Evidence of Mutability

"Through falling from its previous function, and thus outliving the use originally conferred upon it, the ruin transgresses and subverts our everyday encounter with space and place. In the space of order and regulation, boundaries are delimited and linear. Being in place means knowing the limits of that place. So long as those limits are respected, then indeterminacy is evaded and the impression of space as productive can be maintained. At the same time, urban space undergoes domestication until it gathers a sense of how it ought to be. Rendering its structural properties apparently a priori, the space for malleability automatically assumes a deviant quality. If delimited space is productive, then space which broaches those boundaries will be termed wasted or otherwise expendable. In the ruin, the elements of waste and marginalization are crystallized...what was once built to testify to a singular and eternal present becomes the symbol and proof of its mutability."

- Dylan Trigg

The Aesthetics of Decay

"Straining to win the sky..."

"The tree is more

than first a seed,

then a stem,

then a living trunk,

and then dead timber.

The tree is a slow,

enduring force straining

to win the sky."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

(1900 - 1944)

"The tree which moves

some to tears of joy

is in the eyes of others

only a green thing which

stands in their way."

- William Blake

(1757 - 1827)

Emancipation of Mind

"Abstraction is real,

probably more real than nature.

I prefer to see with closed eyes."

- Joseph Albers (1888 - 1976)

"Abstraction allows man to see

with his mind what he cannot

physically see with his eyes...

Abstract art enables the artist

to perceive beyond the tangible,

to extract the infinite out of the finite.

It is the emancipation of the mind.

It is an explosion into unknown areas."

- Arshile Gorky (1904 - 1948)

"Photographing the Photographer" Diptychs

"The universe as we know it

is a joint product of the

observer and the observed.”

- Teilhard de Chardin

Philosopher / Mystic

(1881 - 1955)

While looking over some old photos (going back to trips to Scotland in 2009 and Greece in 2008), I ran across an interesting set of pictures taken by my wife that I turned into what I call PPDs, or "Photographing the Photographer" Diptychs. My wife, an avid videographer and occasional still photographer, took a series of images showing yours truly in the act of "doing" photography.

Some of her photos contain "me" only in the sense that I am somewhere in the picture, but the shot itself is focused on something else; a landscape, our rental car, a hotel, the front of a restaurant, whatever. But many of them are (as my wife confessed) deliberately focused on my (not always elegant) photo machinations: my scurrying to and fro like a frenzied zombie, climbing, prowling, bending, scrunching up like a pretzel, maneuvering my body and tripod for decent angles. A few actually catch me in the "act" of going click.

For many of these I was able to find and match the "shot" I was capturing (or a shot taken at nearly the same place and time) with the shot my wife has of me doing so. I made a few diptychs to show my wife and friends, who all enjoyed them, commenting that the diptychs reveal something not normally seen, or appreciated.

The diptychs show two different - but obviously correlated - experiences by two different people of ostensibly the same "experience" (almost the same). While my wife and I were obviously both at the same place and time, we were looking at the world from our own (not quite identical) local reference frames and slightly different perspectives: she, as an empathic observer of "life (in this case, her husband's) in environment," and I, as landscape photographer immersed in Scotland's innate physical beauty. To my eyes, our respective images of a given time and place, combined in diptych form, achieve an interesting transcendent synergy. While neither image, if considered alone, shows anything more than it does by itself, when reflected upon simultaneously with its partner provides a tangibly more meaningful, deeper glimpse of our shared experience.

I have posted a small portfolio of ten such "Photographing the Photographer" Diptychs (8 from Scotland, 2 from Greece); if nothing else, it gave me an opportunity to revisit some of the many spectacular sights and visual delights my wife and I have been privileged to see. It also gives an opportunity to those of you (you know who you are ;-) who have, from time to time, seen a bespectacled photographer bent over a tripod somewhere, seemingly trained at nothing in particular, and been puzzled about just what this bespectacled photographer is looking at? My wife has kindly provided an answer.

Churchville Photo Club Talk Slides

This is a short note intended mainly to provide a link to the slides (about 5 MB, Adobe pdf) I used for a talk I gave on June 20 to the Churchville Photo Club in Pennsylvania.

My presentation used selected images and portfolios to illustrate (and give at least some credence to the sincerity of) my ongoing journey toward self-discovery as shaped by physics, tao, and photography.

I'd like to thank the club's president, Felix Gomes, and Vice President, Marty Golin, for their kind invite and hospitality; and all the attendees who endured not just the 2+ hours worth of (what must surely have been less than completely intelligible) "babble-speak" about the philosophical dimensions of fine-art photography, but did so in a non air conditioned room that barely shielded all those enclosed within from the 90+ deg(F) heat and 90% humidity outside. (By the time I finished, I felt - and looked - as though I had just escaped from an unsupervised sauna set to an inhuman "Danger: lethally hot and humid" setting!).

But while the conditions were far from ideal, the venue itself - nestled within a wonderful nature center about an hours' drive from Philadelphia - could not have been more idyllic. My 12 yo son, an avid naturalist, and I arrived about an hour early, and had an opportunity to walk the grounds and just revel in the quiet gentle ambiance of the center. We both promised to return here for some quality time whenever the opportunity for such a trip next arises: he, to just explore and look for insects and frogs; his dad to train his "other eye" on the beauty of the park (I was sans camera gear for this entire trip, and felt, as all photographers do, considerably less than whole).

Later that evening, and after my talk (that I was happily surprised to see my son sit through in its entirety; this was the first time my son had heard me speak on photography - his take: "Not bad, dad." I'll take it ;-), he and I shared a magical moment of shared bonding, punctuated by a few hugs and a hint of a tear or two on our cheeks. And this experience had nothing at all to do with my talk!

After many handshakes, discussions, and chats with people as we all made our way to our cars - I should mention that my talk ended fairly late, way after sunset - the last car except ours finally left, and my son and I turned to our own car parked in a corner. At this point, it was essentially pitch black, with but an insignificant light some distance away. As our eyes adjusted to the dark...

...we both froze in our tracks; jaws dropped. An otherwordly event was unfolding before our eyes. I briefly entertained the scary thought that I must be having a seizure! There, in front of us - to the sides; all around us - were more fire flies than my son and I have likely seen in all our combined years on this planet! Clusters and clusters of hundreds upon hundreds of fireflies; flying, spiraling, blinking, flashing, and - collectively - putting on a dazzling fourth-of-July-like display that would put to shame (as my son later described) any fourth-of-July show that we'd ever seen.

My son and I just sat in revery on the grass, not speaking, not thinking; mindlessly - dare I say Tao or Zen-like? - absorbed in one of nature's wondrous dances. After 20 minutes or so, my son turned to me to give a hug, and said, "Dad, I'll never, ever forgot this day!" (And neither will his dad :-)

Luray Caverns Portfolio

This is a short note to announce the availability of my self-published portfolio of 66 black and white images from a photo-shoot at Luray Caverns (in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley). I have written about my adventure there in posts a couple of weeks ago: here are links to part 1, part 2, and part 3. A mini on-line portfolio of 16 select images is also available here.

I will always remember my experience in Luray as (the title of my first blog entry about it suggests was) a joyous meditation in a subterranean cosmos. Luray is truly an otherwordly place, particularly so when (as I was privileged to be, by the generosity of the Luray staff, to whom the book is dedicated) one is an almost lone observer, displaced and cocooned in time and space. Motion and sound are nonexistent, except for the eerie echoes of the "plip-plops" of water droplets slowly, ever so slowly, adding to Luray's vast storehouse of stalactite / stalagmite forms); one's own breathing is the only reminder of "life on the outside." Alone, wandering around Luray's preternaturally beautiful underground vistas of rock and space, it is easy to forget one's normal bearings in space and time. It is, in the end, a timeless void of mystery and wonder.

Thank you, Luray, for your kind hospitality in welcoming this awed photographer (and amateur philosopher of life)!

It's Not About the Images

While there is perhaps

a province in which the

photograph can tell us

nothing more than what

we see with our own eyes,

there is another in which

it proves to us how

little our eyes

permit us to see.

- Dorothea Lange

(1895 - 1965)

"Writing is not about words.

Painting is not about pigments.

Music is not about tones.

As long as photographers

insist that photography

is about photographs,

the art is limited

and self-containing."

- Brooks Jensen

Lenswork

(Issue 18, Summer 1997)

Quiet Mind

"Learn to be silent.

Let your quiet mind

listen and absorb."

- Pythagoras

“Only in quiet waters things

mirror themselves undistorted.

Only in a quiet mind is

adequate perception

of the world.”

- Hans Margolius

Aphorisms on ethics (1955)

Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees

"There is simply no real separation line,

only an intellectual one,

between the object and its time-environment.

They are completely interlocking:

nothing can exist in the world

independent of all the other things in the world."

- Robert Irwin

Artist (1928 - )

Self-Same Distinctions

"A monk once asked Shao-shan,

'Is there any phrase which

is neither right or wrong?'

Shao-shan answered,

'A piece of white cloud

does not show any ugliness.'"

- Shao-shan's Phrase koan

"Where others dwell,

I do not dwell.

Where others go,

I do not go.

This does not mean to

refuse association with others;

I only want to make

black and white distinct.""

- Pai-yun's Black and White koan

Ref: The Iron Flute: 100 Zen Koan

Nature's Dance

"O body swayed to music,

O brightening glance,

How can we know the dancer

from the dance?"

- William Butler Yeats

(1865 - 1939)

"The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection; the water has no mind to receive their image... the general tendency of the Western mind is to feel that we do not really understand what we cannot represent, what we cannot communicate by linear signs - by thinking. We are like the "wallflower" who cannot learn a dance unless someone draws him a diagram of the steps."

- Alan Watts

The Way of Zen

Postscript: fans of Alan Watts will want to check out the new Alan Watts documentary film In The Way, that recently got "kickstarted" on kickstarter.com. Can't wait for the release!

Stillness

"The practice of true reality

is simply to sit serenely

in silent introspection.

When you have fathomed this,

you cannot be turned around

by external causes

and conditions.

This empty,

wide open mind is subtly

and correctly illuminating."

- Hongzhi Zhengjue

Buddhist monk

(1091–1157)

"Men cannot see their reflection in running water, but only in still water. Only that which is itself still can still the seekers of stillness...if water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe."

- Chuang Tzu

(4th century BCE)

Eternity

"Underneath the superficial self, which pays attention to this and that, there is another self more really us than I. And the more you become aware of the unknown self — if you become aware of it — the more you realize that it is inseparably connected with everything else that is. You are a function of this total galaxy, bounded by the Milky Way, and this galaxy is a function of all other galaxies. You are that vast thing that you see far, far off with great telescopes. You look and look, and one day you are going to wake up and say, "Why, that's me!" And in knowing that, you know that you never die. You are the eternal thing that comes and goes that appears — now as John Jones, now as Mary Smith, now as Betty Brown — and so it goes, forever and ever and ever."

- Alan Watts

(1915 - 1973)

“Our theories of the eternal

are as valuable as are

those which a chick

which has not broken

its way through its shell

might form of

the outside world.”

- Gautama Siddharta

(563-483 B.C.)

Stones and Percepions

"It may seem ironic or contradictory

that detailed pictures of so-called

reality become vehicles for moving

us beyond ordinary perceptions."

- Duane Pebbles

"Bells and stones have voices,

but unless they are struck,

they will not sound."

- Chuang Tzu

Inner Depth

"The inner - what is it?

if not intensified sky ..."

- Rainer Maria Rilke

(1875 - 1926)

"Deep in the mountain

is an old pond.

Deep or shallow,

its bottom has never been seen."

- John Daido Loori

(1931 - 2009)

Anicca / Mi rtag pa / Mujō

"We are like the spider.

We weave our life and

then move along in it.

We are like the dreamer

who dreams and then

lives in the dream.

This is true for

the entire universe."

- Upanishads

"All formations are transient (anicca)"

- Buddha Sakyamuni
(563 - 483 B.C)

Energy

"In Aboriginal philosophy,

existence consists of energy.

All things are animate,

imbued with spirit

and in constant motion...

[this] leads to a holistic

and cyclical view of the world."

- Marie Battiste

Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision

"The pulse of life

demands an unendng

stream of vital energy

to keep it going."

- Marija Gimbutas

The Language of the Goddess

Snowflakes and Zen

"No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place."

-Zen proverb

Monk: "What is Zen?"

Tosu (Zen Master): "Zen."

- Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki

Zen and Japanese Culture

Nice Shots, But Where's the Color?

"The prejudice many photographers have against colour photography comes from not thinking of colour as form. You can say things with colour that can’t be said in black and white… Those who say that colour will eventually replace black and white are talking nonsense. The two do not compete with each other. They are different means to different ends." - Edward Weston

My mom has a habit of asking disarmingly "simple" questions (which usually have "simple" answers, but only after some thought has gone into addressing them). A while back, she asked me why I tend to take series of pictures rather than individual photos (that post led me to ponder the steps that all artists pass through on the way to "self-discovery"). Well, fresh on the heels of my one-day photo-safari at Luray Caverns, and after showing my mom a few early drafts of processed images, my mom came back with: "They're nice, Andy, but where is the color?"

This time, though, since the general question of color vs. black and white has been on my mind as I was preparing slides for a presentation, I was at least ready with a semblance of a real answer; and it goes to the heart of the basic difference between the forms of photography. Interestingly, the seed of the answer I gave my mom (and am now summarizing) was in my mom's own follow-up to the first part of her question. When I told her the "color" of the caverns was effectively a quasi-mono-tonal "orange," she quickly added, "But Andy, you had some beautiful orange abstracts recently, and they were all in color!" She was referring to my recent series of synesthetic landscapes, which are indeed all in color; this one for example:

So why is this in color and the caverns in black and white? The "simple" answer is that it has everything to do with intent. The whole point of the synesthetic landscape series is to communicate a certain aesthetic of color. These abstracts are not about any "thing"; rather, they are all about the tonal distributions of the colors that they depict. While one is always free to convert to black and white... here is an example of one conversion of the above color shot:

...doing so destroys the very essence of what I took the shot to convey; namely color! This is not to suggest that some viewers (including my mom, though in this case, regarding my colorful "synesthetic landscapes," I know she agrees with me) might not find the black and white version preferable - aesthetics, as we all know, is not an objective measure - just that the color version of this particular image (and others in the same series) is the best exemplar of what my intent was in crafting the photo.

Now, what about the black and white picture of Pluto's Chasm shown above (another view appears in my first post about Luray)? First, in truth, it is not a black and white photo, as I add a subtle warm duotone to all of my photos (which you can see for yourself by loading the image in any image viewer and slowly cranking up the saturation). For the record, my mom didn't "buy" my "it's not really a black and white photo" answer ;-) So, let's take a peek at what the same image might look like in color:

Again, apart from comparing individual aesthetics (you may prefer the color to the duotoned version, or you may not like either image), the point I made to my mom is that as far as my cavern portfolio is concerned, my intent is to communicate certain aesthetic qualities regarding tones, shapes, and textures. The rather drab monotone-like, all-pervasive orange that permeates the "color" image does nothing (for me) in this context, apart from likely diluting a viewer's attention from what otherwise would be her sole focus; namely, the tones, shapes, and textures. In short, color is an unwanted visual distraction (and a preattentive one at that, meaning that we cannot choose to not see it, as it is processed automatically by our brain's primary visual cortex). Thus, color - in this case (from my - the photographer's - point of view) adds nothing essential to the intended aesthetic meaning of the photograph.

Of course, in the end, how an image is viewed (and interpreted) is always a matter of personal taste and predilections. I suppose, one could (as an artist) provide a "multiverse" of aesthetic possibilities to viewers (generating not one image but dozens, hundreds, or even millions!... by creating versions in color, black and white, solarizations, alternative processes, photoshopped abstractions, etc.), thereby maximizing the probability that any given viewer will find an attractive image buried somewhere within the pile of images put on display. But that entails moving away from art as conceived, practiced, and crafted by the photographer (and the photographer's own, unique aesthetic vision) to another kind of "meta-art" that depends on the aesthetic choices of the viewer;-)