Exploring Hidden Histories 

I often think of myself as an archaeologist of the Japanese soul—unearthing  currents of cultural energy in my adopted home. What I express in my work is best described by the  Japanese word Omokage (面影). This refers to the subtle aura of cultural memory that lingers around certain people, places, and things. At times, I feel like a time traveler, gleaning intuitions from other eras. And like the work of such poets as Rilke and Yeats, my journey has also become a solitary  process of personal soul recovery. 
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The former Chief Curator of the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, Deborah Klochko once described my work in the following way: “The key to understanding Everett’s creative journey is in being able to peel back the layers of cultural references and Japanese aesthetic concepts that he explores masterfully with his unique process."
 
This process involves using Japanese ceramic and classical painting techniques in making wet glass-plate negatives. In this way my creative process goes beyond simple image capture. I start by pouring unusual chemical mixtures onto glass plates, much like a potter uses glazes.  Japanese painters brushes are used to add further texture to my light-sensitive glass canvases. When everything aligns, the subject matter and chemical stains merge into imagery that echoes the aesthetic ideals of Song dynasty Zen brush-and-ink painters.
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The fluid, unpredictable nature of the wet-plate collodion process allows me to explore a wide range of such Asian aesthetic principles. These are all part of my striving for a deeper dialogue with nature. Central to my work is the  Japanese principle of formality known as shin (真), gyō (行), and sō(草).  I use these principles to deconstruct form, moving from shin (the most formalized), toward sō (the most spontaneous).
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I prepare a variety of glass plates, some new, others tarnished. I then sensitize them in a darkroom tent set up on location. I use local spring water, and sometimes sake, along with dust and soil from the surrounding landscape. In this way, my process is performative and collaborative with the environment.
Whenever possible, I use a sacred triton shell horn to purify the space and create a deeper resonance with the place where I make my images.
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To make my negatives demands split-second precision—synchronizing eye, hand, and heart in perfect unity. Through years of esoteric training with Japanese mountain priests, I have been able enter a heightened state of awareness known as nakaima (中今)—“being in the eternal present.”
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Beyond Photography
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The physicist Adrian Dobbs proposed the existence of a fifth dimension—a realm he described as a kind of psychological time in which the past, present, and future coexist. Later, Nobel Prize–winning scientist John Eccles suggested that certain areas of the brain might be able to access impulses from this fifth dimension. I’m fascinated by how this idea parallels what Aboriginal peoples call the Dreamtime—a realm of reality that exists beyond linear time and continues to be recognized, though rarely discussed, in Japan and in many traditional cultures around the world.
Pre-literate peoples possessed an intuitive understanding of these deeper dimensions. Their somatic experience of the environment extended far beyond what we moderns have been trained to accept as reality. We are taught to perceive existence through three dimensions of space and one of time—but some physicists now explore possibilities beyond these four, seeking to understand the broader nature of temporal experience.
For tens of thousands of years, it was the role of the artist and the visionary to access and give voice to this fifth dimension of psychological time. In our modern, myopic view of culture, we have largely lost this sensitivity. The idea of a fifth dimension is, for most people, either unimaginable or dismissed as romantic. Yet I wonder: how can we reawaken these intuitive nerve centers and express deeper modes of perception through the medium of photography?
I turn to the wet plate collodion process to explore this question. This hands-on, alchemical method allows for a direct, intuitive communication with both subject and place. The ritual aspect of the process is essential—each negative is created within a small darkroom tent that feels like the interior of a Japanese tea hut. Making a plate requires the same calm attention and reverence as a tea master preparing a single bowl of tea.
The use of my hands is vital. They are my antennas—connecting me to the air, the earth, and the spirit of place. When my hands, eyes, and heart move together in quiet concentration, a deep, subconscious resonance arises with nature. Moments of serendipity occur; nothing is forced or contrived. Marvels of natural beauty can appear with a suddenness that feels like a message from another realm—the intuitive realm of the heart.
My images are small attempts to glimpse this dimension of psychological dreamtime. I have come to believe that this realm is our shared human heritage, a timeless field of perception connecting us all. Through my work, I seek to illuminate—and to protect—the wonder that still lives within our world.
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