Traversing an N-Dimensional Aesthetic Space

I've been musing lately about a problem that has stubbornly resisted my attempts at solving it for quite some time; indeed, I sometimes wonder if I've made any headway at all in all the years I've spent reflecting on it. Perhaps I should pay heed to the title of my own blog - namely tao - and plumb a bit of tao's timeless wisdom. To wit, maybe I ought to treat my problem not as a "thing" that needs solving, but as a transient stepping-stone on a timeless path toward gradual self-enlightenment.

"What is beauty?" I [S Nachmanovitch] asked him that night. He [Gregory Bateson] said, "Seeing the pattern which connects." (quoted from Old Men Ought to be Explorers, by S. Nachmanovitch)

My "problem" is to find the "optimal feature space" in which to describe the aesthetic sensibilities of particular artists; that is, essentially, to find an objective language (or, least as objective a language as possible) to describe the subjective propensities of, and differences between, individual painters, musicians, or photographers. We all "know" the difference between, say, Mozart's music and that of Beethoven; or the difference between a painting by Matisse and another by Picasso. Sometimes the differences, as in these "obvious" cases, are striking. In other cases, the differences may not be so clear cut: if one was, a priori, unfamilar with the works of Minor White and Brett Weston, for example, some of their respective abstracts may appear - superficially at least - as aesthetically indistinguishable.

Somehow, perhaps in the way that Malcolm Gladwell calls "thin slicing" in his book Blink, we all make quick, largely unconscious, assessments about makes one work different from, or similar to, another. We can sometimes analyze - after the fact - why we made the decision of similarity or difference that we made. But (as Gladwell also points out in his book), we are not always able to articulate the precise feature-space decomposition we used to make our rapid-fire decision (because our subconscious thought-process does not always percolate up to the conscious level); nor can we really be sure that whatever feature-space decomposition we are able to articulate is an accurate reflection of what our unconscious information processing. Of course, often our thin-slicing attempts are also simply wrong.

The larger question, even if only as a thought experiment, remains. Let's start small, and not yet all-encompassing - a bit later I will generalize the question from photography to all forms of creative expression - and confine our analysis to photography alone, as an exemplar of a broader class of "art" and its associated larger class of aesthetic possibilities. We ask: what is the optimal set of "features" (to be defined shortly) of "photographs" such that - in the N-dimensional abstract aesthetic space defined by these features as (roughly) orthogonal axes - two conditions are simultaneously satisfied: (1) the differences among photographs is maximized (with respect to sets of photographs produced by individual photographers), and (2) the differences between photographs produced by the same photographer (i.e., between any two images within a given photographer's own oeuvre) are minimized? In a sense, I want to perform a "simple" exercise of mathematical pattern recognition, but without any (or little) initial sense of what space I'm performing it in, or even what I'm setting out to "recognize."

What do I mean by features? Well, any reasonably well-defined "parameter" that can be used to describe a photograph (which may, implicitly, involve both its physical attributes, as a print, and nonphysical attributes, such as subject matter or other contextual primitives). Of course, many different features exist (indeed, the set of possibilities is enormous); but not all features are as important in describing a work as others. More precisely, different sets of features will be better, or worse, at simultaneously identifying the works that are produced by a given photographer and distinguishing among bodies of works produced by different photographers.

Thought Experiment #1. Schematically, we can imagine a 3-dimensional space (in general, the dimension D can be very large) consisting of the features f1, f2 and f3. As a thought experiment, imagine we have the collected works of three of photographers (A, B, and C; that we "code" using the colors red, blue, and green). We classify each photograph, of each photographer, according to where in the feature space in lives. It does not matter whether the "points" in this space are cleanly defined or not; the only thing that matters for this thought experiment is the fact that every work by each of the three photographers is classified according to the values of the three features we have used to define this particular "aesthetic space" F = {f1, f2, f3}. As a concrete example, the three features might be: f1=average hue, f2=degree of local constrast, and f3=number of triangular shapes. And, indeed, as we might expect of such a loose (random almost) set of parameters, we would not be surprised to learn (if we actually went to the trouble of performing this experiment) that these features do little to distinguish among our three photographers. Our plot of their respective oeuvres might look something like this...

But now, suppose we are a bit more clever than this. Suppose, after carefully studying the works of these three photographers, we discover a new set of features - {f1', f2', and f3'} - such that, in this new aesthetic space, F', the same body of work now appears considerably more tightly clustered:


Here we see - by direct visual inspection - an "obvious" distinction among the photographers A, B, and C. Moreover, we see that work produced by a given artist is itself clustered around a relatively small volume of the full aesthetic space. "A" is obviously confined to one region, separate from (in this case) the volume of space occupied by "B," and both are distinct from the volume occupied by "C."

My point here is not that a feature space within which such a decomposition is possible exists - it may, or may not, for a given set of artists; but only that it suggests an interesting and deep question about what such a set of features - that simulataneously minimizes the differences among a given photographer's works and maximizes the distinction among the works of different photographers - might actually look like! I suspect it may not be like anything we would intuitively expect; if our intuition is anything like what we learn in the standard art and graphics design books. I doubt very much whether the "core features" would include such standard-issue measures as "contrast" and "tone" (though they may very well these). I wonder, too, at just how far separated the artist's "oeuvre clusters" can be made to be, while the spread of each artist's own cluster of works is simultaneously minimized.

One can play other thought games too, of course, For example, having defined some aesthetic space, and having plotted a given artist's current oeuvre - say, what the artist has produced during the last five years of work - we can trace how the artist evolves, using the first plot as a reference. Does the work remain more or less in the same "cloud" of points, so that the artist does not stray too far from his (possible innate?) aesthetic? Or does the cloud slowly dissipate, and reform in another region of the same aesthetic space? Or does the cloud diffuse outward to fill most, or all, of the "old" aesthetic space, thus suggesting that a new feature space - some F'' - exists, and in which the same artist's evolving oeuvre again assumes a cloud-like form?

Thought Experiment #2. Here is an even deeper question; and, truth be told, the real object of my rambling quest. Suppose we have managed to find a special "core aesthetic" space that does precisely what our thought experiment imagines. That is, imagine we have an aesthetic space defined by a special set features (whose relevance, for the moment, is confined solely to photography) that both maximizes the difference between different photographers, and - simultaneously - minimizes the differences between individual photographs of a given photographer. Suppose, further, that we carve out of that space a special set of photographs (and, by association, a special set of photographers) which maximize - for lack of an objectively better-defined word - photographic beauty. Now, imagine we do exactly the same thing (i.e., play the thought experiment as described above) for all of the different kinds of creative endeavors that exist: music, sculpture, literature, mathematics, physics, ... The analog of (generic) "beauty" in art or photography might be - in the case of mathematics, for example - "truth" (as in the truth of theorems); in physics, "beauty" may be aligned with "physical laws" (the "truths" of nature), and so on. What is the underlying meta-pattern that connects the patterns?


Here is my question (and I'll stop at this point): might there be a "universal aesthetic meta-map" that transforms the set of features of one aesthetic space (that describes art, say) to another set of features that describe a different aesthetic space (mathematics, say) but which leaves the measure of "beauty" that is appropriate for each kind of space invariant?

"We do not want merely to see beauty...we want something else which can hardly be put into words; to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it." - C. S. Lewis

"Beautiful" art or music, "physical laws" in physics, and "theorems" in math may be - in a truly fundamental sense - indistinguishable, but only if the analog of "beauty" is correctly defined , and interpreted, in each respective space. Indeed, I suspect that if only we were clever enough creatures to be able to simultaneously apprehend and reflect upon vast multidimensional features spaces, it would only be a matter of "shifting our perceptual / aesthetic axes" (so to speak) for us to be able to transform our endeavors from one creative space into another. Imagine being able to "prove a mathematical theorem" by working on the problem as though it were an art project (and the object of which - in the art space - is to produce a "beautiful work of art"). But whatever space we happen to find ourselves in at a given moment, the object of our quest (and the ultimate arbiter of our creative progress) remains indefagitably the same: truth.

Postscript #1. The way I presented my thought experiment, a (God like) external agent is needed to view the universe of artists and their work to construct (and plot the creative progress in) a D-dimensional aesthetic space. In fact, one can argue that each artist (indeed, each living being) is doing precisely that, ceaselessly, tirelessly, throughout its existence. We are all seeking to be as distinct as possible from all other living beings, even as - at the same time - we desire to be be as integrated into our local cultural / creative fabric as well. It is this insoluble yin-yang tension that drives all self-motivated dynamics; and perhaps all creativity. This fundamental idea of the universe consisting of simultaneous and seemingly antithetical tendencies of integration and distinction (or assertiveness), at all levels of a multidimensional hierarchy, was introduced by author / philosopher Arthur Koestler in a book called Janus. He called all such creatures that strive to do this holons.

Postscript #2. The idea that there is a core universality that underlies all forms of art - all life - is certainly not born in this humble blog entry. In fact, much of my thinking on the subject derives from, and has been shaped by, a magnificent four volume work called Nature of Order by architect / visionary Christopher Alexander (about whom I've written before on my blog).

Postscript #3. A similar idea to the one presented above as thought experiment #1 (but in the context of cosmology) - and developed more completely on a semi-rigorous mathematical level - was proposed a few years ago by physicists Julian Barbour and Lee Smolin. They called it extremal variety. Barbour has published another article on this subject in the Harvard Review of Philosophy.

Learning to See from the Blind

Fine-art photography is first-and-foremost a visual language by which otherwise hidden truths and meanings - of the world and self - are revealed by the observer / artist. As such, it is rarely the case that what a photograph shows on its surface is the complete "message" that the photographer wishes to communicate. Indeed, philosophically speaking, one can say that fine-art photographers use images to provide glimpses of a reality that lies behind (and beyond) what the images represent, as things-in-themselves. Just as letters and words provide the basic units of grammar for literary artists to communicate essential truths that have nothing to do with letters and words, so too do light and form provide the visual grammar by which photographers reveal fundamental truths of nature (and our relationship with it) that have nothing to do with light and form. Art transforms the abject banality of sterile rules, internalized through years of rote memorization and practice, into an intimate expression of the ineffable.

So it should come as no great surprise (though, undoubtedly it will) that the blind - yes, the blind (!) - have much to teach those of us who are sighted about what real "sight" means. The image at the top of this blog entry is of the cover of an extraordinary book called Seeing Beyond Sight, lovingly put together by visual artist, Tony Deifell, and published by Chronicle Books in 2007. The book collects the works of visually impaired children during a five-year program of teaching photography to students at Governor Morehead School for the Blind in Raleigh, North Carolina, from 1992 to 1997. The book has a dedicated website; and an interview with the author has recently been posted on YouTube.

Mr. Deifell quickly addresses the most obvious question: "How can you teach photography to the blind?" On a practical level, even though most of the students involved could not see light, all of them were able to feel the heat due to light. Moreover, blindness does not preclude anyone from achieving a technical understanding of how a camera works, nor of learning the rudiments of good imaging technique. The more difficult question to answer - and what the book so beautifully explains by showing - is "How can the blind take pictures?" In a conventional sense, of course, they cannot; but only if by "taking pictures" we mean using the camera to record what they see visually. However, photography, in its purest form, is so much more than that.

Alfred Steiglitz, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Minor White - among many other great "photographic seers" - teach us that the finest photography occurs when we are able to (recognize and) capture that special sliver of time during which the boundary between inner and outer experiences vanishes. Steiglitz called such photographs equivalents; Cartier-Bresson referred to the sliver of time as the decisive moment; and Minor White talked often of the profound role that spirit plays in photography:

"Be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence." - Minor White (1908 - 1976)

But whatever one chooses to call it, the underlying process - for the photographer - is always the same: the camera is merely a mechanical device (and certainly not the only such mechanical device, nor even necessarily the best one to use for this purpose!) that serves to focus our attention (to pressing the shutter) at precisely the right moment when our inner and external experiences align.

"I was thinking that it would be sort of hard for a blind person to take pictures, but it's not very hard. You've just got to listen." (John V., student, quoted on page 48 of Seeing Beyond Sight).

When the "feel is right" - when everything is in its place, when all the compositional elements have snapped into their positions, the shadows and forms are just where they all must be, and when, for the blind, the warmth of the sunlight on the wall is just so, the wind has quieted down, and is no longer heard, the reverberations of distant footsteps are no longer felt, and the texture of the floor is just the right mix of smooth and rugged against the palm of the hand, then we hit the shutter.

In truth, the sighted photographer responds no more to purely visual stimuli than does the blind photographer. All photographers, whether they do so consciously or not (and whether they are aware of it or not) depend on all of their senses to reach that wonderful instant when the shutter goes "click." One can argue that blind photographers, precisely because they do not respond directly to visual stimuli, are actually closer to the core truths and realities that lie beyond the light than photographers who must work their way through to truth (by brute force, so to speak).

Anyone can take a picture of a tree; because that is what is in front of the camera. It takes an artist to use the image of the tree to show you something else about the tree, or something else entirely that has nothing do with the tree per se. Since the visually impaired photographer has difficulty seeing the tree as a tree - indeed, the blind photographer does not see a tree at all - other associations and meanings must necessarily arise that, ultimately, result in some inner train of thought / intuition that concludes with the photographer making the camera go click.

Just as I consider color a "distraction" to the purity of forms and tonalities I try to reveal with my black and white photographs, I can see how light itself can be a distraction if what I am really after is illumination of what light reveals to me (but which I cannot take a picture of directly). It is a great irony - paradox even (!) - of photography that it so deeply but mechanically depends on something (i.e., light) that is, in fact, rarely the focus of its intended message. Even if the light itself is the message (as exemplified by, say, Galen Rowell's lifelong artistic pursuits), the photograph can only capture the effect that light has on whatever environment the photographer has selected to take a picture in, not the light in situ.

There is a touching - or, better, an illuminating - story about a blind student named Leuwynda, who captured a series of wonderful "abstract" photos of cracks in the sidewalk; which she clearly "saw" with her walking cane but which most people are oblivious to. She used her photographs as documentary "proof" of the danger that blind students face in what most would consider uneventfully "short walks" to class, and sent her images along with a letter containing a plea for help to the superintendent. Mr. Deifell muses, on behalf of the rest of us "sighted" photographers, about how many "cracks" there are in the world that we are essentially all blind to?

"If the lights are off, I can see what I'm doing." (Dain, student, quoted on page 138 of Seeing Beyond Sight).

Another student, Josh, produced some soulful photographs of dark, blurry stairs that he used to communicate - via metaphor - a dream he had about being lost and wandering aimlessly in a snowstorm. Other students started using their growing collections of photographs as a means to develop otherwise under-developed communication skills. Merlett, for example, was both blind and learning disabled, and found reading and writing akin to torture. Photography provided a new - and joyous - language in which she could express herself and, as it turned out, tell all the stories she had always wanted to tell others but could not do so in a conventional way.

The book contains a short introduction by the author (and teacher), followed by a selection of student photographs organized into five sections: (1) distortion, (2) refraction, (3) reflection, (4) transparence, and (5) illuminance. It concludes with an afterward, a short FAQ, and a summary of where the students who participated in the project are today.

"How do you not cut people's heads off in a photo? Just ask the person where they are." (Frances, student, quoted on page 112 of Seeing Beyond Sight).

For me, the book (and the project on which it is based) is a revelation. Were it not for the context in which the images in this book were captured, and the accompanying stories of how individual images came to be, one would be tempted to "dismiss" many of the photographs as "amateurish" and merit-less as fine-art. And that would be sadly unfortunate; for these images go to the heart of human experience and artistic expression. They show us what lies beyond the light that illuminates what we take pictures of, and what all photographers - with and without the gift of sight - are trying to reveal with their photography.

Anybody with a decent camera can take a picture of a crack in the sidewalk - and have the image met with blank stares and mutterings of "Yeah, it's a crack in the sidewalk., so what?" It takes a blind photographer to so effortlessly use a physical symbol - i.e., a photograph of some "thing" - to represent the deeper, inner experience of how "difficult it is to walk to class" on a campus built by people who can see. By not being able to see things, the blind photographer naturally focuses on using the things that the camera is able to capture to show what else things are. And that is what the very best photography has always been about.

While I have focused mainly on the philosophical end of the spectrum in this short commentary, I would be remiss in not mentioning that I was just as struck about how powerful a general learning tool - about self, about world, about learning (!) - the project was for the students involved. In some ways, though not quite as "obviously" dramatic - the results of the project remind me of Oliver Sacks' Awakenings (though here the "awakenings" are more spiritual than physical).

The blind obviously have much to teach us sighted photographers how to really see. They teach us to pay attention to all of the little "invisible cracks" in the world, and to not rely exclusively on our eyes in doing so. There is no better place to begin the first lesson on this journey of illumination - which takes the form of a gentle admonition to just "close your eyes" - than to savor the examples in this magnificent book, Seeing Beyond Sight. Highly recommended.

Postscript #1: There is recent evidence that suggests that "blindsight" - i.e., the ability "see" even if completely blind to visual stimuli - is real (and is due to previously unknown ancient evolutionary sensory pathways). See Blind Man Navigates Maze.

Postscript #2: A few days after posting my blog entry, I ran across another review of Seeing Beyond Sight very much in the spirit of mine; which is to say, philosophically infused and considerably more about "seeing" than seeing.

Postscript #3: There is a similar, but unrelated, book about photography by visually impaired photographers, called Shooting Blind, published by Aperture. An associated website also contains some extraordinarily haunting photographs.

Experiential "Flow" in Photography

I am often asked, "What do you think about when you do photography?" To which I typically respond with something like, "the less the better." An answer which, unfortunately - more often than not - only leads to a protracted discussion (that my deliberately "short" reply is usually meant to avoid).

However, the truth is that while my reply is curt, it is far from flippant. Indeed, it conveys the very essence of what I love about photography. Apart from the signature theme of my blog ("Tao" / photography), and my lifelong predilection toward mysticism and spirituality, the one word - the one idea - that best describes what the "I" that the external world calls "Andy Ilachinski the photographer" experiences during (the most memorable moments of doing) photography is flow.

Here I am thinking of the word "flow" as defined by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, director of the Quality of Life Research Center at the Drucker School of Claremon Graduate University, and author of (among many other books), Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. In this book (and in his multi-decade long examination of the subject), Csíkszentmihályi describes the supra-conscious state (sometimes called the "groove" by musicians, or the "zone" by basketball players) that people "awaken" to and experience when completely absorbed and immersed in an activity. For me, of course, that "activity" is doing photography; or, more precisely, when I am out "shooting with my camera" (and eye/I).

When I write, as I do in some of my blog entries and Blurb books, that my best moments as an artist - as a human being - are those when I entirely lose a sense of self, I do not mean this to be interpreted as poetry or metaphor; I mean this literally. If I come home from a day's worth of a photo-safari, armed with 10 or more GBs of RAW files, and know that I was totally aware of what I was doing the entire time (consciously thinking of f-stops, filters, and compositions), I will also know that there will be little chance of finding any soulful art in that huge digital pile. I was not in the flow. On the other hand, if I go out for a walk with my dog and camera, and come back with but one shot of I know not what because my mind was lost while I was taking it, I stand a good chance of savoring that precious gem of an image that is likely to emerge on my computer screen. Not always, of course, but the chances are usually good, if I lost myself in the process of capture.

This experience, and my interpretation of it, is far from unique. It is experienced by everyone, at some point in time, though not everyone is always attuned to when (or why and how) it happens, nor appreciates what needs to be done to maximize the chances of it happening again. This is where Csíkszentmihályi's books come in handy, as they describe the nature of this experiential flow; how it comes about, what the tell-tale signs are, and how one might better prepare for the "ride."

Hereis a wonderful 20 min long TED presentation by Csíkszentmihályi. A short excerpt from his book is available here.

Csíkszentmihályi identifies 8 conditions / dimensions of the flow experience: (1) clear goals every step of the way; (2) immediate feedback to one's action; (3) balance between challenges and skills; (4) focused concentration; (5) sense of potential control; (6) loss of self-consciousness; (7) time distortion; and (8) autotelic or self-rewarding experience. Critically, in order to maximize the potential for experiencing flow, one must eliminate (as much as possible) any anxiety or boredom, and strike a delicate (and typically dynamic) balance between the challenge of the activity and the available skills that one brings to bear on the required tasks. The purest - or deepest - states of flow are achieved when one is able to apply a maximal skill set (which can itself, of course, be achieved only through long study and practice; i.e., a total immersion to craft) to the most highly challenging activity. This is rare, but is a spiritual prize well worth pursuing.

Among the several wonderful quotes that Csíkszentmihályi includes in a 2007 presentation ("Flow and Education") are these three: one from an anonymous rock climber...

“You’re so involved in what you’re doing, you aren’t thinking about yourself as separate from the immediate activity. You’re no longer a participant observer, only a participant. You’re moving in harmony with something else you’re part of.”

...one from a surgeon:

“You are not aware of the body except your hands...not aware of self or personal problems….If involved, you are not aware of aching feet, not aware of self.”

...and one from poet Mark Strand:

“You're right in the work, you lose your sense of time, you're completely enraptured, you're completely caught up in what you're doing…. there's no future or past, it's just an extended present in which you're making meaning…”

These sentiments pretty much express my own experience of flow in photography. When in the flow, I do not know my name, I do not know where I am except for the "feel" of my immediate surroundings, I do not reflect on my problems or station in life, I do not worry about what "I need to do" after I've finished my photography. I am one with my camera, I am one with what my camera is pointed at, I have no conscious sense of self or awareness of being, apart from a pure primal joy in experiencing total immersion in what I am doing. I am focused, strongly and deeply, but not at all actively engaged in thinking about anything. There is no sense of time, not even as I press the shutter repeatedly or take long exposures and somehow, though only mechanically and utterly devoid of conscious reflection, tick off the required seconds. I know the flow has vanished when I hear myself ask, "What now?"

Interestingly, Csíkszentmihályi's research suggests that it is highly unlikely that individuals will attain a sense of flow - in any field or endeavor - unless they've immersed themselves in it for at least 10 years. I can attest to this being true in my case, though (being a bit slow perhaps;-) it took me nearly twenty to reach this state. But, oh how I look forward to that precious, wondrous experience when it comes! Alas, when I am one of those (much, much more frequent) non-flow states, the best I can do is recall having the flow experience, not the flow itself. But I know it will come...

So, "What do you think about when you do photography?"

Finding New Things in Old

I am always amused when I hear young photographers lament about there not being anything interesting left over to take pictures of (after they have spent all of a few hours somewhere taking pictures). The lament only deepens and becomes more poignant after a particular place has been visited a number of times (days, weeks); and reaches a fever pitch after visiting the "same old place" for months (or - goodness - years!). To be sure, even experienced professional photographers go through inevitable dry spells, during which they find their wellspring of inspiration at a low ebb, and nothing seems aesthetically inviting or interesting (especially - so the argument goes - a place that the artist knows extremely well).

But there are really two issues at play here: (1) the feeling that one's inner muse has temporarily put up an "out to lunch" sign and does not wish to be disturbed, and (2) that the worst place to find the muse quietly "munching on its lunch" (and in a receptive mood) is somewhere where the photographer has already "been" with his or her muse. An artist’s chagrin during such lows is certainly understandable, and (speaking as a photographer who has had his fair share of "searching" for his "lost" muse) immediate family members are usually the ones who suffer most since they must bear the brunt of the artist's unhappy "low tide" mood (never a pleasant experience for anyone involved! ;-) But it is still sad for me to see young photographers, who genuinely aspire to find and develop their artistic vision, continually lament the apparently dull visual landscape that they've convinced themselves is all their "day jobs" permit them to be surrounded by and in which to find their "vision." I suspect that the real problem is not the place - per se - but what needs to be done to reconnect to the place (the "connection" being what may otherwise, and more poetically, be called one's "muse").

"Spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer It has chosen." - Minor White

“How many times can I go to that same park?” one might ask; or, “I’ve shot a dozen rolls of film in that garden, and I’m bored; all the flowers are beginning to look alike!” While there is no magic elixir to remedy such moments of temporary angst—which all artists, from aspiring to established, are destined to experience countless numbers of times in their careers—I can offer two useful pieces of advice: (1) the angst is temporary, and requires nothing more than simple patience for its effects to wear off, and (2) to accelerate its disappearance, remind yourself that any place in nature, no matter how small or transient or seemingly devoid of any interesting features, can be perceived in an infinite number of ways, in an infinite number of contexts, and yield to an infinity of interpretations.

Case in point...not far from where my family and I live in Northern Virginia is Great Falls state park; indeed, I have written about it several times (Rocks, Leaves & Water and Staccato Flow Abstracts). Because parks and kids go rather well together, and my wife and I have two, we visit this park often all year round.

It is no exaggeration to say that both my wife and I are familiar enough with this park’s many paths and walkways to be able to navigate it in the dark. As such, one may be forgiven for believing that my intimate familiarity with the sights of this park robs me of my photographic muse.

But - perhaps paradoxically - not only does my familiarity not diminish my desire for picture taking, it — if anything — amplifies my ability to tune out distractions and focus entirely on what intuitively catches my inner eye. Familiarity, in other words, somehow (for me) breeds detachment. A detachment (i.e., an "objectivity") that, in turn - and involving yet another seeming paradox - enhances my subjective artistic/aesthetic sense. Despite frequenting this park dozens and dozens of times over the years, I have never failed to see something entirely new, or failed to reinterpret—contextually and photographically—something that I may have seen and photographed many times before.

Perhaps the most visible benefit of my frequent visitation of Great Falls (at least, from the point of view of the consumers of my photography, namely my family;-)...is that sometimes (but just sometimes;-), I manage to leave the park with images that actually look like something that was photographed in the park (rather than my usual "abstractivization" that robs photographs of all possible clues as to where they were taken; see previous blog entry).

Physics vs Photography: Which is Harder?

George Barr, on his Behind the Lens blog, posted one of those wonderfully thought-provoking (and ultimately unanswerable) questions about the relative "difficulty" (as an activity) of one's day-job (in George's case, being a medical doctor, and in mine a physicist) and fine-art photography. While I couldn't resist leaving George a stream-of-consciousness comment on his own blog, his interesting question kept haunting me even as I focused attention to other matters.

My "answer" to George was (and remains), though not quite as strongly as when I first composed it, that photography is harder. The really hard part is explaining (if only to myself!) what I mean by "harder" ;-)

So, here are a few thoughts. First, the creative aspects of both professions, for me, are, on a meta-level, roughly equivalent. That is, in their respective domains, both physics and photography tap into the same ineffably non-objective part of our brains; it could take minutes to find a "solution" (to a physics problem or compositional one), or it could take days, I just don't know...but the process by which I search for a solution is, at a deep level, equivalent, and equivalently exhilarating. Indeed, it is precisely this "all but impossible to describe" process of finding a mathematical solution to a problem or finding that "just right" sequence of photographic steps (subject matter, composition, exposure, raw processing and photoshop manipulation, and print expression) to get a "print" that draws me both to physics and photography. So far, so good; and so far, about even.

On a more pragmatic level...it is a fact that physics pays the bills (at least for me; though I understand there are fine-art photographers who make a comfortable living doing precisely, and only, that, as their day job). In my case, I know that while I'm wearing my physics hat during the day, I will have loads and loads of time (for which I am well compensated) to just think and ponder problems (mostly of my choosing). I have that luxury. But in photography, the time I have is the time I both make (by myself) and borrow (and/or negotiate with my family). I therefore know - and am almost always consciously aware of the fact (even as I wander around with my camera) - that I do not have precious loads of time at my disposal; that each moment is that much more precious, and can ill-afford to squander any time.

I would be less than honest if I didn't admit to sometimes feeling that doing photography on "borrowed time" represents something of a small advantage, creatively, since I am compelled to learn to make the "best possible use" of whatever time I get. There is also the implicit understanding that when I am doing my photography, I have no pressure to perform (unlike my day-job); I do it on my time, of my choosing, and lose nothing, really, if a particular day (or week) leads to abject creative failure.

On the other hand (just how many sides to this are there? ;-), I am my own harshest critic when it comes to photography, and I always have to come up with lame excuses to myself about why a photo-safari day came to naught. Over the long haul that too takes its toll (as my standards inevitably creep upwards, even as my perceived "quality" either stays the same or diminishes (as I get lazier, or tired, or just older).

So, which is "easier" when all is said and done; physics or photography? I think I'm still siding with George on this one. Its not that when I'm doing physics I'm "going through the motions" (I certainly hope not!), but my "day job" has the virtue of having much of its substance (and most of its activity) predefined for me. I waste little energy - creative or otherwise - worrying about what problem to think about, or even whether today is a good day to start a new research topic or write a paper. I'm not even speaking of the mathematical techniques and computer modeling tools I'll likely be using. I know what they are, and I know (in most cases) how to apply them to the problems at hand (and if not, I know where to turn to learn about them, almost as though on auto-pilot).

But photography...well, in an important (and to non-photographers, paradoxical) sense, most photographers are happiest when they are enshrouded in the totally unknown (which can make life hard)...we peek around that perpetually elusive corner in hopes of finding something we hope we never really find: something absolutely new that we've never ever seen before, and have little or no idea about what to do with if we find it. We keep looking for the "next best shot" and the "next best processing" steps and/or tools to apply to what we've caught on film (or CCD/CMOS). We both seek the unknown (with a passion!) and are afraid of it (because the unknown always throws you off balance). And there is always the spectre of losing one's muse and no longer being able to produce good work; and simply not being up to the technical task of expressing what one's Ansel-Adams'like "previsualization" of the final print ought to look like.

We want to be tested, creatively, again and again; but the better we are at achieving our elusive goal, the more uncertain we are of our ability to keep going, and the more difficult it becomes to maintain one's focus and connection to the magic muse. Minor White may have said that "Spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer It has chosen," but that - unfortunately - says nothing about the poor photographer who keeps working, hunting, worrying, praying that Spirit never leaves! For that's precisely when Spirit suddenly decides it has better places to visit. It's something all photographers worry about, at some time; and the likelihood of doing so - constantly - only increases as one grows older and yearns to do great things. Needless to say, such worrisome states are not terribly conducive to genuine creativity or works of lasting value. I do not generally find myself thinking or worrying about such almost mystical matters in my day job.

Certainly, in physics, as in all sciences, there is a superficially similar (perpetual even) yearning to "learn more"...but learning is a process that most physicists have mastered long before they stumble upon the "metaphysical" dimensions of yearning (and finally succumb to it). In photography, on the other hand, there is a perpetual and utterly insatiable hunger to "find something new", which is a very, very hard thing to do, much less master.

So, as I sit here, at the "wise old age" of 47, and look back on 20 years as a physics PhD and about 35 years as a photographer (well, 36, if I include that sensational abstract I got of my bedpost with my very first polaroid;-), I'd say that photography is marginally more difficult than physics. The really fascinating thing is, though, that it only seems hard when I ponder the question of how hard it is. When I'm doing it, its effortless; and the same goes for physics, of course;-)

Postscript: The images are screenshots from a presentation (pdf link) I gave at the Smithsonian a few years ago, entitled Nature's Way: The Art of Seeing. Perhaps if there is an interest, I'll post some notes to summarize the main points. What I discussed was the creative dynamics that lies at the cusp of science and art. The last screenshot contains (in the top "bubble") the fifteen properties of life that architect Christopher Alexander expounds upon in his Opus Nature of Order.

A "Magic" Filter from Singh-Ray

When I was still in my teens, and just starting to learn photography, I recall two pivotal moments after which whatever doubts I may have had at the time about seriously pursuing photography evaporated, never to be heard from again. I described the first moment in an earlier blog entry; it amounts to seeing Minor White's "abstract expressionist"-like "Capitol Reef" print for the first time. I will not repeat what I wrote before, except to emphasize the spiritual awakening that White's image evoked in me. I realized for the first time that photography could be used to express not just the "objective" world - as it appears here and now, on the "outside" - but also an intensely subjective, private world that describes our very soul and its relationship to the corporeal.

The second moment, which occurred at roughly the same time in my life, took place as I was ponderously reading a rather dry textbook on photography; and is a direct precursor of why I am now so excited (30 years later!) by a magnificent lens filter available from Singh-Ray. Going back to my old self at 17, I remember being curled up in bed one day, while skimming through some pages explaining the basics of exposure. It was all standard material, with equally standard (meaning somewhat "dull") illustrations and photos highlighting the central points of the text. And then I ran across what I, at the time, thought was a stunningly dull photo: an image of an empty highway, taken in broad daylight. No cars, no pedestrians, no birds, nothing but asphalt and concrete. "Wow," I remember thinking, "these guys could use some creativity pills if this is the best they can do to illustrate a text on photography!" But it was a curiously puzzling photo, and strangely mesmerizing in its own way. I couldn't take my eyes off it for some reason. I kept asking myself, "Why aren't there any cars on this long stretch of highway in the middle of the day?" After reading the text more carefully (there was no caption underneath the picture except for the figure number), I had my second epiphanous moment.

The reason the picture showed nothing but an empty highway was because - during the extremely long exposure (about 1 min!) - nothing was in the frame long enough to register on the film! And how did that happen? Because the author was illustrating an effect of attaching a strong neutral density filter to the lens (in addition to using a very small aperture). A neutral density filter (NDF) reduces the intensity of light (at all wavelengths), thereby increasing the effective exposure time as the amount of reduction increases. NDFs are typically rated by the number of "f-stops"-worth of light reduction they impose.

For example, if a "filterless" exposure at f8 is, say, 1/500 sec, then a "2 f-stop" NDF will increase the exposure to 1/125 sec (at the same aperture); and an "4-stop" NDF will further increase it to 1/30 sec. Of course, one has to be sure that the white balance is preserved (so that there are no extraneous color shifts); which in practice simply means that you'll be investing in more expensive brands. I always carry at least two NDFs in my bag, one 3f-stop and one 6f-stop. The range is important, for it allows me to "experiment" with, say, a "frozen" water stream (using a fast exposure), a stream that is delicately blurred (for exposure times between 1/4 - 1 sec), and cloud-like flow "abstractions" (for t>5 sec).

However, despite the aesthetic allure of photos taken with my NDFs, I have often felt overly constrained by being able to reduce my exposure only by a fixed amount, as allowed and defined by a given filter's f-stop rating. Until, that is, a few weeks ago when I stumbled upon a remarkable variable neutral density filter - called a vari-ND - by Singh-Ray.

The vari-ND allows the user to "dial-in" any desired level of light attenuation between two and eight f-stop's worth, simply by rotating a ribbed ring on the filter. Apart from the technical acumen required to make this work, by providing the photographer near instant control over a vast continuous range of effective exposures makes the vari-ND a truly remarkable device.

Well, I've had this magic filter - and it is magic! - for a few weeks, and had a chance to experiment "Seeing" with it; some examples of which you see sprinkled throughout this post. It works precisely as advertised, and is a lesson in elegant design and workmanship. There are two sizes - 77mm and 82 mm - which is not a problem for those (like me) with smaller sized lens, since you can always use a step-up ring to match the filter. Indeed, having a smaller lens is actually an advantage, since you reduce the possibility of vignetting at wider-angles.

Objectively speaking, the vari-ND does not provide anything that a photographer cannot achieve in other ways, using other tools. But oh how magnificently effortless vari-ND renders that work! If the possibility of creating lasting works of art depends, in even small measure, on the artist being unburdened from logistical/technical constraints, then - I say - the vari-ND is truly a magic filter! It is brilliant in conception, flawless in design, and produces stunning images.

If you are a seasoned photographer looking to expand your creative possibilities, have just started exploring the dynamics of light and exposure, or have ever wondered what it would be like to control up to 8 f-stops worth of light with a simple twist of a filter, go here, and order one of these magical devices for yourself. You won't regret it!

A philosophical postscript: I use the word "magic" in the title and in my reference to the vari-ND for two reasons. The first reason has already been hinted at in the text above, and has to do with how this filter "magically" renders effortless the willful imposition of desired exposure time (on a technical level). The second reason, unarticulated explicitly above, is decidedly philosophical. What this filter does, in effect, is to transform our normal, every-day perception of temporal flow - in which the world appears to move in localized snippets of time that last roughly 1/30 to 1/60sec - to glimpses of a supranormal, otherwordly, realm in which time moves at a slower, sometimes significantly slower, pace. It thereby also transforms us into temporally transcendent beings, that temporarily exist outside of time, and are able to marvel at time's own inner rhythms. Who is to say what is "real", and what is not? Is the "real" stream of water the one my eyes provide a visual imprint of?" Or is it the ethereal cloud of vapor that my "temporally transformed" eye glimpses, however briefly, with the aid of the vari-ND? Both are "real", but neither is definitively so, of course. Moreover, I would argue, it is this simple, but profound, realization that we have momentarily stepped "outside the normal flow of perceived time" - along with the even deeper realization that the clearest view of reality can only take place from some vantage point outside of it, on a meta-level - that points the way toward something approaching a "spiritual" enlightenment. Thus, the second reason I use the word "magic" in describing the vari-ND, is that it "magically" reveals a (normally hidden) spiritual realm.

Concerning the Spiritual in Photography

"The great epoch of the Spiritual which is already beginning, or, in embryonic form ... provides and will provide the soil in which a kind of monumental work of art must come to fashion," so prophesied the great Russian painter, Wassily Kandinsky, in his masterful Concerning the Spiritual in Art, published in 1914. Since then, of course, and to varying degrees, art has been replete with many aspects of the spiritual; indeed, the traditionally religious-centric interpretation of the term has on occasion been considerably expanded by art to include mysticism, ritual and myth, symbolism, the occult, and pure abstraction. A wonderful book - The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1985 - that chronicles much of the history of spiritual art, and contains many wonderful reproductions of important works, was published in 1985 to highlight an exhibit held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. A recent Dover reprint of another classic survey - The Spiritual in Twentieth-Century Art - is also available; though it has only a relatively few black and white examples, the scholarship is first-rate.

The impact of the "spiritual" on photography is less clear, and has - sadly - less of a clear history. To be sure, the spiritual has never been far from photography's best practitioners; though not necessarily in overt form. Alfred Steiglitz's "Equivalents" are nothing if not quiet, soulful expressions of an inner reality, and are obviously infused with spirit in the deepest sense. Ansel Adam's portfolio of ostensibly "grand sweeping vistas" filled with Wagnerian-scale drama, are both creative affirmations of everything that is beautiful "out there," beyond the artist behind the lens, and of the poetic soul yearning desperately for a way to better communicate the transcendent beauty it sees on the inside. Adams' quest was a quintessentially spiritual one, much more so than merely aesthetic; a quest that is, regrettably (and profoundly erroneously, in my view), all-too-quickly dismissed by some latter day photographers as a product of "vision-less" Zone-system technobable and attention to irrelevant minutiae of craft. Many of Minor White's best works can be compared to those of Kandinsky, in the sense that both artists (used their respective media to) point a way toward a radically new grammar for spiritual expression. And Carl Chiarenza's visionary explorations of the "inner landscape" have been available for all to "see" for decades.

Still more recently, I've encountered the works of spiritually inclined artists such as Doug Beasley, Nicholas Hlobeczy, John Daido Loori, Deborah Dewit Marchant, and Jerry Wolfe, who each in their own way, pay homage to the spirit of Steiglitz's equivalents, and use their photography to reveal otherwise invisible realms of the soul. (Not surprisingly, Hlobeczy, Loori, and Wolfe all worked with Minor White.)

But, though there are plenty of other contemporary photographer / artists whose work is very spiritual in nature, there is little evidence to suggest that "spiritual photography" (at least in the sense I mean here) is emerging - or has ever emerged, for that matter! - as a bona-fide movement in photography. Indeed, if books such as reGeneration: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow (published, ironically, by Aperture, a magazine founded by Minor White and Ansel Adams!) are true indicators of the direction in which photography is currently "moving," that direction is visibly leading away from, rather than anywhere near, spirit. Deliberately staged images that shock and pound the senses into a surrealistic (and often numbingly ugly) unreality seem to be the norm; pictures that invite a quiet meditation or that simply, but sincerely, ask, "Is this not beautiful?" are rarely seen today - and when they do appear, are routinely scorned by critics as unimportant "pretty pictures" that convey no lasting meaning. (Christopher Alexander has been lamenting a similar spiritual decline in architecture and urban planning for a quarter century.) I hope I am wrong, for to move away from spiritual expression is, in my opinion, to move away from the most meaningful connection we have to the spiritual world - which is our essential wellspring of existence - as physical beings. Severing this connection, even if only implicitly by focusing our collective artistic / photographic energies onto more "sterile" - and spiritually inert - aspects of the world, means we must face the specter of losing ourselves in (or devolving backwards to) the merely physical.

For me, photography, or any other creative art form for that matter, is first and foremost a language of the transcendent; it represents a way for gifted "seers" - otherwise known as "artists" - to remind the rest of us that none of us are merely creatures of the flesh.

Fleeting Glimpse of Uber-Genius

Every once in a while, one runs across a work that is so powerfully moving, so visionary, that it is as though the spiritual cosmos itself has briefly transformed into (or, with a wink to itself, escaped into) corporeal existence; the artist that serves as channel for this wondrous interpenetration of spirit and matter can only be described as an Uber-artist, or more simply, an Uber genius. Allow me to introduce you to a candidate for such an honor...

"...Humanity owes its progress to geniuses...[but] humanity is not want to deal kindly with its geniuses..." (Stanislaw Lem, "Odysseus of Ithaca", Non Servium)

In the April 2007 issue of the fine-art B&W photography magazine (issue #50), I ran across the work of photographer Jerry Wolfe, the front cover of whose extraordinary book - Beginner's Mind - is reproduced at the top of this Blog entry; and was awe-struck by the intensity of spiritual depth captured, and radiated, by his mesmerizing images. The last image of the published series, in particular, titled Cave Detail (page 99, B&W issue #50), triggered a spiritual odyssey - in me - with echoes of visions my youthful self had of what was possible with photography (when in the right eyes and hands) when I first glanced at Minor White's visionary Capitol Reef.

"...First come your run-of-the-mill and middling geniuses, that is of the third order, whose minds are unable to go much beyond the horizon of their times. These, relatively speaking, are threatened the least; they are often recognized and even come into money and fame..." (Stanislaw Lem, "Odysseus of Ithaca", Non Servium)

Mr. Wolfe has been a photographer for over 30 years, gracefully combining his preturnaturally gifted eye for beauty with his lifelong spiritual practice of mindfulness and Buddhist meditation. All of his images are subtlety charged with a quiet grace; as though they are earthly imprints of a mysterious, ethereal spiritual grammar. Their meaning shifts, even as you observe them; and observe them you will, for while, objectively speaking, they are (as are all prints) nothing more than "flat, two-dimensional worlds", they reveal worlds - and worlds of meaning - far beyond the limitations of the page they live on, and sometimes point to even vaster, more mysterious worlds within.

"...The geniuses of the second order are already too difficult for their contemporaries and therefore fare worse...recognition awaits the geniuses of the second order, in the form of a triumph beyond the grave..." (Stanislaw Lem, "Odysseus of Ithaca", Non Servium)

Mr. Wolfe's Beginner's Mind is an extraordinary work of art, with an emphasis on extra-ordinary, for it transcends even (otherwise conventionally) symbolic levels of meaning, achieving visual/spiritual tones rarely attained by even the most "gifted" of artists. How does he do this? I have no idea, nor could I, except to embrace the idea that all of us are humble channels for nature's own creative powers.

"...The intermediate types [beyond second but below first order] are discovered either by the succeeding generation or by some later one..." (Stanislaw Lem, "Odysseus of Ithaca", Non Servium)

Condider just one small part of Mr. Wolfe's Opus, his Buddhist Expressions Series (#1 - #12, pages 20-43 in Beginner's Mind), which Mr. Wolfe (humbly, poetically and very appropriately) opens with ...

Each Moment
Fresh and original.
Where's the "I"
Experiencing this?

To which, after seeing these wondrous prints, I can only say that they are among the finest abstracts I have ever seen. Not because they are merely "beautiful abstracts" (which they surely are), but because they embody the core Kandinsky-like essence of what a true "abstract" represents: a portal to other, higher, worlds and realities.

"...the geniuses of the first order are never known - not by anyone, not in life, not after death. For they are creators of truth so unprecedented, purveyors of proposals so revolutionary, that not a soul is capable of making head or tail of them..." (Stanislaw Lem, "Odysseus of Ithaca", Non Servium)

Mr. Wolfe is certainly not threatened by obscurity, for he is already a well known artist, teacher and author. But he represents a small class of profoundly gifted visionaries that - for whatever reason (perhaps simply the vagaries of life's currents) - are not much better known than they are!

I urge all fine-art photographers, particularly those with a penchant for using their art for spiritual exploration, to experience Mr. Wolfe's Beginner's Mind for themselves (you can also order it from Amazon). Who knows what paths a simple click of a mouse might take you?

The EightFold Way of an Artist

While on a recent reconnaissance mission for a new image series, I experienced a mini-epiphany with regard to my (embarrassingly slow!) maturation as an artist. Before I expand on this muse, I need to briefly explain what I mean by "reconnaissance " and "image series"...by "reconnaissance" I mean a scouting out of potential photo sites: an excursion to a new park, a farm, a garden, or an out of the way road. Sometimes I go with my camera; sometimes I deliberately choose not to, and instead just walk around a place (with hands clasped behind my back, as my artist dad used to do as though it were genetically prescribed, which in his case it might well have been!) to get the feel of a new place. By "image series" I mean the set of photos that, by design (though chance also plays a vital part), revolve around a single theme: portals, light, reflections, complexity, decay,...

And so, on to my muse...I was on my way this past weekend to reconnoiter a local Russian Orthodox Church for a new image series called Light & Spirit, only to find it locked, with no one around to open it. As I started on my way back home, I noticed that I was not far from an old haunt of mine, a place I took about a dozen trips to while capturing images for a series eventually called "Entropic Melodies" (a few of which wound up in B&W Magazine last year). I have many fond memories of spending many wonderfully creative hours prowling around that place. But, despite having a few unexpected hours at my disposal on the heels of discovering a locked church, I had absolutely no desire to stop by my old haunt to capture a few photographs!


It was upon my honestly asking myself "Why didn't I stop to take some pictures?" (while waiting, ironically, at a stop light) that I had my sudden epiphany. I did not stop because my old haunt is no longer an active part of my creative landscape. I had, in short, moved on. The spark that lights my photography at a given place and time had been ignited - and is burning - but elsewhere. And it is that spark that drives my work.

My photography has, in recent years, slowly evolved from my being content to "shoot away" at will at a beach or park, with no specific artistic "goal" in mind other than to maybe capture a nice image or two, to a point where, if I have not managed to capture a series of strong enough images to convey something (ala Steiglitz or Minor White) of my inner state of mind (soul) while taking them, I am considerably less than satisfied. I yearn to tell a deeper story!

The keys here are:

(1) Recognizing, and being able to communicate, something aesthetically deeper than just the representational "surface layer" of a given image, and

(2) Imagining, and being able to use, a series of images to convey something of my inner experience of a place, as I am shooting it.

Thus, I am no longer content to "merely" capture a mysterious ethereal glow to an otherwise withered old window; I need to use that image, and another, and a third, and perhaps a dozen more like it (or entirely different from it!) to weave a still more mysterious narrative of what I felt (and maybe a bit of what I thought!) as I was transfixed on training my camera on withered old windows.


In trying to place my mini-epiphany-inducing locked-Church experience this weekend into a broader context, it occured to me that all photographers - indeed, perhaps all artists - inevitably go through some version of the following basic stages of what might suggestively be called the Eightfold Way of an artist:

(Stage 1) One learns the technical aspects of his/her craft. In the case of a photographer, this amounts to learning how to use a camera (the meaning of an f-stop, what ASA/ISO means, how to properly meter a scene, and so on), and learning to use a darkroom (analog or digital) to produce prints. The emphasis in this stage is on the formal, mechanical aspects of an art (which is not quite an "art"). The lessons are stored in short-term memory, and must often be practiced to the point of tedium in order to commit them to long term memory that, eventually, renders them automatic.

(Stage 2) Once the mechanical has become second nature, the first hint of real art appears. The basic tools of the craft are first used as tools of the trade, though perhaps still in rudimentary fashion. The camera is used to record the "objects" of the world that are of interest to the budding artist: a person, a flower, a tree, and so on. But little or no attention is given, at this stage, to anything other than a technically correct "capture" of an image; and a representational one at that. It is rare for a budding artist to skip this representational stage and move directly to an expressionist, or even abstract, rendering of the world.

(Stage 3) In the third stage, the emerging artist takes his/her first tentative steps towards using (the, by now, technically well executed) images to express something uniquely of themselves. It is not necessarily "timeless art" in the tradition of an Ansel Adams (since most artists will never even come close to achieving this lofty ideal); but it is "art" in the sense that the artist, having now mastered the tools of his/her trade, now uses them mindfully to convey an artful message. The image of a tree ceases to be merely a representation of a "pretty tree" and becomes, instead, a personal expression of "using the photographic capture of a tree to communicate X", where "X" is a message of the artist's own choosing. Stage three is both an "easy" step to take (at least for those meant to live a life of art); and a profoundly hard one to take naturally (since even the most committed artists often have a hard time disentangling what others expect them to create and what they themselves need to create). No one can make it to Stage 4 (and higher) without stumbling through the Stage 3 roadblock.

(Stage 4) The fourth stage is a deeper imprint of the process started in stage 3. Where stage 3 sees the artist use his/her craft to communicate an artful message, stage four invites the artist to develop a personal language that uses outward forms (captured by the camera) to express inner realities. Thus, stage 4 is where the objective meets the subjective for the first time. A found/created image retains its representational form, but is infused with the first light of transcendence by its conveyance of distinctly non-representational inner meaning. A given image is used to reflect the artist's inner experience of the context for the image at the instant of capture; think of Steiglitz's "equivalents" or Minor White's Zen-like approach to using photography as a probe of his inner self).

(Stage 5) Stage 5 (which is where, if I'm in a particularly happy mood, I allow myself to believe I'm taking a tentative step toward) is where the photographer first turns his/her attention to using a series of images to communicate - and share - a broader, deeper, experience of some meaningful reality in space and time. In short, to use images as an experiential, narrative grammar that may be used to recreate and communicate something of what the photographer felt while being in a place a camera for a time longer than an instant. When a photographer reaches stage 5, a single image no longer seems to suffice, and even a few feel stifling and incomplete. The photographer now actively seeks narratives with his pictures, and tends to use multiple images to communicate deeper experiences.

(Stage 6) As Stage 4 is a deeper imprint of stage 3, all successive stages from stage 5 and higher are essentially deeper imprints of the stages below them. Having mastered (by stage 5) his/her own creative grammar, the artist in stage 6 moves on to develop his/her own artistic language. Multiple series of images are still used, and the "subject matter" remains essentially the same, but the creative product is a subtly more profound, and resonates on many more levels (in the communication between artist and viewer). Paradoxically (though "obviously so" if you've been following the argument thus far), fewer people are able to "appreciate" what the emerging artist is using his new personal language to express; the artist need not fear this stage (though all do!), for this is also a landmark along the path to finding one's art (and soul). We cannot expect everyone to listen to what we have to say; or to hear us when we say it. The fact that fewer do than did before (at this stage) is a sign that both what we are saying and how we are saying it is becoming indelibly fused with who we are, at our core. And we are all different.

(Stage 7) Stage 7 sees the photographer embark on an even broader vision quest to use his/her art to communicate not just inner (and intensely personal) experiences, but universal truths as well. The photograher, at this stage, wishes to use photography (and art in general) to express an (objectively invisible) universe of subjective truth. No longer confined to the space of personal narrative, the artist's creative space encroaches the whole human experience of reality. The focus is now less on physical experiences, and more - often, much more - on spiritual experiences. Light, for example, as the pre-grammatic form of an artist's personal photographic grammar and language, is no longer just a counterpoint to tone and darkness, but is a symbolic pointer to a spiritual realm. The artist, once he/she enters stage 7, leaves the merely physical realm (and its myriad subjective descriptions), and enters the ineffably spiritual universe.

(Stage 8) Stage 8, which few artists encounter, but those that have, have obviously done so (at least to those viewers who still understand their "language"), sees the artist, in the deepest sense possible, come home, full circle...

“Before I had studied Zen for thirty years,
I saw mountains as mountains,
and waters as waters…

When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge,
I came to the point where I saw
that mountains are not mountains,
and waters are not waters.

But now that I have got its very substance
I am at rest.
For it's just that I see mountains
once again as mountains,
and waters once again as waters.”

— Ch'uan Teng Lu, The Way of Zen

...the artist's work is now so evolved, so personally attuned to the cosmos, and universal, that - at least on the best of days - the artist is finally able to convey all that is with, seemingly, hardly any effort, or even artwork (!) at all. A humble little single picture, perhaps not even one of anything recognizably real, or, just as likely, of something most people would think banal, now suffices to communicate (to the best of the artist's gifts and skills) the truths that are usually home only to young children and mystics. All is finally seen as one; and it is up to the viewer to see the one and appreciate, and marvel at, how the artist has rendered it as all.


Postscript: I have no doubt that my dad (about whom, and about whose art, I have written before on this Blog) is among the precious few souls who have attained the rarefied air of Stage 8. Here is his very last painting, created sometime shortly before he died on March 30, 2002. This from a man who amassed a lifetime's worth of skills, who sketched and painted countless landscapes and portraits, and, right up until his death, produced complex, multilayered abstracts the likes of which even Kandinsky would be proud! But his final image (that only those who did not know him would say was "obviously" drawn by a child) is a perfect - perfect! - narrative of my dad's artful journey: a joyous celebration of life and spirit.