Wonderful Collection of Essays on Photography

Bill Jay is likely familiar to many photographers (and certainly to readers of Lenswork magazine).

Among his many accomplishments, he was the first Director of Photography at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the first Editor/Director of Creative Camera and Album magazines, and the founder of the Program of Photographic Studies at The University of Arizona, where he has taught for over 25 years. He has published over 400 articles and authored more than 20 books on the history and criticism of photography (see, for example, On Being a Photographer, co-authored with David Hurn, and available either from Lenswork or Amazon). He also writes the delightful Endnotes for Lenswork each month, earmarked with his uniquely witty, and sardonic style.

Mr. Jay has generously posted a rich sampling of his essays and portraits on his website. To suggest that (after you click on the first essay and just start reading) you will be "staying a while" on his site is a profound understatement; plan on spending at least a few hours, and then make time for more later! Thank you Mr. Jay!

Fleeting Glimpse of Uber-Genius

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transitory Impermanence

The Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary informs us that the word "transitory" comes from the Middle English word transitorie (and from Anglo-French, from Late Latin transitorius; from Latin, of or allowing passage, from transire); and means tending to pass away; not persistent (or of brief duration). Yet, as with most things (and particularly processes) in this world, even this seemingly iron-clad "definition" is not without some ambiguity and a sense of mystery.

At first sight, what we see here is the very epitome of transitory reality: water, flowing over monolithic rock. The effervescent fluid is full of life and energy, and is demonstrably and obviously impermanent. The boulders are classic symbols of stability and permanence. But is either element really such a stalwart exemplar of the class of being that it purports to be?


Are not the rocks, if viewed in their natural context, more of an impermanent reality than the water, as they slowly, but inevitably, succumb to the rushing water's punishing power? Is not the flow of water (rather than its substance), in fact, a much longer living entity; one destined to outlive even the strongest of rocks? How many years had the "rocks" that are no longer part of the Grand Canyon withstood the inexorable onslaught of the Colorado River's persistent flow?...


...and what is the analog, I wonder, of the "rushing water" to our seemingly permanent (but, in truth, merely transitory) "reality" as living, sentient, and soulful creatures? How many years will go by before life itself becomes a distant memory? ...before it turns into an organically eroded gorge, carved into oblivion by the methodical, uncaring flow of time?

This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds
To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance.
A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky,
Rushing by, like a torrent down a steep mountain. - Buddha

Rejuvenating Metapatterns

It has been quite some time since I've posted any new images; indeed, it has been quite some time since I've captured any. While an unqualified virtue of being a devout "amateur" photographer is that I am (for the most part) able to focus my attention on the kind of photographs I like to take (rather than shoot for clients and cater to their needs); the downside is that my "day job" always has priority; and the past few months have been particularly busy.


So, what does this amateur photographer do when he finally finds a few precious moments to prowl around with his camera? He ventures off in search of the primitive metapatterns (identified a few years ago by my then 6yo son as forming the core of his dad's "eye"): rocks, leaves and water.


Of course, these metapatterns both arise and persist mostly due to happenstance as I can travel only so far from home for my "safaris" and usually wind up taking short nature walks at local parks. On the other hand, these metapatterns are also almost always (as noted by my son) those that I turn to first after a long period of relative inactivity. I have learned from experience that these simple, timeless, themes rejuvenate my soul, and refocus my mind from equations, computer code and technical reports to more artful pursuits.


What is fascinating to me is how much "rust" I always find in the artful part of my brain, even after what (objectively speaking) is only a relatively short time "away" from the camera. Photographers (likely all artists!) know precisely what I mean by this. It is not that I have forgotten the technical aspects of my craft (f-stops and such); it is simply that what is usually an effortless act of unconscious composition, is, for a time at least, anything but effortless. I feel the process, as though my eye/I is moving through molasses. The same is true for any craft, of course (even physics: though I find that I must be away from that for a considerably longer time to feel the same degree of "rust"). But there is something subjectively different about art; in that the artist's rust seems to appear virtually simultaneously with the artist losing his/her engagement and total immersion.


A less convoluted way of saying the same thing, I suppose, is that our muse simply wanders off when we lose attention. Hardly a surprise in hindsight, and something I always relearn as I try to reconnect with my muse.

The Four-Dimensional Photographer

Stephen Shore, the well known photographer (and teacher; who, among other things, was the first living photographer to have a one-man show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY) has recently updated his classic meditation on the Nature of Photographs. Recommended to all aspiring (and working) photographers, the beauty of this book is the density of its distilled wisdom.

You will not find anything here on f-stops, film speeds and lenses, nothing on the darkroom (analog or digital), nothing on the raging "debate" whether to pick up an 8 megapixel DSLR or a 10, and no instructions - at least explicit ones - on how to take "better" pictures. What you will find is the crystalline essence of Shore's lifetime's worth of thinking about the nature of the photograph. His short, Zen-like prose-poem musings pierce the proverbial bullseye like an archer's arrow; and leave the reader both enchanted and haunted by their eloquence and wisdom.

Shore reminds us that amidst the infinity of potential images, both real and imagined, the photographer has four - and only four - formal tools for defining a picture's content and organization: vantage point, frame, focus and time. Stop and think about that for a moment. With all the wonderful technology underneath our thumb as we prepare to press the shutter, with all the different ways in which we can image ourselves "taking" a shot, and all the different images that can conceivably exist, the photographer really only has these four fundamental "creative dimensions" with which to work, and no more! Where do I position myself; what do I put in the picture and what do I leave out; where should I focus my attention; and how much of a slice of time do I want to include?

Every picture that has ever been taken, and every photograph yet to be captured - from Adams' shots of Yosemite, to Cartier-Bresson's visual etudes on the "Decisive Moment," to visual realities created by some future technologies - is "reality" as aesthetically transformed by the four-dimensional human creative filter!

Yet somehow, miraculously even, this suffices to provide (however brief) glimpses of an infinite dimensional world of meaning and beauty. That is the magic of photography!

2006 Portfolio (Draft)

Here is a draft portfolio of some of my favorite recent images (most captured in 2006). There are five galleries in all, each consisting of 12 photos: Hawaii, Sudden Stillness, Entropic Melodies, Spirit & Light, and Ethereal Abstracts. (For an "uncluttered" look, thumbnails are not shown; individual images are revealed by choosing one of the five galleries listed across the top, and clicking on any of the numbers 1-12 that appear at the top left)

More Fog

Here is a shot I have some fond memories of, from about a year ago; taken (as are almost all of my shots) in a local park (Lake Accotink), this time while on a "fog break" from work.

What I remember vividly about this shot is that it was a complete fluke...I was focusing all of my attention on some driftwood much closer to my feet (and not visible in the photo here), and actually made quite a few (in hindsight, unsuccessful) exposures, when I heard a flock of geese overhead. Without taking my eye off my camera's eyepiece, I swiveled the camera on its tripod (and went as wide as I could on my lens) to see if I could get a glimpse of the flock...and got off a single shot. While I was delighted in seeing the geese, I did not expect anything to come of my rapid swivel- tilt- press-shutter action, and I immediately went back to shooting the driftwood.

Well, its not quite a Cartier-Bresson, but it turned out to be the only keeper of the day that day! ;-) I was lucky enough to have it published in the British Black & White Photography magazine (issue #45, April 2005).