a photo study: contemplative photography XI – patterns of light

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This year-long project seems to be drawing upon composition elements that were covered at the beginning of this study.  Recently, I revisited the post which explored the elements of simplicity as part of this series on contemplative photography.

Today, I find myself going back and re-reading the two separate post about rhythm.  Rhythm involves the same or similar elements repeating at regular intervals.  Repetition is easy to find…all around us are shape that are pretty basic and similar to each other.  We see them repeating at regular intervals within nature, design, works of art, architecture, and photography.

 The origin of repetition is from the French repeticion or Latin repetitio(n-), from repetere – repeat.  

When you repeat a certain size or shape or color you add strength to the overall image of a photograph.  If you want to make a statement, you repeat certain elements again and again. If you repeat something once or twice it becomes more interesting. If you repeat something many times it becomes a pattern and takes on a life of its own.

Patterns give us order in an otherwise chaotic world. 

A Karr and M Wood (The Practice of Contemplative Photography) invites photographers to  “see patterns of light–not things that are illuminated, or shadows cast by objects that block the light.”

I found that this exercise “seeing patterns of light” was a bit of a challenge for as I was more drawn towards patterns created by shadows.  Therefore, while on a photo walk, I found that when I connected with light, I had to actually stop and question, “is this a light pattern or a shadow pattern?”

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I challenge you to open yourself to seeing light…patterns of light. I would enjoy seeing your creations and reading about your experiences and thoughts about light patterns. Let’s tag with #aphotostudy.

the new sanctuary coalition

Thinking of the world
Sleeves wet with tears are my bed-fellows.
Calmly to dream sweet dreams–
There is no night for that. ~Izumi Shikibu (Diaries of Court Ladies of Old

https://vimeo.com/299371315

The New Sanctuary Coalition’s call for action:

We are resolved to form a U.S. Caravan of supporters who will meet the Central American Caravan in Mexico, witness their movement, and accompany them into the U.S. At the border, we will assist those seeking entry with their demands to enter the US without losing their liberty

Hate speech and violence have crept into our communities with the targeting of synagogues, churches and other houses of worship and murders of their congregations. We want and need to stop this violence and we are calling you to stand with us, to put your bodies on the line.

The right to migrate is fundamental. Without it, the right to work, to be free, to live, cannot be realized. We reaffirm our conviction that every member of the Central American Caravan has an inalienable human right to flee from violence and poverty and toward better economic and political conditions elsewhere, regardless of national boundaries. We submit that they possess a right to enter and remain in the U.S. equal to anyone born there.

It has become amoral to engage in neutrality or silence on the right to migrate. On this issue there is a right side of history and a wrong side – but there is no middle. Each of us is morally obliged to choose such a side. The law will either make human beings illegal, or it will legalize equality, but it cannot accomplish both. The world is asking you to choose a side.

The New Sanctuary Coalition is resolved to choose the side of liberty and equality. We are resolved to sacrifice in solidarity with those leaders of liberty and pioneers of equality who are nonviolently asserting their right to migrate by moving their caravan of brave souls across the U.S./Mexican border.

If you are a lawyer, join our legal community. If you are a faith leader, join our clergy group. If you are a person of conscience, join our local organizing in your state. Click here to tell us how you would like to get involved and we will connect you with an organizing community that matches your skills and interests.

Sanctuary Caravan at NSC
http://www.sanctuarycaravan.org/

early morning readings

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“I suggest that… Although healthy persons communicate and enjoy communicating, the other fact is equally true, that ‘each individual is an isolate, permanently non- communicating, permanently unknown, in fact, unfound.’” ~ Winnicott, The Holding Environment

“…What was really incomprehensible was the discussion, as it was called. Cast into and enclosed in the gray lead frame of polite empty British phrases, the people spoke perfectly past one another. Constantly they said they understood each other, answered each other. But it wasn’t so. No one, not a single one of the discussants, showed the slightest indication of a change of mind in view of the reasons presented. And suddenly, with a fear I felt even in my body; I realized that’s how it always is.  Saying something to another, how can we expect it to affect anything? The current of thoughts, images and feelings that flows through us on every side, has such force, this torrential current, that it would be a miracle it it didn’t simply sweep away and consign to oblivion all words anyone else says to us, if they didn’t by accident, sheer accident, suit our own words. Is it different with me? I thought. Did I really listen to anybody else? Let him into me with his words so that my internal current would be diverted.” ~ Pascal Mercier, Night Train to Lisbon (pg 136-137)

“…It is a joy to be hidden but disaster not to be found.” ~ Winnicott, The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment : Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development

hungry ghosts

May I find the Loving Compassion that will soften the shield embracing my heart so that I may love absent of greed, anger, and ignorance.

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I find myself standing on a dry dirt road with two deep parallel ruts cutting winding dark ribbons into the road until they unite and disappear in the horizon.  The sun greets me with the same dry warmth that soothingly penetrates my skin as I wrap around me a towel just pulled from a tumbling clothes dryer. The air messages that it is a time of transition and I see the slight touch of autumn’s mustard yellows and crimson reds upon the tips of trees lining a distant hill.  Before me stands a child of about twelve years of age.  Her head is bent down with absorbed attention upon the small puffs of dust clouds her bare feet stirs up before her.

She looks up at me with expectant eyes that suddenly overfill with tears. “I don’t remember who or what I’m looking for,” she says, as miniature rivulets begin to flow down her cheek.

Then I notice a three-year-old boy with wispy blonde hair and mesmerizing oxen-eyes as he emerges from his hiding place behind the girl. As he takes hold of her right index finger, he reaches up with his left hand and touches a teardrop that is forming along the girl’s chin, asking “Find mummy?”

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Nikon D750 f/7.1 1/500 50

Suddenly, as if a whirlwind came down from the heavens in response to the boy’s voice, I come to myself standing in the center of a frozen lake. I am shivering and see nothing more than a dark and shadowy forest surrounding me.  I hear in the distance the sound of children’s voices repeating a refrain with a haunting tone, “Broken hearts, frozen hearts, shattered hearts.” And then I see them: four–no, five.  Five hungry, child-like, ghosts with needle mouths, long twisted thin necks, and bloated stomachs.

They come out of the forest and stand along the lake’s shoreline, repeating their refrain, “Broken hearts, frozen hearts, shattered hearts.” Their words travel across the surface of the frozen lake and encircle me with the sounds of unfilled longings and infinite emptiness.

Then I awaken to my own craving for those who have been lost to me, those who have died.  Within the darkness of this forest memories of past days rise and intermingle to become a swirling chaos within the image of emptiness where there once was a home, a family.  Confusion, anger, and loneliness flash within as these memories incite feelings and memories that pummel upon me, one frozen memory after another.

 

I hear questions from a child.  Confused, they come as fragments: “His heart was broken? Why did I have to go? They moved?” The sound of adolescent angst intertwined with arrogance swirls around me, as the questions become assertions: “I won’t be here if he comes back! I’ll do as I please.” The mist in the air surrounds me with the chilling voice of others, accusing: “If you had faith, she could hear. You were her companion. It is you that must leave. It does not matter, it is over. I cannot help you.”  Then, “There was an accident.”  I feel myself falling upon the ice as I have fallen before with broken promises, beliefs, and dreams shattered all around me. I feel the layers of iced grief, anger, sadness, confusion shielding my heart. Again, the refrain, “Broken hearts, frozen hearts, shattered hearts.”

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The night cloud’s fingertips drift away from the moon. In the silvery light I see visions of a small child, alone in the gray-toned shadows, planting seeds in the moist soil of despair.    Her sob-filled voice fills the night’s emptiness, “You are too stupid to understand. I don’t need you.  I’m special.  I’ll hide my tears.  I won’t tell you anything. I won’t need you.  I’ll show you that I don’t need you.”

A veil lifts and my observing mind sees a raging powerless ego annihilating self-in-relationship, suppressing feelings; and all the while, unknowingly creating her shadowy forest of worthlessness, hopelessness, alienation, and pseudo-independence.

Anger tells me that I am nothing;
love tells me I am everything.
Between the two, my life flows.

I feel a golden-toned voice, vibrating the soft and gentle touch of loving-kindness.  “These hungry ghosts are visions that arise from years of tears closeted within your soul. Is it now time to cut this intertwining craving and clinging to your yesterdays?”  She encourages a thought that to be freed from this frozen place and time begins with a true comprehension of the refrain, “Broken hearts, frozen hearts, shattered hearts.”

This voice says, “Call forth these five hungry ghosts, one by one, by their true given names and see each true ‘I’-in-self hidden behind veils of greed, anger, and ignorance.  Ask what it is that will cease their yearning and release them from this frozen forest so that they may finally rest in peace. As you hear their request touch your heart, open yourself to share with each that which will release you from this bondage.  Melt this chain with loving-kindness and forge the golden key that gives admission to a room of healing serenity.”

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In a clearing I find myself slowly warmed by the autumn sun as I return to the two children I met earlier on a dry, dusty road. Behind me is the forest I have just emerged from; before me is a field of yellowed wheat.   Just beyond the field is a house weathered gray by the seasons and weakened by the stresses of time.  In the golden rays of the morning light, the young girl is kicking up clouds, searching through the barren soil for seeds of her past, and desiring to be freed from yesterday’s delusions.  She walks over to the side of the road and bends over; as she stands, I see three keys, dangling from her left hand. One key is silver, another is gold, and the third is made of diamonds. I feel the pain of fear awaken as the warmth of this early autumn day touches the frozen shield that embraces her heart.

The air is filled with sounds of a new refrain, “May I be happy.  May I be free from pain.   May I feel emotionally connected with others. May I be at peace.

 “May these children be happy.  May they be freed from pain.  May they feel emotionally connected with others.  May they be at peace.

“May those hungry ghosts be happy.  May they be freed from pain.  May they feel emotionally connected with others.  May they be at peace.”

Excerpts from B Koeford, A Meditative Journey with Saldage

a photo study: light

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The word photograph is derived from two Greek roots: photo or light, and graph, to write.

Throughout this learning journey, each blog emerged from the previous blogs creating an unplanned exploration of creation with a camera.  Today’s blog which is being guided by H Zehr’s, discussion of light (The Little Book of Contemplative Photography) has suggested to me that an effective study guide of photography should introduce the topic of light as part of compositional and technical topics.   Why?  Because as Zehr writes: 

To photograph is to draw with light. To photograph is to receive and hold light; a photograph is ‘frozen light.’ Light is the essence of photography.  Without light, there is no photograph.

Light and its absence—shadow—are the essential building blocks of all images.

Light defines and reveals. It can convert drama or quietude. It an show texture or hide it.  It can suggest warmth or coldness. It captures our attention, leads our eye. 

Attention to light will…dramatically heighten your overall visual awareness and improve your photographic eye.

The Five Characteristics of light

  1. Quantity:  The brightness or dimness of light guides a photographer in her adjustment of aperture and shutter speed settings and use of a tripod or neutral density lens in order to provide the correct exposure and aid the photographer in creating her intention. 
  2. Quality:  The hardness and softness of light. 

Zehr writes, “The most emotive characteristic of light is it’s hardness or softness.  On one end of the continuum of quality there is light that is highly directional and comes from a relatively small source (relative to the subject).  Hard light brings out bright areas with hard shadow lines. Transitions from light areas to dark areas are often abrupt. Hard light can be dramatic, theatrical.

 

 

Soft light is diffused light. This is light created by a relatively large light source traveling through clouds or cloth. The light on an overcast day is diffused light, as is the light coming through sheer window drapes or reflected off light walls.  Diffused light can gently suffuse the subject with light. Transitions from light to dark are gradual, with soft-edged shadows.  Diffused light often provides better ‘modeling’ or three-dimensionality, because the light gradually falls off as the distance away from the light source increases.

 

 

3.  Direction:  Sidelight tends to show up textures because the light skims rough surfaces, causing rhythms of light and shadow that suggest three-dimensionality. Sidelight also maximizes three-dimensional of the subject.

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Backlight may cause the subject to be outlined in light but, if there is insufficient light from the front, the subject may look too dark.

 

 

Direct frontal light lights the subject evenly, often minimizing three-dimensionality.

4. Contrast – the differences between light and dark areas within an image. A scene or image that has great differences between light and dark is said to be high contrast or “contrasty.” A scene or image the has less significant differences and more gradual transition is said to be softer or less contrasty.  Overall contrast refers the extremes of light and dark in the image or scene as a whole. Local contrast refers to the extremes or transitions in some part of the scene or image.

 

 

5. Color – a characteristic of light that we often overlook because our eye makes automatic adjustments of which we are unaware. Films and digital sensors are sensitive to light color. The white balance on a digital camera attempts make appropriate adjustments.  You may have heard photographers talk about the ‘sweet light” of evening – light that is warmer and more diffused than earlier in the day. Light color has some significance in black-and-white photography because film does not see color the way the eye does.  

 

 

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Exercise 1: Warm up exercise

Spend some time looking at a black and white photograph to examine the light in the image and pay attention to the graduations of tones.

Where is the light in the image?

Where are the shadows?

What is the source of light?

What characteristics does the light have — hard vs soft, contrast, color

What shapes, forms, movements does the light create or suggest

How does the light affect the movement of your eye

What are the emotional effects of these characteristics of light

Exercise 2:  Playing with Light

Photograph an object that you can move around

Photograph in a relatively dark space

Use one or more light sources; i.g., diffused light from a window that has some sheer material or bounce light off a wall or a white poster board. A directed or ‘spot’ source  can be created with a flood or spotlight in a clamp or a desk light.

Use only one light source at a time.  Try shining the light from different directions (including low rand higher angles) by either moving the object or the light source.

As always, I am looking forward to seeing the images that you created as you played with light.  Which light is your favorite?  Let’s tag with #aphotostudy.