Autumn Color Abstracts

Autumn is that beautiful time of year during which I both rejoice in nature's wondrous colors and am reminded of (and sadly lament) my ongoing struggles to reproduce them in fine-art print form.


As I've revealed in several past posts, I generally shy away from color prints (or color photography of any kind for that matter!) for two reasons: (1) I do not generally see the world in color (being naturally predisposed to forms and tones), and(2) I am (still) unable to "previsualize" (ala Ansel Adams) the final color print.


While I on occasion get "lucky" and produce a serviceable print, I am not even close to being able to accomplish this with any predictable regularity. Thus, I both eagerly await the emergence of autumn's remarkable palette, and prepare myself for the inevitable challenge of - and, usually, the ensuing disappointment in my inability to - properly render what my "eye/I" really saw/felt.


Sprinkled here are a few "autumn color abstracts" that caught my eye and lens. However, please be warned that the images appearing here were created using the Adobe RGB color space, and not sRGB (which is the default viewing space for web pages) that you are likely viewing them with. Thus, the beautiful fall colors (which you'll have to take my word really existed! ;-) unfortunately appear very muted here. Nonetheless, I hope the images convey some sense of fall's beauty.

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.

The "Ordinary" Transformed into Something Else...

One of the most magical properties of photography is its ability to transform the ordinary - by which I mean common, everyday things and places - into something else: sometimes this "something else" is the same ordinary object(s) but with a subtle uncommon twist; sometimes it is the same "ordinary" object(s) but observed from an unusual perspective with less-than-common lighting; and sometimes (in those improbably rare but magical moments!) the photograph captures something that at first sight appears to be the same as something you recognize as utterly ordinary and uninteresting, but which upon further reflection shines radiantly with an ethereal glow, as though a portal into a hidden dimension of beauty has been revealed, if only for an instant. The "image" - in such rare instances - points to something that is simultaneously obviously of this world, and just as obviously not! Sadly, I have no examples of the latter category to show you, though each time I go out with my camera, a part of my soul waits (yearns, hopes, dreams...) expectantly, for the world to bestow this joyous gift; I know it exists, for I have seen it - many times! - if only in my mind's eye as I slowly bring my finger to the shutter, so as not to disturb the magic, and whisper a short prayer as I press it that the camera has captured what I see. Alas, it has not yet done so; but the beauty is too great to ignore and not share with others. In the meantime, however, I do have a few humble samples from the first two categories... The "ordinary" objects depicted here are commonly known as mud, rock, tree, old glasses, a reflection in a puddle, and a fence on the beach. Oh, and the image at the top of this entry, is a view from an "ordinary" hiking trail at a local park (Great Falls, VA side). How uncommonly beautifully "common"! ;-)

Previsualization ...or... Why Ansel Adams Could Never be Happy With a Point & Shoot Camera

"You don't take a photograph, you make it." - Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams introduced the idea of previsualization into the photographer's lexicon (see my earlier Blog entry on Adams); a term he used to label the importance of imagining, in your mind's eye, what you - as a "photographer" (not just a snapshooter) - want the final print to reveal about a subject (and to communicate of your artistic vision). Without this preconception, wherein much of the artist's creativity resides (specifically, in the implicit steps that must be followed, starting with composition, focal length, shutter speed, filtration, and so on, in order to achieve the previsualized image), the resulting "photograph" is at best a product of inspired "luck" (or intuition) and, at worst, shallow and unable to communicate meaning.

A common "lament" of many of today's amateur photographers - particularly those who fancy themselves as following in the footsteps of pioneers such as Adams - is that their point & shoot camera (or, worse, their super-duper-sophisticated, modern digital single-lens reflex, or DSLR) simply doesn't produce the kind of pictures they want; or, though it is rarely stated this way, doesn't produce what they see in their mind's eye!

The reality, of course, is that no camera, however sophisticated, can "guess" what is in the artist's mind, and then, having correctly guessed, perform whatever digital prestidigitations are required to produce the "perfect" digital file; a file that, moreover, must then also be printed correctly on some chosen combination of printer and paper. It is ironic that as the power of our tools (including cameras, software and printers) increases, and becomes more affordable and user-friendly, the desire to use our tools (to convert a simple point & shoot image into a photograph that more closely resembles an inner vision) generally declines. We expect more out of our cameras; and when the camera (through no fault of its own or its manufacturer) inevitably fails to deliver what we demand, we just as inevitably blame the technology.

The simple lesson of previsualization - that is as applicable today as when Ansel Adams was capturing his spectacular images of Yosemite National Park - is that while one might get lucky, and capture a fine image, the far more likely result of approaching a subject without an idea already in mind is disappointment.

Fine art does not just happen; it requires a (sometimes prodigiously willful) act of inspired, participatory creation. The artist must be a willing and active participant in all of the steps leading up to the image's final (typically print) form; including the act of capture (see my entry on Galen Rowell's participatory photography) and the (often elaborate) digital equivalents of analog darkroom tonal manipulations.

Case in point: consider the two images at the top and immediately below. Arguably, neither the before (straight out of camera) image shown above, nor the after (digitial darkroom manipulation) image that appears at the end of this paragraph belong to the lofty heights of fine-art photography as practiced by Ansel Adams. Indeed, depending on one's aesthetic tastes, neither image may even be terribly "interesting" to look at;-) However, despite the fact that the two images are visual imprints of the same thing (a broken window), no one will argue that they are very different!

I can confidently assert that the after image is precisely what was in my mind's eye when I pressed the shutter. More to the point, the objectively rather bland before image of the broken window was very faithfully rendered by my DSLR. But it is emphatically not what I wanted the print to look like, and which I knew I could create by having previsualized the process necessary to get there at the instant I pressed the shutter. The bland before image simply needed a "bit of work" to get it from its "faithful" form, into a state in which I, as photographer, am satisfied that it (at least) stands a chance of communicating a bit of my aesthetic vision.

If you, like me, are moved by the mysterious power of the after image, in which a subtle, ethereal "glow" seems to radiate from the black void (the "existence" and communication of which required the digital equivalent of selective dodging and burning, and an attention to the distribution of tones in the RAW image), you must agree that it would have been a great shame for me to have glanced at my DSLR's output, see the "uninteresting" recorded image, and, with perhaps a sad sigh for emphasis, conclude, "Well, better next time," before deleting the file from my compact flash card!

A nice way to summarize these musings, and as an homage to another of Adams' favorite sayings, is to think of the DSLR's RAW output as an "equivalent" of a musical score (the image "exists" but in an essentially latent, as-yet-unrealized form); what the photographer subsequently does with that RAW file in the digital darkroom is analogous to a performance! (The "performance" can - indeed, undoubtly will - change in time as the photographer's own skills, tastes and "eye" evolve. If there is a single deep lesson that photography teaches us, it is that there is no such thing as the one "true" objective reality ;-)

A few older examples of Before and After images can be viewed on this page.

"Artist at Work" ;-)

My Blog (and I) have been off-line for a while, as my family and I enjoyed a well-earned vacation. This short entry, to recouple myself to the Blog world, is titled "Artist at Work" - and contains a wink, ";-)" - at the end because I am decidedly poking a bit of fun at myself. While I aspire to one day attain the right to call myself an "Artist," I have also retained enough objectivity in my short life to appreciate I have a way to go to get to that point. The image shown above is a before and after shot. The before shot (on the left-hand-side) exists by courtesy of my beautiful (and brave) wife, who was with me on the Florida beach as yours truly was (incredibly, and somewhat idiotically!) taking a series of Hiroshi Sugimoto-like long-exposures of some pylons sticking out of the water as it, the beach, and my wife and I were pummeled by close-to-hurricane-level winds! The after shot (on the right; "after" referring to the physically banged up state my wife and I were in after braving the inhumanly vicious winds!) was among the several images I somewhow managed to capture without my hat, camera, tripod, and bag being blown half-way to Cuba. Suffice it to say that I now understand two things about my photography (and physical state): 1. That it is not why I take the pictures of the things I tend to take the pictures of (leaves, reeds, vines, dilapidated buildings, ...) that people stare at me when I take pictures with a mixture of bemusement and incredulity; rather, people stare at me with a mixture of bemusement and incredulity because of how I take my pictures. 2. The reason my back (and neck, and shoulders, and knees, and ...) seem to hurt all the time has less to do with the inevitable age-creep (I'm only 45 for Goodness sake;-), and everything to do with the contortions I put my poor body through to get that next shot! (The irony is that my body, in the act of capturing the beauty of dilapidated buildings, is itself succumbing - rapidly - to the same entropic decay!) When I said to my wife (while laughing at what I thought was a "fluke" picture of me in a comically and awkwardly wrenched position), "Hey, you were lucky to catch me like that!"... it was my turn to stare at my wife (with a mixture of bemusement and incredulity;-) when she gently, but firmly, assured me that I always look like that when taking pictures. Whether I am in a mini-hurricane (as above), or precariously balanced on a ledge on some cliff in Hawaii, or delicately (and typically not all-too-well) poised on one leg on a small rock in the middle of a babbling brook, I'm always scrunched up like a pretzel! The "Artist at Work" indeed!

Kafka's Door

As I completed my list of Ten Epiphanous Photographs, with Josef Sudek's At the Janacek's being the tenth and last selection, I was reminded by Sudek's Kafkaesque-like imagery that I have recently been lucky enough to capture an image that would (I think) do Kafka proud...

 

The image was taken a few weeks ago at Forest Glen, Maryland, a wonderful "park" that consists of acre-upon-acre of old, abandoned buildings that (dating back to the 1880s) were used, in turn, for a tobacco plantation, a hotel, the Norfolk College for Young Women, a seminary, and, in 1942, an Annex of Walter Reed Army Medical Center. 

Today, the estate is essentially a relic, but is soon to be renovated. For photographers (particularly those whose "eye" leans toward the beauty of entropic decay;-) it is a veritable paradise for a weekend safari. What went through my mind as I encountered this marvelous site (sandwitched atop two buildings on the portion of the estate closest to the main road) was Franz Kafka's parable, "Before the Law" (or, more precisely, what the door in this parable will look like, years and years after the events in the parable have taken place)... 

"Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in later on. “It is possible,” says the gatekeeper, “but not now.” At the moment the gate to the law stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the inside. When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: “If it tempts you so much, try it in spite of my prohibition. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the most lowly gatekeeper. But from room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the other. I can’t endure even one glimpse of the third.... ...During the many years the man observes the gatekeeper almost continuously. He forgets the other gatekeepers, and this one seems to him the only obstacle for entry into the law... ...Finally his eyesight grows weak, and he does not know whether things are really darker around him or whether his eyes are merely deceiving him. But he recognizes now in the darkness an illumination which breaks inextinguishably out of the gateway to the law...Before his death he gathers in his head all his experiences of the entire time up into one question which he has not yet put to the gatekeeper... ...“Everyone strives after the law,” says the man, “so how is that in these many years no one except me has requested entry?” The gatekeeper sees that the man is already dying and, in order to reach his diminishing sense of hearing, he shouts at him, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going now to close it.” 

 The viewer certainly doesn't have to (or need to) know what goes through the photographer's mind the instant the shutter is pressed, but it is hard to look at some images in any way other than how the photographer envisioned it after being told what that vision was! I thus present to you, gentle reader and viewer, what can henceforth be seen only as Kafka's Door!