Aftermath of Inactivity as a Probe Into the Creative Process

A few days ago I posted my first blog entry in over 3 months. It consisted of little more than explaining the long delay (attributed to "day job" related constraints), highlighting some recent publications, and briefly amplifying on an observation I made in a recent interview. But I left out a deeper thought; one that I think goes to the heart of the creative process. Namely, the degree to which what - not how - we choose to photograph defines who we really are; particularly after a long absence from doing photography. This is a point both obvious and subtle.

It is often said that the best (perhaps only?) way to discover who we really are is to see what we do in moments of crisis. I use the word "crisis" here not to label some profound existential angst or trauma, but simply to denote a "moment of truth"; i.e., some instant in time during which a decision must be made now. Perhaps we've delayed a decision, perhaps the problem or issue facing us is too ill-defined, or maybe a looming deadline is just too far in the future for us to care. But then the deadline comes near, or circumstances change, and a decision must be made right now. Malcolm Gladwell (in his book Blink) calls this thin-slicing, though his use of the term refers specifically to those situations where the person making a decision has very little time to make it. However, for the point I'm trying to make, I'd like to relax this last condition; i.e., I am interested in the "I need to make a decision now" process that allows the decision-maker time to reflect on her decision. Yes, a decision needs to be made (today, and not tomorrow, or next week), but you don't need to "thin slice" your response; rather, give the issue some thought - or take a "reflective slice" - and temper it with intuition. Now, what do you decide to do?

My (hardly original) hypothesis is that what we decide to do under these circumstances tells us a lot about who we really are (stripped of all the usual encrusted layers of decisions past and pending). In the context of photography, the problem is: "OK, Andy, you haven't been out with a camera for a while, and now you have an hour or so to prowl around, where do you go and what do you photograph?" My claim is that what I naturally - intuitively - train my camera's lens on says everything about me as a photographer (and about my creative process) that needs - and/or is ultimately worth - saying.

Paradoxically, the deepest insights come from moments of decision that follow long periods of inactivity. For it is only after we have not done photography for a while that the photography most important to us is best revealed. Immersed (as I usually am) in multiple simultaneous ongoing projects, the day-to-day (and shot-to-shot) decisions collectively sculpt only a fleeting image of a particular period of my creative process, as defined by the needs of specific projects; but they do not easily reveal fundamental truths about me as a photographer. While I may discover details about "what I am doing" by paying attention to what I am doing when "I am doing photography" (at times when I am immersed in doing it), I can only discover the truth that underlies all of my photography (perhaps my entire creative process) by paying attention to what I turn my attention to first after not having done photography for a while. It is only after not doing photography that our attention is naturally and strongly drawn first to what matters most deeply; not subject to the vagaries of whatever projects we have just finished or are next on our agenda.

Look at the first photographs you take after dusting off your camera. What do they say? Wherein lies their true meaning? Most likely it is to be found in what the photograph - as a whole - is about. The details matter little; indeed, because of the inevitable build-up of aesthetic rust, the details are just as likely to obscure the intended meaning as illuminate it. In Zen-like fashion, the time during which a photographer - who may normally be obsessed with rendering the tiniest of details in an image just so - is unable to focus on detail, is actually the best time for achieving the deepest clarity of vision.

And so I discovered (or relearned) a truth I've known for as long as I've been a photographer; perhaps longer, since photography is but another word for "seeing with a camera," and I've been "seeing" the world at least a few years longer ;-) To whit, after months of relative creative inactivity, my attention is first drawn to quiet, simple scenes in familiar locations in local parks; and my eye to humble uncluttered rhythms of basic shapes and tones. Though I will undoubtedly soon resume my journey towards ever-deeper abstractions in subject matter and imagery, I know that my creative heart yearns for nothing so deeply as glimpses of a simple sudden stillness.

A Blurred Path Toward Clarity

"To be an artist is not a matter

of making paintings or objects at all.

What we are really dealing with

is our state of consciousness

and the shape of our perception."

— Robert Irwin, Artist/Theorist (1929 - )

It has been quite a while since my last blog post; the long hiatus due (as almost always) to the demands and constraints of "day job" responsibilities. As I slowly reacclimate my activities to nurture both parts of my brain, I offer a short and humble blog entry to highlight some recent photography projects and expand upon an observation about "how I do photography" that a friend of mine found interesting in a recent interview I gave (and that others might find amusing to muse on).

First, I am delighted to announce that I have had two portfolios published in the last few months: (1) my Luray Caverns portfolio, which appears in both the print and expanded DVD-editions of Lenswork (issue #95, Jul/Aug 2011), and (2) my Abstract Glyphs portfolio, spotlighted on pages 72-75 in the December 2011 issue of B&W magazine (images also appear on their gallery page).

While listening to my interview with Brooks Jensen (editor, Lenswork) for the DVD edition of issue #95, a friend of mine was intrigued to learn of a particular habit I picked up early in my photography (when I was just learning the art in my late teens, a few centuries ago ;-) I'd be interested in learning if others have had (or have) the same experience.

In recounting to Brooks how I started off my day-long sojourn to Luray caverns, I noted that for the first 30 minutes or so I just walked around without a camera (as I always do) and without my eyeglasses on (also, as I always do). Because I am very nearsighted, seeing the world without my glasses yields an almost abstract - certainly much simpler, distilled - representation of it. Since my eyes sans glasses provide only rudimentary information about shapes and tones, I find it a useful exercise to first "see" my compositional landscape (as it were) in these aesthetically simple terms, before fully investing - and immersing - myself in finding real photographs in it. This has been a vital part of my creative process for well over 35 years. But it started quite by accident.

When I was just starting out in photography, I found the physical act of using the viewfinder on a camera hard on my eyes. The constant shifting between squinting through the camera followed by focusing on something in the distance quickly tired my eyes. So, after even a few shots, I would usually take off my eyeglasses and rub my eyes a bit before resuming my camera work. One day, with my glasses off, I turned to glance in a direction where some commotion was going on. I could make out only some blurry lights and shapes, but whatever was going on it looked "interesting." Without thinking (and still without my glasses, which had also fallen to the ground) I lifted my camera to my eye and - without thinking and unable to really see anything - took a shot. I have long forgotten what that shot was a shot of, but I remember being mesmerized by the thought - later after I developed the film - that it had turned out better than OK; it was a really well-composed, lovely shot! But not one I would necessarily have taken of this subject (namely, a scene with people in it!) had I had my glasses on. The lesson taught me to always first "see" a scene sans glasses.

The middle panel of the triptych shown above depicts, roughly, what I "saw" when I first descended the stairs into Luray's interior. The left panel shows what the scene may look like to a robotic version of Andy that sees the world through an 'edge detect" filter. The right panel shows how a non-robotic version of Andy renders the same scene after he's had a chance to see it with his glasses on ;-)

FYI: a 40-min long mp3 file of my interview with Brooks Jensen is available for download from Lenswork for 99 cents.

Morrison House Photography Talk

I am delighted to announce an upcoming slide presentation in Alexandria, VA, 6:00 to 8:00 pm on August 2 (Tuesday). The talk will be given at Alexandria's historic Morrison House (116 South Alfred Street, Alexandria, VA 22314) and is sponsored by the Torpedo Factory's Art Center.

From the press release:

Photography, Physics, and Complexity: Strange Bedfellows or a New Aesthetic?

Morrison House Presents: Andy Ilachinski, Photographer and Physicist

Physics and photography have always been inextricably linked: by chemistry, light, diffraction, refraction, reflection, polarization, etc. But these are only the most obvious and superficial of connections. This talk uses complexity theory – which describes the fundamental relationships between parts and wholes – to point to a vastly deeper, resonant level on which physics and photography – any creative art – are linked, and offer a possible glimpse of a new fundamental aesthetic grammar. In the end, it is argued, the outwardly-directed journey toward objective realities, and the inner passage toward subjective truths are revealed as but two interrelated aspects of a single creative thread of self-discovery.

Born in 1960 on Long Island, NY, and the only son of an architect and artist, Andy's life has always straddled left– (analytical, logical) and right– (creative, artistic) brained worlds.

On the left-brained side, he earned a Ph.D. in theoretical physics (specializing in complex systems) in 1988 and has over 20 years experience as a research analyst and project director at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) – a federally funded research and development center headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia – where Andy has pioneered the application of complex adaptive systems theory to military operations research problems. He has authored two graduate-level mathematical physics texts on nonlinear dynamics and agent-based modeling, co-authored a book on artificial-life models and contributed to Springer-Verlag's 10-volume Encyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science, and is on the editorial board of two physics journals.

On the right-brained side, and both by temperament and inner muse, Andy is a fine-art black-and-white photographer, and has been one for far longer than his Ph.D. gives him any right to claim an ownership by physics. He has delighted in taking pictures ever since his parents surprised him on his 10th birthday with a Polaroid camera. Andy has won numerous awards (in both print and on-line juried contests), has exhibited in many juried solo and group shows, appeared in Lenswork (a preeminent fine-art journal of black and white photography), Focus magazine, both U.S. and U.K. Black & White magazines, and won a photo-magazine sponsored book contest. He has received multiple awards at the prestigious Black and White Spider Awards, and was one of the founding juried members of Lorton Art's Photography Workshop (in Lorton, VA). In 2010, Andy's work was featured (alongside two other artists) in a four month exhibit at the American Center for Physics (in College Park, MD).

More About the Series

This series of monthly talks is sponsored by the Torpedo Factory Artists’ Association, the Alexandria Archaeological Commission, and the Morrison House Hotel. The talks take place on the first Tuesday of each month. Cocktails will be available for purchase through The Grille at Morrison House Hotel, and dinner reservations can be made for guests who would like to continue their experience following the event.

About Morrison House

The Morrison House, a Kimpton Hotel, is an elegant boutique hotel located in the heart of Old Town, Alexandria. Named an outstanding hotel on Condé Nast Traveler’s 2008 Gold List, the hotel exhibits the romance of Europe and the charm of Early America through its decorative federalist-style reproductions. The architecture blends into the historic surrounding of Alexandria, while its warmly lit rooms, soft music, and outstanding cuisine define an experience that is graceful and effortless. The AAA Four Diamond property also features The Grille, an intimate restaurant that serves a menu of relaxed American fine dining. The hotel is located at 116 South Alfred Street, Alexandria, VA 22314, (703) 838-8000.

Solitary Patterns

"The interpretation of our reality

through patterns not our own,

serves only to make us ever more unknown,

ever less free, ever more solitary."

— Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Author (1927 - )

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;-)

Luray Cavern Abstracts

"Into the dark beyond all light

we pray to come,

through not seeing and not knowing,

to see and to know,

that beyond sight and knowledge,

itself; neither seeing nor knowing."

- Dionysius the Areopagite

"Any man working with the medium

sooner or later impinges,

merges into, fuses with

the fringes of mysticism."

- Minor White

Luray Caverns Part III: a Harmony of Contrasts

"...an aesthetic perspective is quite at home in the realm of contradictions, for its very nature allows it to transform them into a harmony of contrasts...value entails a synthesis of complexity with order, novelty with continuity, nuance with harmony, richness with stability...the cosmos is such an aesthetic reality. Both in its constituent occasions and in its overall reality the universe is a process of synthesizing and unifying its composite aspects into novel moments of present aesthetic "enjoyment." "

- John F. Haught, Theologian

This is the third installment of a series of blog commentaries on my recent day-long sojourn into the subterranean wonders of Luray Caverns, in northern Virginia (the first two parts are here and here, respectively). In part II I discussed how I have resolved to deal with - though have not yet "solved" - the "problem" of extreme contrasts of light and form.

What makes the caverns unusual, from a compositional perspective, is not just that the contrasts that are there are so strong (and that, really, visually define how the caverns appear to visitors), but that they are both strong and fixed. The photographer's ability to craft an image is thus constrained in two important dimensions of the (typically much more forgiving and malleable) aesthetic space.

Of course, the photographer still has to journey through the familiar landscape of possibilities and aesthetic design decisions: what to focus on, which forms to include, exclude and/or emphasize, what depth of field to use, what tonal ranges to manipulate in what way in photoshop, what to sharpen and what to leave alone (or blur), etc. But the object of this exercise - the "real world" studio in which the original image is recorded; i.e., the cave - is itself fixed and unchanging. This paradoxically renders the aesthetic choices both easier and harder to make.

Aesthetic choices are easier to make in caves because you are assured of the fact that what is front of the lens now is exactly what was there a moment, or hour, or day, ... before! Whether you turn away for a moment or walk away and come back hours later (assuming the caverns have not yet closed for the night), the "image" you first trained your camera on is still there, identical in every way to the first time you framed it. You can "lose your way" so to speak, and always backtrack to "correct" any errors in judgement, or refine a composition by just a bit, able to fully trust in the fact that "everything will be as it was" except for whatever small nudge up or down or to the left you choose to make now. You are, in fact, traversing a completely unchanging reality (at least in limited timeframes, as new deposits accumulate at the rate of roughly one cubic inch every ~120 years or so); this only adds to the surreal feel of wandering around in the caves - a feeling that is especially strong when wandering around alone.

Aesthetic choices are harder to make in caves because one of the most frequently used tools for "finding the best image" - namely, the ability to simply wait for the right conditions - does not apply. Indeed, part of my meditative state that the title of this series of blog entries alludes to (Joyful Medidations...) was induced by an incessant, semi-conscious, whispering to myself of the mantra "ciwis, ciwis, ciwis, ..." (meaning, the "cave is what it is";-) Waxing a bit philosophical, one can say that caves fuse time and space; insofar as they are (implicitly) expressed by - and compel the viewer to experience as - the spatial dimensions alone. Time is rendered inert and irrelevant. Since I cannot totally separate the left (physics) and right (photography) parts of my brain - even when out and about taking photographs! - I often found myself musing about the idea of how the caves are wonderful way to train oneself to imagine what a totally timeless physics might look like, in which reality consists of an uncountably large set of interlocked slices of "nows" (see Julian Barbour's The End of Time).

As I write this entry, I've completed a preliminary look at the 20+GB worth of raw files I recorded in Luray caverns. The aesthetic gestalt that is slowly self-organizing in my mind, is that of a "harmony of contrasts." Interestingly, and perhaps fittingly, as well, this expressive phrase happens also to be the title of my dad's first posthumous art exhibit in Taganrog, Russia; he and I, it seems, still manage to find ways to connect in the timeless realm ;-) In the first page of the flyer for my dad's exhibit (shown below), "Гармония контрастов" is Russian for Harmony of Contrasts:

Joyful Meditations in a Subterranean Cosmos: Part II

“Three Rules of Work:

Out of clutter find simplicity;

From discord find harmony;

In the middle of difficulty

lies opportunity.”

- Albert Einstein

As a follow-on to my previous entry on my recent day-long photo excursion to Luray Caverns in northern Virginia, I'd like to make a few remarks about the aesthetics of capturing the caverns in a photograph, and - ultimately - a fine-art print. The short version is that it is not easy!

There are several reasons for this: (1) light (as in "lack of control over"), (2) contrast (as in "there is too much of it"), and (3) innate dissonance (between everything and everything else that consists of light and form;-). As these are all interrelated, I'll discuss them as a group. Light, arguably the single most important component of any photographer's repertoire of "tools," is in this case unnatural (as it is due solely to the intensely locally bright orange tungsten lights), imposed (since it is installed and fixed in place by the park engineers), and fixed (because it is either on or off, never in any "in between" state or alternate projection angle). Thus, the photographer must deal with the lighting conditions as they are defined in situ; in particular, this means that there is no opportunity to "wait for the right light." One might argue, of course, that this is a general quandary all photographers find themselves in; we always "look for" shots, no matter the environment. But what renders this a particularly difficult compositional problem in a cavern is the second reason I've cited for why this task is difficult, namely contrast.

Luray Caverns' lights are bright; very bright; sometimes blindingly bright! And are often focused on relatively small patches of stalactites (dripstone formations that hang from the ceiling) and/or stalagmites (that build from the floor upwards). Again, while contrast is generally a good thing (certainly for black and white photography) and thus not necessarily a problem ("Well Andy, just find the blindingly brightly lit patches you happen to like!"), it can be a problem - certainly an aesthetic one - if what one is ultimately after is not finding the "best" composition that minimizes the impact of brightly lit patches, but one that best respects the totality of forms - including but not restricted to those both defined and hidden by lights and shadows. While visiting Santorini, Greece in 2008 with my wife, I also had to deal with strong contrasts, but at least there the contrasts were predictably variable. Since their strength and location changed throughout the day, I effectively had a degree of control over them; for example, I could decide when and where to set up my tripod (or just wait for the best conditions to arise). In Luray - and, I suspect, all other "public" caverns - there is simply too much fixed contrast to make this possible.

It was extremely difficult to find pleasing compositions of any forms larger than human-sized chunks simply because of the dizzying array of competing light sources. In those instances where I was able to find a pleasing composition of larger and more widely spaced elements (such as in the example that appears at the top of this blog entry, which is a panorama than spans about 100 ft from left to right), my post-processing in photoshop involved many more layers of local dodging and burning than is my norm. Mind you, this is not a complaint; it is merely an observation of one aspect of what makes photographing caverns difficult; difficult compositionally, and - even more so - tonally.

The last "problem" (both defined and exacerbated by the first two) is the caverns' innate dissonance. Nothing in the cavern is smooth, or smoothly varying. Not the light, not the forms, and not the textures. Indeed, the "forms" - such as they are - are best described as large to massive needles made of rock, arranged in staccato fashion throughout "rooms" that themselves range in size from smaller-than-cramped office cubicles to mini cathedrals. Far from a harmonious whole, the caverns are - at least at first sight - a visually loud cacophony of not-always-obviously correlated patterns. Everything is in contrast to - and in dissonance with - everything else in these caverns! There are certainly none of the smooth gradations of light and contour that one finds in the slot canyons of the southwest ;-) Yet, somehow, the photographer must craft a holistic harmony out of these ostensibly discordant compositional components.

So what to do? I chose (by deliberately going to the caverns) and now continue to choose (by spending even more time post-processing what I "saw" there) this experience as an opportunity to find ways of aesthetically balancing discordant parts. As Alan Watts reminds us, "...what is discord at one level of your being is harmony at another level." Yes, the forms are dissonant; yes, the lights are blindingly bright and often ill-positioned; yes, the tonal gradations all tend to yell and scream rather than sing in melodic verses; but my physics background (if not an even deeper intuition) insists that what appears, on the surface, as a confused tangle of a mess, is - at its heart - a wondrous harmony. Stay tuned...

Joyful Meditations in a Subterranean Cosmos

"Meditation reveals that

the obvious place to begin

is not in some other place,

it's right here."

- Angel Kyodo Williams

Being Black: Zen and the Art of
Living with Fearlessness and Grace

People often ask me (when I am out photographing), "You must spend a lot of time doing that, eh?" To which the answer is (and this is not a cop out), yes and no. Yes - obviously - because it is a life's passion of mine, and I "think about photography" most of my waking hours, even when pouring over equations and computer code in my day job (as a quick parenthetical aside, even as seemingly a mundane and unartistic an endeavor as putting together powerpoint slides for a technical presentation involves all kinds of compositional and graphical design elements, essentially indistinguishable from the unconscious processing going on behind the scenes of a photographer's craft). No - equally as obviously, but only after a moment's worth of thought - because, in truth, I do precious little active photographing while ostensibly engaged in photography!

Allow me to explain, and set the stage for the picture you see above and what all of this has to do with meditation. As a practical matter, the time I have to devote to real photography (i.e., not quick "point and shoot" grabs, but when I am out and about on a photo safari, mindfully settling into an area, senses tuned to visual possibilities ...) is short and comes in bursts. A few hours here and there on every other weekend perhaps; certainly more when my wife and I are on vacation, or when the family is visiting relatives in different states (hence my archive of portfolios generated in Florida's beauty, which is where my in-laws live). But even then, such as when we visited Greece and Scotland, my "real photo time" was diffused among an endless (but oh so welcome!) parade of 10-15 minute long patches of time during which we parked our car somewhere beside the highway or landmark and "explored for a bit." Then it is back in the car, and the reality of an equally endless parade of pictures that might have been captured - a common lament of all photographers - until the next roadside vista. While there are exceptions to any rule, it is generally rare to have more than a handful of minutes to do photography.

Thus the context for this post, which is intended as a short meditation on the joyful day-long photo safari I was privileged to have on an otherwise nondescript mid-week day last week. Going back a few months, I finally gathered the nerve (after pondering the issue for over a year before; I am a slow ponderer ;-) to leave a comment on the website for Luray Caverns, a popular tourist attraction in northern Virginia. I would have preferred a personal email, but I couldn't find an address on their website, so settled for sending a brief note in a "comment" post. In it, I introduced myself as a "professional fine-art photographer" (after wrestling a bit over whether I can really call myself one, since photography is far - far - from paying any meaningful fraction of my bills; I rationalized that at least the "fine-art" part was correct, since what I do as a photographer is emphatically not defined by anyone's demands but my own), and inquired about the possibility of having a "few hours to myself" inside the caverns with my camera and tripod. I heard back within a week from Luray's publicist, who could not have been nicer or more generous. Provided I choose a day other than a weekend, and one that falls before the April crowd rushes in, Luray would be happy to provide a full-days worth of unencumbered photography! A piece of heaven, I thought; and I was right.

I was greeted early in the morning by a staff member (who herself could not have been nicer or more accommodating; offering just the right mix of "Can I get you anything?" with a sincere "I'll leave you to your work" - it was not work, of course, but I guess carrying around two tripods, a bag with two DSLRs, four lenses, a speedlight, a portable drive for backup, a notebook, and an iPad, looked like it was work;-), led into the caverns, asked to wait a bit until all the lights were turned on (which took but a few moments), and then - music to a photographer's ears - told that "the caverns are all yours!" I essentially had the run of the place all to myself from 9:00am to about 5:40pm or so, armed only with a small bottle of water and a package of trail mix from Starbucks). There was a steady but quickly disappearing stream of visitors every hour or so; but they mostly hung around for a few minutes before moving on and out of eye and earshot. All told, I had over 8-1/2 hours of essentially uninterrupted "quality photography time" in the caverns; easily the longest such stretch I've had in over a decade. In a word, and I'm choosing the word carefully, Wow!

At the end of the day I was utterly exhausted (more so physically than psychically, as the strain of crouching and bending my 50 year old body in odd positions for "just the right" angle eventually took it's toll on every joint and muscle whose toll could be taken), but felt exhilarated; my inner state can best be described as a profoundly deep joyous inner calm. The kind of feeling one gets when one has accomplished exactly what one has set out to do; not to produce something, per se (the quality of which I am as yet unsure, as I have yet to start on the mountain - well, all 800+ images of a mountain - of post-processing work that awaits me in photoshop), but to simply engage in the creative process. And engaged I was. I will not soon forget these joyful day-long meditations on the visual delights I found in the subterranean cosmos known as Luray Caverns!

Gates and Journeys

"Those who seek the truth by means of intellect and learning only get further and further away from it. Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate." - Huang Po

"The longest journey

begins with a single step."

- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Beauty and Wonder

"Both the grand and
the intimate aspects of
nature can be revealed in
the expressive photograph.
Both can stir enduring
affirmations and discoveries,
and can surely help
the spectator in his search
for identification with the
vast world of natural beauty and
the wonder surrounding him."
- Ansel Adams
(1902-1984)

"Beauty is eternity gazing
at itself in a mirror."
- Kahlil Gibran
(1883-1931)

Self-Assembled Interdependence

“The farther and more deeply

we penetrate into matter,

by means of increasingly

powerful methods,

the more we are confounded by

the interdependence of its parts...

It is impossible to cut into the network,

to isolate a portion without it becoming

frayed and unravelled at all its edges.”

- Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

Philosopher

(1881-1955)

“There is a constant
and intimate contact
among the things that coexist
and coevolve in the universe,

a sharing of bonds
and messages that

makes reality into a
stupendous network of
interaction and communication.”

— Ervin Laszlo

Systems Theorist
(1932 - )

Seeing Order by Forgetting Names

"When I make a photograph I want it to be an altogether new object, complete and self-contained, whose basic condition is order; Unlike the world of events and actions, whose permanent condition is change and disorder." 

- Aaron Siskind Photographer (1903 - 1991) 

"To see is to forget the
name of the thing one sees."

- Paul Valery, Poet / Philosopher (1871 - 1945)