Leonard Nimoy's Personal Quest - 2001, March, 17

 The actor seeks the divine in his photography

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/03/17/DD133308.DTL

By John McMurtrie, Chronicle Staff Writer   for SFGate

Leonard Nimoy eases into the room largly unnoticed, becoming just another hands-in-pocket visitor in a crowded gallery. The photos are his and they draw the attention. "I'm trying to reach an audience that is inclined to take the work on its own merits. I understand that in certain quarters there’s a disdain for people who cross from one art form to another... I guess that’s just the way it is."

“It [the Vulcan greeting] was something that I had seen in the services in synagogue (as a child). When that gesture is used, the suggestion is that this being – called the Shekhina, the feminine presence of God – enters the sanctuary to bless the congregation.”

Years ago, Nimoy made a photographic image of the gesture. Having begun to work with photography with the age of 11, he later studied photography at UCLA. Now he was shooting female nudes and says: "It just struck me one day that there was a possible crossover [between the female figures and the gesture]." The exhibition of his work "Sight Unseen", is the attempt to make that connection, to convey his sense his sense of a divine presence.

Shot in black & white often distorted and features veils, the photos offer his "own glimpse", says Nimoy, "of what can’t be seen by the naked eye. Often in dreams he conjures up what he says."

Regarding any parallels between his quest to understand spirituality and Spock's quest to understand the universe, Nimoy says: "I've never really verbalized this before, and that's the honest truth, but I've always seen Spock as a spiritual figure. He’s a searcher for values, for ethics, for insight." Nimoy sees himself on a similar journey. "Trying to figure it out," he says.