, not searching for anything external, but attuned to his senses, inner experience and how they connect to the world. "And the photo comes to me." This is a powerfully active process. An awareness of himself and his environment in a fully dispassionate and accepting way. Dear reader, it is in no way a passive process to go out into the world and maintain a dispassionate and accepting attitude. But beyond this, Ken is open in gratitude to the existence, presence of nature, humankind and the Creation. This is what he captures in his photographs, vignettes, poems, and short stories. I highly recommend this book by a perceptive and uniquely attuned artist. It is a perceptual, intellectual and emotional experience of The Beauty of All that surrounds us.

Kenneth Taylor (Kentaa) is a retired bus operator for the city of New York, a life long musician, songwriter and composer. He has become a fixture in the New York open mic scene singing his original, soulful, socially conscious material with a funky old school R&B edge. He is a published poet and deep thinker.