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a photo study: contemplative photography X – simplicity

Life seems to invite periods of time in which I think, “I’ve been here before.”  For example, my first readings about contemplative photography occurred about 6-7 years ago.  Even though this genre resonated with me, I chose to put it aside as there was limited resources on the internet and what training programs I was able to find were a bit outside of my financial resources.   

In June of this year, I began to explore contemplative photography as part of this A Photo Study project.  Today, this 12th posting of contemplative photography has been motivated by A Karr and M Wood’s discussion of “simplicity” within their book, The Practice of Contemplative Photography.   What I find interesting is that the January, 2018,  blog of this project was, A Photo Study: Simplification and Negative Space, which was inspired by one of Ted Forbes’ composition videos.

https://youtu.be/lKc-0QEbZbo

Even though life seems to move in a linear progression from birth to death; at times like this I find myself wondering if there are periods of time in which there are episodes of circular movements within one’s life journey in which we are “presently” invited to pause and reflect upon our “past”  before time nudges us into a new present, our future.  

Well, I think I’ve digressed from this week’s photo study, simplicity.  Karr and Wood note that their simplicity exercise is to open us to the relationship between form and space, to open ourselves to the experience of simplicity without seeking an external validation of our concept of simplicity.

Space intensifies the experience of form, and simple form intensifies the experience of space.  … Simplicity and space are aspects of our perception. Visual space can be produced by a red wall, a length of gray fabric…a smooth beach…a backdrop of dark shadows, gray pavement…sky..  An object seen seen against any unadorned expanse will be surrounded by visual space. 

Their definition of space brings to mind the post, Negative Space,  in which I wrote:

In photography negative space is perhaps the most important element as it embraces the subject within your image — the element of interest — helping it stand out and inviting the viewer’s attention.  It is the aspect within a photograph that generally doesn’t attract much attention.  It is sometimes referred to as white space and has the potential to change what appears to be an average subject into an outstanding image

For this exercise, Kerr and Wood encourage a point of departure in which our intention should be to recognize perception where form and space produce strong contrasts—where the experience of form is weighted because of the space around it.   …to look at one thing at a time.  Look at objects and also look at their environment.  Don’t hurry. Proceed in a relaxed way that allow you to see the space around things, not just the things themselves.

The first series of the images in the slideshow below are of a couple of photo walks directed by my understanding, thus far, of contemplative photography especially in regards to flash of perspective, visual discernment, and forming the equivalent, comparable to what I perceived—nothing more, nothing less.  

 

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The second series of images in the slide show below are part of the images I created as part of the simplification and negative space blogs posted earlier this year.  These images, I believe, were created by a natural inclination towards flash of perspectives, visual discernment, and a bit of digital darkroom creative exploration.  

 

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I enjoy the creative playgrounds offered by Photoshop, Capture One, and Nik.  Am looking forward to a comparison of images you created in repose to the earlier blogs on simplification and negative space with those of simplicity as defined within contemplative photography.  Please tag with #aphotostudy. 

early morning readings

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Nikon D750   f/5.6   1/400s   135mm   400 ISO

… You press your mind, your forehead, against the beginning of a book, the cool cover of it, appreciating its impenetrability. It is rectangular and thick, heavy enough to stop a bullet or press a leaf flat. It will, you think, never let you through. And then you begin to lean into it, applying little attentive pressure, and the early pages begin to curl back with a soft, radish-slicing sound, and you’re in. You’re in the book. The thick, segmental chapters fan out into their component pages, and each turned page dematerializes itself, once read, into the fluent, cajoling voice its words carry. …When you reach the last sentence, there rests under you left thumb a monolithic clump of paper through which, it seems, you could not possibly have traveled. ~N Baker (preface), A Book of Books

bare attention

Just as a solid rock is not shaken by the storm, even so the wise are not affected by praise or blame.  ~The Buddha

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Bare attention flows in opposition to a life guided by streams of unconscious habit patterns and emotional reactivity.  Bare attention awakens us to the stones we stumble over due to the blindness of confusion or ignorance.  It shines a light into the shadows of confusion and ignorance and finds our frustrated desires and suppressed resentments. Bare attention identifies and pursues the single threads of the closely interwoven threads of our thoughts, feelings, and actions, which have over the years formulated the tapestry of our life story.

Bare attention is the clear and single-minded awareness of what actually happens to us and in us at each successive moment of perception.  It is the forerunner of insight.  It is a way of being that is counter to the general manner by which we briefly and fleetingly know or experience the events or people within our daily schedules. Bare attention trains the mind to be detached, open, silent, and alert within the framework of the present moment.  It is an intention to suspend all judgments and interpretations, and to simply note and dismiss them if and when they do occur.

The task within bare attention is to simply acknowledge what occurs just as it occurs.  It is a process of inviting one’s self back into the present, of being mindful of the moment, with the realization that our minds have taken us into an imaginative realm of fantasy, recollections, or discursive thoughts.  It is a means by which to acquaint our selves with an object before our minds alter its presence through conceptual paint overlaid with interpretations.

Bare attention is undertaken with an intention to undo our general ways of being in the world, it is an intention of simply noting and not thinking, not judging, not associating, not planning, not imagining, not wishing.  It notes each occasion of experience as it arises, reaches its peak and then fades away.  It is a sustained mindfulness of experience in its bare immediacy, carefully and precisely and persistently.

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Bare attention awakens me to the relationship I have formed with this world through the untested foundations of beliefs, values, guiding principles, and morals. To attend to what formulated these foundations I have found seeds of misconstrued concepts built out of my childhood fears and fantasies.  I have seen a blind faith to family customs, rituals, and cultures.  I have come to understand how some of the holy of holy concepts within my “absolute truths” are unquestioned beliefs which perpetuate suffering.

Excerpts from B Koeford, A Meditative Journey with Saldage

weekly challenge: photograph when one door closes…

This week Traveling at Wits End’s guest post is St. Louis-based photographer David Adams.  He writes that doors:

can be many things. They can be barrier, they can be invitations. They can be utilitarian, they can be ornate. Doors show personality or they can protect us from the world.

David challenges photographers to find “closed doors…no peaking inside” and to look for color, shape, decoration, as well as details…to find a door with personality.

The first time I found myself photographing doors was about 40 years ago while we were living in Newport, Rhode Island. Since then I also found that the doors within historical districts of the southern part of the United States, Australia, and Europe to be intriguing–the west…not so much.

Yesterday, while on an out-of-town trip with camera in hand and this challenge in mind, I undertook a photo walk through a small rural community.  Regrettably, the doors within this town are…boring.  Yet, I found myself thinking how sidewalks, steps, and porches are like a preface to the stories behind closed doors.

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door 4

door 5

While the images above are not beautifully composed and do not specifically “focus” on doors, they do invite me to story the lives of the people who live behind these closed doors and to ponder the question, “how is the war economy doing for you?”

a photo study: contemplative photography IX: equivalence

… to hold a moment, how to record something so completely, that all who see [the picture of it] will relive an equivalent of what has been expressed.    ~Alfred Stieglitz (cited: http://www.metmuseum.org)

The theory of equivalence was inspired by Wassily Kandinsky’s belief that colors, shapes, and lines reflect the inner, often emotive “vibrations of the soul.”  In his cloud photographs, which he termed Equivalents, Stieglitz emphasized pure abstraction, adhering to the modern ideas of equivalence, holding that abstract forms, lines, and colors could represent corresponding inner states, emotions and ideas.

The following are excerpts from Equivalence: The Perennial Trend: Minor White, PSA Journal, Vol. 29, No 7, pp 17-21, 1963 (cited: http://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com)

A change of perspective is a change in state. Jean Piaget reminds us that, “What we see changes what we know. What we know changes what we see.” Perception changes reality… The more conscious the perception the stronger the change. Furthermore, the quality of consciousness one engages perception with influences what is perceived, what is produced, how it is received and the consequences that has. Acting on what one observes, choosing and sustaining one thing / quality amid many others, reinforces that state of being and this is particularly true if during observation one creates something tangible and durable and never more true if multiple related works are created. Often, during the process of manifestation perception continues to change, further extending this process of revelation and transformation.

 The visible can be used to reveal the invisible; the external can be used to reveal the internal.    ~Alfred Stieglitz 

Minor White remarked, “One should photograph things not only for what they are but also for what else they are.” and “Equivalence is a function, not a thing.” He did not mean to suggest that equivalence was merely a rhetorical device. Equivalence is more than a rhetorical device, not a simile that suggests shared commonalities (this is like that), not a metaphor that observes shared qualities through the power of transformation (this is that), but a process inclusive and transcendent of both. Like a simile its power starts with the recognition of shared qualities and like a metaphor its power lies in transformation, but an equivalent transcends both through a heightened state of self-awareness, even to the point of transforming the self through its accompanying effects of clarity and commitment.

Equivalence embraces and elevates the debate over whether photographs are windows (onto the world) or mirrors (into the soul) and whether they are taken (through distant observation, objective to varying degrees) or made (through immediate interaction, subjective to varying degrees), illuminating many more levels of an evolving process. Through equivalence the photographic object created becomes a reflection of both the external things it represents and the internal states of its creator. This reflective capacity is extended to the viewers, who re-experience this shared process in their own ways.

Resonance is a consequence of equivalence. What we create can transform us. We then become co-creators, creating not only things and ideas but selves. What we create can also transform others, triggering cascades of sympathetic vibrations, if we imbue our creations with a persistent resonance, brought on by intensity, clarity and connection (connection to subject, medium, self, and others). Through the experience of art, the powers of perception and transformation can be awakened, in both the ones who create directly and the ones who [perceive] indirectly.

Stieglitz set a shining example for us all. He demonstrated that the full power of our photographs lies not in special subjects or moments but in what we bring to the picture, which can be much more than technical skill, compositional prowess, and cultural awareness. Through photography we can simultaneously bear witness to things / events, affirm our connection / participation with them (even if only as observers, no small thing), and clarify our understanding / interpretation of the confluence of everything that is brought to bear in each moment and the continuing resonances they produce. More than an intellectual interpretation or emotional expression, this is a process of holistic integration.

The photograph can be much more than a material trace of another material; it can even be much more than a trace of light and time; it can also be a trace of spirit, the energetic confluence of body, mind, and emotion, either single or multiple.

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White reminds us that this process of self-realization is open to everyone, “With the theory of Equivalence, photographers everywhere are given a way of learning to use the camera in relation to the mind, heart, viscera and spirit of human beings. The perennial trend has barely been started in photography.” Though all photographers do it, not all photographers do it with equal clarity or intensity. Regardless of what level they engage this process, whenever photographers break through to new levels of consciousness the results are transformative for the photographer and the viewer and even the viewed, sometimes subtly and sometimes dramatically is a form of contemplative photography that asks us to see our world in a new way. In some ways it seems very simple, but it is not always easy.

early morning readings

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Nikon D750   f/4.5  1/500s   85mm   100 ISO

In a famous passage in the Meditations, Descartes speaks of looking from a window and seeing men pass in the street. ‘Yet,’ he reflects, ‘do I see any more than hats and coats which could conceal automations? I judge that they are men.’ …the observer no longer passes through them to see the living person beneath. He no longer sees what is implied.  However, the attention of the right hemisphere, concerned as it is with the being in context, permits us to see through them to the reality that lies around and beyond them. It could not make the mistake of seeing the clothes and hats in isolation.

The illusion that, if we can see something clearly, we see it as it really is, is hugely seductive. …We never see anything clearly…What we call seeing a thing clearly, is only seeing enough of it to make out what it is; this point of intelligibility varying in distance for different magnitudes and kinds of things…” Ruskin, in Modern Painters, makes the point that clarity is bought at the price of limitation…He gives the example of an open book and an embroidered handkerchief on a lawn.  Viewed from a distance of a quarter of a mile, they are indistinguishable; from closer, we can see which is which, but not read the book or trace the embroidery on the handkerchief: as we go nearer, we ‘can now read the text and trace the embroidery but cannot see the [fibers] of the paper, nor the threads of the stuff’; closer still and we can see the watermarks and the threads, ‘but not the hills and dales in the paper’s surface, nor the fine [fibers] which shoot off from every thread’; until we take a microscope to it, and so on, ad infinitum. At which point do we see it clearly? …Clarity, it seems, describes not a degree of perception but a type of knowledge.  To know something clearly is to know it partially only, and to know it, rather than to experience it, in a certain way ~I McGilchrist, The Master and his Emissary   (pp181-182).