A Fine-Art Photographer's Must-Have New Book on B&W Printing!

George Dewolfe - photographer, teacher, workshop instructor and author - has just published one of the best books I have run across in a long, long time on the art and craft of fine-art B&W printing; called, naturally enough, B&W Printing.

Generally speaking, there are three basic types of digital-photography-related books on the market: (1) the beginner's guides, that walk the aspiring photographer / "camera user" through the steps necessary to take a picture, how to operate her camera, and how to download images to the computer and print them out on a small ink-jet printer; (2) the intermediate guides, that assume readers are already familiar with their camera but want to learn more about how to process their images for the web or prints; and are tailored to readers who are serious about their photography (certainly more so than casual "point and shooters," but do not invest more than a few hours on a weekend, say, or as "designated photographers" at family get-togethers and vacations; and (3) the advanced guides for affirmed afficionados of photography (who want to learn all of what Adobe's Photoshop has to offer, for example) and professional photographers (who may want to learn additional techniques or, if they are film-photographers, want to boot-strap themselves into digital photography). Each type of book is well represented on the market, of course, and there are many excellent books - classics even (the "advanced guides" by Martin Evening, Katrin Easemann, and Scott Kelby all come to mind).

But, thus far at least, the digital photography world has lacked a particular kind of voice that film photography has enjoyed for decades, simply because film photography has been around for so long. Namely, the voice of a seasoned fine-art photographer / printer writing about and dispensing with his years of experience as a photographer applied to the new, emerging digital imaging technologies. How many times have I picked up a book with a titles like, "Advanced Fine-Art Digital Imaging" by so and so, intrigued by the title and number of pages/examples, only to be disappointed to find either that the images in the book are at best serviceable as "fine art photographs" or, at worst, dismal examples of what "fine art" ought to be, or that the images are wonderful - perhaps even gallery-like in their presence - but that what I had hoped to learn by way of "digital craft" is nowhere to be seen, since the author is a fine photographer but less-than-gifted writer or Photoshop technician. The rarest kind of book of all is a book on fine-art photography - particularly black and white fine-art photography - that combines great pictures, great technical skill, and great writing. I have seen no finer example of this rare breed of book than B&W Printing, by George Dewolfe, published this month by Lark Books as part of their Digital Masters series.

As one can glean from his website, Mr. Dewolfe has been a photographer since 1964 and holds an MFA in Photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology. He studied photography with both Ansel Adams and Minor White in the 1970s. He also studied perception with Dr. Richard Zakia (a fact I mention because Dr. Zakia's book, Perception and Imaging, is among my all-time favorite books on the subject). Mr. Dewolfe has taught photography at several universities (and continues to teach photography and master print classes), and conducts workshops throughout the country. His works have appeared in numerous one-man shows and galleries. He was part of the development team behind Adobe's Lightroom software. He also authored one of the first (and best) "advanced" books on the craft of digital printing I purchased for my personal library (and still frequently refer to): George DeWolfe's Digital Fine Print Workshop.

And so we get to Mr. Dewolfe's new book, B&W Printing. What immediately sets it apart from 95% of related books on the market is immediately apparent after even a quick perusal of its 200+ pages: its subtle, almost understated, elegance. It oozes with quality, and attention to detail.

The images - all examples of one technique or another (except for a small portfolio toward the end that exhibits some wonderful "final" prints) - are each carefully arranged to highlight a specific approach, and are all expertly crafted and presented. Indeed, I suspect many a reader will look at the first such example that a chapter starts with - an out-of-camera image that Mr. Dewolfe displays to show the "before" part of a specific workflow, and wonder, "What can one possibly do to improve such a beautiful image?" ("Beautiful" both as a technically brilliant print, and as a fine-art photograph). The answer to which, of course, after reading Mr. Dewolfe's elegant prose - full of finely honed and expertly distilled advice on why something needs to be done, when and how to do it, and how to tell when its "done" - is "quite a bit." As the "final" image is revealed at the end of most chapters, the reader marvels both at its innate, shear beauty - Mr. Dewolfe's images all have a preternatural "glow" to them; they are carefully crafted in such a way that their ostensibly two-dimensional forms leak into a third "magical" dimension - and the relatively "simple" steps by which the original image was converted into it. Of course, it is precisely Mr. Dewolfe's gifted ability to describe what goes into these "relatively simple" steps - done in such a way that even a novice Photoshop user (albeit one who is well versed with the basic of aesthetics and photographic "seeing") can easily follow them and apply them to her own workflow - that sets this apart from most others and elevates it to the level of an instant classic.

The book consists of three main sections, and a portfolio at the end. A glossary and index are also provided. The first section discusses fine-art black and white photography in broad - but philosophically deep - terms. Great attention is given to the nature of "seeing" (by both camera and photographer), and the most important qualities that make up a photograph (tone, luminosity, luminance, sharpness, and so on). Though this may sound like so many other dry incantations of "obvious" material, perhaps done to death in other volumes, even here, in only the introductory parts of the book, Mr. Dewolfe provides something special. Using the way in which humans process visual information, Mr. Dewolfe astutely distinguishes between "luminance" (a combination of reflection and illumination, and which is essentially what both camera and retina "see" in any image) and "luminosity" (which is what we, as observers, "see" - or the way in which we interpret - luminance. It is the apparent luminosity of an image that gives the images its strength, its character, and ultimately, if the image is to express the artist's vision, its meaning. The best photographers are those that are able to expertly manipulate the raw luminance of their images into something that communicates how they "see" (and feel about) the world. This is a deep discussion of fundamental truths of the art of photography; but is not overbearing in any way; the typical reader will probably not even recognize that she has been treated to a master discussion of the very core of what defines fine-art photography. Needless to say, few if any books provide half the wisdom waiting to be plumbed in the first 60 pages of this magnificent book.

The heart of the book lies in the second section, and spans about 130 pages. Here you will read about designing a workflow, how to choose and setup your software, how to input your images (the author uses Adobe's Lightroom), how to make global and local adjustments to an image, how to fine-tune an image, and, finally, how to make the best use of your printing tools and methods. Each example is meticulously and lovingly presented, with each step described in both words and illustrated with screenshots (of workflow) and the effects interim steps have on a particular image. As a bonus, each chapter also includes sample workflows by featured artists (some of whose work I knew about before, but others were new to me and compel me to look up their work).

The third section contains some musings on the nature of photography, how to hone your skills as a photographer, and the art of mindfulness in art in general. The small, self-contained section on mindfulness perfectly illustrates Mr. Dwewolfe's best gifts as a teacher. In what amounts to no more than a page, Mr. Dewolfe provides - in sparse but artful, Haiku-like prose - a natural gateway toward applying meditation techniques to creating meaningful photographs; punctuated, in the end, by yet another beautiful, luminous image.

Mr. DeWolfe begins his book with the question, "What is a masterpiece?" By the end of the book, the reader will have seen a fair share of masterpieces created and crafted by Mr. Dewolfe's refined eye and skill. And the reader will leave the book behind (though no-doubt leaving it within easy reach to refer back to when necessary) knowing that she is now prepared to craft masterpieces of her own. Mr. Dewolfe has written a truly sensational book on the art of B&W printing, and one that is destined to become a classic in its class.

The only mild criticism I can make with regard to the book - though not of the material that appears in it per se - is that Mr. Dewolfe does not provide a discount code for readers of his book to use to purchase his PercepTool plug-in for Photoshop (which is an integral part of the workflow described in the book, and encapsulates much of what Mr. Dewolfe has learned during a lifetime of "seeing" as a photographer and as a student of human perception). I have seen other authors provide discounts for software in their books, but for software nowhere near as rich and far-reaching as PercepTool. I would encourage Mr. Dewolfe to do the same. But I make this criticism only in hopes of getting Mr. Dewolfe to reach an even larger audience with his teachings. Perhaps in the second edition?

Lionel Dobie's Artistic Admonition

"Why do photography?" Or, more generally, "Why do art?" This seemingly "obvious" question is anything but obvious; it is also infinitely far from "simple." Indeed, I would hope that most artists never consciously ask it (of themselves); and never use words alone if forced to answer it by others. For (quickly jumping to the conclusion of this short entry) their life's work is by itself a never-ending, silent but engaged, "answer" to (what ought to be an) unspoken question best left to others - those other than the artist - to ask. What can any artist (apart, from - maybe - one whose art is oratory) possibly say in answer to such a question?

I was reminded of its unintentional absurdity while watching an old (~ 20 yo) film called New York Stories. Or more precisely, while watching the first of three "shorts" that comprise this film called Life Lessons, and starring Nick Nolte (as abstract artist Lionel Dobie) and Rosanna Arquette (as aspiring artist Paulette). Paulette is Lionel's former lover, but moves in with Lionel in the hopes of learning art from him. The movie mostly explores how Lionel's creativity is coupled with the fits of jealousy he suffers through while Paulette dates other men. Paulette eventually leaves, but not before Lionel has gone through enough jealousy to fuel the completion of the art he needs to open a new exhibit. As the movie ends, another aspiring female artist moves in and we are left with the strong impression that this "new relationship - broken relationship - jealousy - creativity" cycle is the meta-pattern that defines Lionel's world and life.

All of which is, for my purposes here, utterly irrelevant and inconsequential (though is a fair summary of the short film for those who have not seen it; it is certainly entertaining enough to watch and enjoy). To me, the one shining moment in the film happens near the end, right before Paulette leaves for good. We are in Lionel's loft studio (where most all of the film takes place), with Lionel listening to some loud music and painting like a madman - very much in the "Zone." The canvas is huge (it looks like to be at least twenty feet on the side), paint is being splattered everywhere, and Lionel is - as any artist can confirm while painting / creating - oblivious to everything around him except his inner state. In walks Paulette, who has been patiently waiting - yearning, begging - for some advice from Lionel, but has yet to receive anything of value. Heck, she is not even sure if she any good as an artist, much less what to do about it. So she confronts him. Then and there.

"Am I any good?" she asks. Lionel's reaction is the best self-contained "answer" to that question I have seen; certainly on film, possibly ever, in any context, and serves as a thought-provoking - even soul-searching - admonition to all artists, aspiring and accomplished alike. (I may have forgotten the exact details of what happens next, but...) Lionel throws down his brushes with an Eastwood-like "Dirty Harry" fury - veins at his temples flaring and throbbing - phlegm unashamedly spewing - frothing - out his mouth as he screams, "Good?!? What the f*** difference does it make whether you're good or not?!? You paint because you need to!"

What a beautifully transcendent moment. They are "merely" actors, and Nolte is not "really" an artist (or is an artist of a different kind, stage-playing an artist). That does not matter. Though I prefer answering questions - even this one - in a slightly more civilized manner than Nolte's character, I confess that I cannot imagine a better, more perfect, response. It summarizes exactly my own sentiments.

Why do I do photography? Is it because I like taking pictures with a camera; reveling in the tactile feel of cold magnesium and pushing buttons? Because I'm shy in public and prefer to hide myself behind a box with lenses? Because I'm really a conventional artist at heart but know I have no talent for drawing or painting and so must make do with an "easier" art? Because I'm a narcissist who thrives on hanging my work in public? Because I yearn for attention and recognition from my artistic peers? Because I am in a perpetual search for the "perfect picture"? Because I'm trying to find a way to express my "artistic vision"? None of these are true, in the purest sense (though some may contain hints of banal, and fundamentally meaningless, truths).

I do photography because it is who I am. As surely as my laughing at Monty-Python; my relishing my wife's cooking; my joy at playing with my sons; my absorption with physics equations and computer code; my night-time ritual of re-reading, for the umpteenth time, some story by Borges; or my fascination with abstract art - none of which I can explain the "reason" for that adds anything to the simple fact that they are all things I happen to love to do, so too I can say the same about my photography. All of these things are their own reason and explanation. Life and work and play and joy and love and ... everything else that makes up my life and gives it meaning, is a self-contained, self-referential soup of nested cause and effect, and experience. And they are all, ultimately and collectively, the only meaningful expressions of who I really am. I do photography because it is who I am. And when I stop, I cease to be. Until I start again...

"All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness."

- Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Experience = f(Photograph; Context, Interpretation)

In a recent blog entry ("Photography as Transcendence"), I presented what I believe is one core component of what distinguishes "fine-art" photography from a "photograph" (even an otherwise technically well executed one). I wrote that the finest photography makes you forget you are looking at a photograph and makes you experience it as if it were real; as if you were a part of it. The example I used was (indeed, the whole blog entry was based on) a nude portrait taken by one of the photographers at the photography Co-op I belong to. As such, it was obviously representational; which prompted at least one reader to ask whether I was implicitly arguing that the "finest photography" must depict something real, since how else can the viewer feel she is "one" with the work?

My answer is that photography obviously need not be restricted in any way in what it represents, or how it represents it. Even the word "photography" is needlessly restrictive. It is useful only insofar as it "points to" something someone has created (which the world calls a "photograph"). But once the physical object is created, the word "photograph" has served its purpose and can be safely discarded. It is the object we care about; or, more precisely, the affect the object has on us, as viewers. Of course, the degree to which one viewer "feels as one" with a photograph always depends on the viewer's particular predilections and aesthetics. Ardent admirers of Andy Warhol generally react markedly differently to a given image (whatever the image!) than admirers of the art of Wassily Kandinsky. But that is the whole point; a point that - upon deeper reflection - may hint at the embryonic stirrings of an experiential equation of aesthetics:

Before I explain some of the (obvious?) parts of this equation, let me quickly get the "f" (= "function") out of the way. Feel free to disregard it. It is inserted merely as a philosophical placeholder, and for completeness. It reminds us that there is "something" that binds and equates the two sides, but its precise makeup is (for our purposes here) unimportant. It is exceedingly unlikely to have a nice, mathematically well-defined definition. In fact, the best description of what it is a placeholder for is a "human observer" (of "photograph"); and no one, so far as I know (with the possible exception of Stephen Wolfram, developer of Mathematica and the soon-to-be-released Wolfram Alpha), has yet been bold enough to posit a "function" for a human being.

"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the 'Universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness." - Albert Einstein

So what do I mean by this equation? I mean that - ultimately - that the only experience that is of any lasting consequence to an observer viewing a photograph (or any work of art; or anything!) is the experience itself. That is to say, after all is said and done, after an observer "views" an artwork, the only thing that matters to that observer, the only thing that is of any lasting value, is how - from the observer's own inner point of view - the observer has changed as a consequence of experiencing the artwork. No one can say what that experience will be like, beforehand. The observer is able to reflect back on what the experience was like - on what the artwork means - only after experiencing it (which involves recursive feedback loops on nested experiences, meta-experiences, and the like; none of which we'll get into here). But the observer will be changed in some way. She may be happy, sad, puzzled, angry, detached, thoughtful, tearful, sardonic, ..., or (though unlikely) she may remain completely unchanged, save for the memory of having physically interacted with the artwork. And it is the way in which our ineffable inner state - our prison-like solitary experience of "I-ness" - changes as a function of our viewing of an artwork that defines what that artwork means to us, as viewers.

The left-hand-side of the equation thus represents the inner experience that a viewer has of an observed artwork. The "Photograph" is the physical photograph, and is perhaps the only part of the equation that may be described with something approaching a mathematical rigor. It represents the tangibly objective properties of an image. The paper it appears on, the color dyes and pigments it is imprinted with, its tonal range and contrast levels, and - to some degree - the "things" it depicts (either representationally or non-representationally, as "abstract" shapes and forms; defined mechanically, as by a digital scanner).

The "Context" refers to (1) the context in which the photograph itself appears (perhaps as one of a series of related images, or some other over-arching portfolio of images; is it hanging in a gallery? is it a stray remnant of a discarded box of old polaroids? a web-only image on some unknown photographer's photo-blog?); and (2) the context in which the observer finds herself in while viewing the image, which itself includes both inner and outer dimensions. Is the observer in a gallery setting? is it a private viewing with family and co-workers (the latter set including people to whom she is not as "close")? has she just had lunch with a friend and is in a good mood? has she recently had a spat with her mom and is feeling sad? has she had a long interest in photography, or is perhaps herself a photographer, or is her interest more fleeting?

Finally, "Interpretation" refers to how the viewer interprets the artwork; or the (inner) meaning she ascribes to the work. Interpretation refers to how she really "sees" the work; not necessarily how the work "really" is (objectively speaking, as defined by its physical dimension, the "Photograph"). Note that the viewer does not have to (and, in general, may not even be able to) "see" any of the objectively-hidden "subjective" dimensions of an image, if there are any. Think of the well-known "Hidden Dalmation" image which consists of black and white patches, and may be "seen" as such by some viewers; or may be "seen" as a dalmation by others. The "Photograph" dimension of this experience is the objective image; the "Interpretation" dimension is either "seeing black and white patches" or "seeing a dalmation" (and its attendant associations: does the viewer like dalmations? is she afraid of them? does it remind her of a childhood incident that, by itself, has nothing to do with dalmations or dogs of any kind?...)

"All our thoughts and concepts are called up by sense-experiences and have a meaning only in reference to these sense-experiences. On the other hand, however, they are products of the spontaneous activity of our minds; they are thus in no wise logical consequences of the contents of these sense-experiences. If, therefore, we wish to grasp the essence of a complex of abstract notions we must for the one part investigate the mutual relationships between the concepts and the assertions made about them; for the other, we must investigate how they are related to the experiences." - Albert Einstein

What the equation E=f(P:C,I) suggests is that whatever an observer experiences by viewing a photograph (or any artwork) is a (likely very complicated) function of (1) the photograph itself, as a physical object; (2) the inner emotional and outer environmental contexts in which the viewer is situated in while viewing the photograph; and (3) the interpretation that the viewer ascribes to the photograph (which, since it is also a function of multiple factors, may be but only one exemplar - true for a given context - of a possibly vast set of alternative interpretations by the same observer).

On a trivial level, we've simply decomposed a single dimension ("Experience") into three. As an academic exercise, it focuses attention on some of the basic factors that influence how we view art in general. Other writers, considerably more esteemed than I (and with deeper results), have gone through this exercise before. For example, the well-known photographer / photography theorist Stephen Shore, in his book The Nature of Photographs, introduces a similar set of factors (that he calls "levels") for interpretating an image: the physical level, the depictive level, the mental level, and mental modeling. Each depicts one of the four core elements of an image: vantage point, frame, focus and time. John Szarkowski, the late great photography historian / curator / critic, in his The Photographers Eye, suggests five dimensions: the thing itself, the detail, the frame, time, and vantage point. But however you slice the dimensions - one can always add or subtract to taste - such decompositions, if done thoughtfully, are useful because they partly disentangle the otherwise messy soup of objective and subjective factors that define our overall experience of an artwork.

But what I am after here is subtly different. Assuming that the experience of an artwork is the most meaningful dimension (though, as we've discussed, it too has an ephemeral nature, and may take on added dimensions as the same observer "views" an artwork at different times and in different contexts), what the equation leaves the door open for - at least formally - is the possibility that the same overall experience may result from many different combinations of photograph, context, and interpretation.

Think about that for a moment. Suppose the "Experience" is "feeling joyful, imagining you are in a field of Gold, without a care in the world, and being suddenly transfixed by the notion of Buddhist impermanence" (or anything else, for specificity;-). What gave you this experience? Perhaps it was looking at Ansel Adams' "Moonrise, Hernandez" at the Smithsonian (where an original print was recently on display, and which induced roughly the same "inner experience" in me as I was viewing it). Although we are conditioned to think of our experience - after the fact - as being synonymous with what we were viewing (when asked, we reply: "I was looking at the Ansel Adams exhibit"), the more personally meaningful symbolic (and literal) token of our experience is the memory of the experience itself. It is the memory of what we felt as we were viewing whatever we were viewing; the state of mind we were in, cognitively, intuitively, and emotionally. (For mathematically inclined readers, this is essentially the art-equivalent of taking a Fourier transform between, say, momentum and position space in physics. The respective spaces represent two views of the same system; and do so in a way that preserves information. In our case, "information" is equivalent to "experience," and the function "f" hints at a Fourier-transform-like "experience preserving" sloshing back-and-forth among three dimensions.)

Now imagine - perhaps in some distant time, when evolution has worked its magic on our cognitive / emotional / aesthetic processing abilities - we are able to recall experiences as readily as we now recall things and events. Were we such creatures, we would not care whether the "thing" was the "Moonrise, Hernandez" by Ansel Adams (or the "event" a showing at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC in 2008); we would care - and remember - only that there was a moment in our lives when we felt "joyful, imagined we were in a field of Gold, were without a care in the world, and were suddenly transfixed by the notion of Buddhist impermanence." But so many other combinations of photograph, context, and interpretation could have put us into the same state! Depending on the person, perhaps Minor White's "Capitol Reef, Utah (1962)," viewed on a computer monitor late at night could induce essentially the same experience. Generalizing further, perhaps the same experience may also be had by listening to, say, Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata with a group of close friends at a local country concert hall.

Getting back to - and expanding upon - the main thesis of the earlier blog entry, I now state the main conjecture of this blog entry: the finest photography consists of those images that - for the broadest possible set of contexts and interpretations - yield the most meaningful experiences in the broadest class of observers. Note that the class of "finest photographs" is emphatically not defined solely by the physical dimension of any one photograph; and - critically - includes the observer. "Moonrise, Hernandez" - arguably a fine example of "fine photograph" in the Western world ;-) may rank somewhat lower among the Aka People of Africa (whose collective "aesthetics" are probably quite different from ours). Photograph and viewer are - must be - inextricably interwoven and coupled. A "photograph" has no more a single interpretation, and entails no more of a single experience, than a human is defined by a single inner state and experiences life as a single event (though some mystics claim that is precisely what life is). What a photograph "is" (to an observer) depends on - and is, in turn, shaped by - how the observer experiences the photograph; which henceforth becomes part of the observer, and helps shape what other photographs "will be" and the manner in which they, too, will shape the observer.

"I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive." - Joseph Campbell

Taking a cue from Campbell, we can rephrase the main conjecture of this blog entry as follows: the finest photography consists of those images that - for the broadest possible set of contexts and interpretations - induce the richest, deepest feelings of being alive in the broadest class of observers.

Thought Experiment #1: What would an artwork that depicts all of the possible artworks, in all of the possible contexts and interpretations that a given observer might ascribe to them, look like, starting with - as an example - Adams' "Moonrise, Hernandez"? How would an observer of Adams' "Moonrise, Hernandez" experience this meta artwork? Is there a Borgesian Aleph of art?

Thought Experiment #2: This blog entry has introduced a formal destinction between a "fine art photograph" and a (run of the mill?) "photograph" as defined for a group of observers. An obvious question is, what does this distinction entail for the individual observer? Folloing our formulation, we speculate that an observer - say the artist herself? - seeks that combination of artwork, context and interpretation (as any other observer does, of course) that induces the richest, deepest feeling of being alive. Here's a thought experiment: thinking only of yourself as observer (no collective "averaging" is being done here!...this is you we're talking about!), what would you imagine that artwork to look like that - out of all possible artworks that you can possibly create in this lifetime, and that you can observe in all conceivable contexts so as to form all imaginable interpretations - is the one that makes you feel most alive? Now go out and create it....

Postscript: the image posted at the top of this blog entry is a triptych of photographs of moonlight, reflected in Lake Saranac, in the Adirondacks NY. The images were taken from a series captured during a single, exceptionally clear night in August, 2008.

Hey Fella, Would you Mind...?

Audacious, brash, brazen, daring, disrespectful, forward, impertinent, impudent, presumptuous, rash, rude, shameless, ...

One of my pet peeves, in and out of photography, is what I call the "in your face" approach some people take to get my attention (I am sure I am not alone is despising this phenomenon to the "beyond measurable category" level). I am emphatically not referring to people who are quiet and polite; (which most are, of course); and certainly not those who patiently wait for me to finish whatever it is I am doing - usually hovering over my tripod, bending up and down and sideways, while gesticulating wildly with my elbows trying to find a reasonable composition (my wife refers to my picture-taking process as akin to the wild thrashings of a stark raving mad broken-pretzel) - before introducing themselves.

No, the class of people I am referring to are of a distinct "Hey Fella, Would you mind...?" bent of mind. The kind who - regardless of how busy they must surely see you are (it is hard to be "gesticulating wildly" without at least appearing to be busy doing something ;-) - nonetheless suddenly, brazenly, and anything-but-quietly approach you - often tapping you on the shoulder for good measure, presumably trying to increase their chances of getting your attention - to demand (yes demand!) that you stop what you are doing in order to take their picture. As preposterous as this may sound - come now, people don't really do that, do they? (yes they do!) - this has happened to me for so long, so consistently, in so many different places, that I never go on any of my photo-safaris without expecting (and bracing for) at least one such encounter.

Here is a typical "Hey Fella, Would you mind...?" encounter I had recently on a trip my wife and I took to Grand Cayman island (to get away from it all during Spring break). My wife and I are on the beach in front of our hotel. The sun is setting (with precious few moments left before it disappears below the horizon). I have my tripod set up a few feet from shore, and am attempting to get a few Hiroshi Sugimoto-like (i.e., looooong exposure) shots. I have my trusty Singh-Ray vari-ND neutral density filter screwed on. And I am very much "in the moment"; ticking off the seconds of a shot and anticipating only a few compositional opportunities left before the light disappears for the night.

Behind me, I faintly hear some whispers (though with an obvious urgency). "There are only a few moments left! Get someone!" A family. A man, a woman, and two teenage kids. I hear feet shuffling on the sand, ice sloshing in a glass (a rum punch?); voices getting closer. "He's busy." "So what, the lights going!" Two pairs of feet shuffling now; I also hear a few giggles from the kids. "I can't bother him now!" (A faint glimmer of hope that at least one member of this party has some decency!...but alas...) "He can take his pictures later...ask him, go ask him!" I hear: "Ah, fella, would you mind...?" (I'm not kidding you!) Keep in mind, I'm huddled over my camera, and in the middle of a minute-long exposure. I keep my posture, and say (without lifting my head) - loudly enough for him to hear, but with an even tone - "I'm in the middle of a shot right now; this is not a good time." "But I just heard the shutter; you've taken your shot already!" I can't believe this comment (I sigh, inwardly, but keep my eye at the camera - 45s, 46s, 47s, ... - and remain silent.

I feel a light tap on my shoulder (I am not making this up!) "Hey fella, didn't you hear me? My wife and I would like you to take a picture of our family before the sun goes down." I still - somehow (!) - manage to keep my composure. I remain glued to my camera, but say, firmly this time, "Sir, I am busy right now. Perhaps you can find someone else to take your picture?" I should point out that the beach was filled with people, many of whom had their own cameras; and at least one other person had a tripod (which he was not even using, and was content simply enjoying the sunset view).

The man persists: "Fella, there are only a few minutes left!" An assertion that finally grabs my full attention. I stand upright, look his way, and say - rather angrily I admit - "Yes, I know! I'd very much like to use this time to do my work, if you don't mind!" He doesn't let go: "Hey man, it's just one shot, come on..." Now, I know there must be some Emily Post etiquette behavior guide for situations such as this (there ought to be, if not). I grit my teeth - outwardly trying to smile - take his camera, move in front of the man, his wife, and two giggling teenagers, and tale a quick shot with their camera. "Thanks man," is all I get for my efforts (as I run back to my tripod)...almost. As I prepare to hit the shutter one last time (to capture the shot you see reproduced above), I feel another tap - I can't make this stuff up! - "Hey fella, can you do one more, please, without the kids this time?" At least he said please!

I have dozens of stories very similar to this one. An unforgettable "encounter" happened in Santorini, Greece last year, and involved a German couple who spoke not one word of English (nor I German). That made it both better and worse (and in hindsight - but only in hindsight - hilarious), but I'll leave the details to your imagination :-) There are no deep lessons or morals here, save for the obvious ones: (1) people will be people (on both sides of the camera); (2) always plan for one or two rude people (that way you won't be surprised); and (3) it pays to not lose your cool (had I lost mine, I would not have gotten the one "keeper" of the night, the shot at top).

Postscript. For those kind readers who have, over time, picked up on my penchant for Borgesian/Godelian recursive mysteries, be assured that I did toy with the idea of weaving my tale around an infinite regress induced by my having thrown the "audacious, brash, brazen, daring, disrespectful, forward, impertinent, impudent, presumptuous, rash, rude, shameless,.." man's words right back at him: "Hey fella, would you mind...?" (Which would have made as much sense for me to use on him, as he clearly believed there was in using them on me.) In some unknown universe in the limitless multiverse we occupy an infinitesimally small point in, there is a world, much like our own, where an "encounter" between a photographer and a man wishing the photographer to take a picture of his family never ever ends: Hey fella, would you mind...?, Hey fella, would you mind...?, Hey fella, would you mind...?, ...

Photography as Transcendence

A philosophically minded friend of mine dropped by the Lorton Photography Workhouse while I was performing my "gallery sitting" chores this Saturday. After exchanging some pleasantries, and mutual musings - as is our custom - on the nature of life, art, and meaning, his attention soon focused on a series of masterful nude portraits by a fellow member of the coop I belong to (E. E. McCollum).

My friend was particularly impressed by how "utterly and completely absorbing" Eric's portraits are; but he was not - as he immediately explained - referrring only to the model's obvious beauty. My astute friend - who also happens to be a gifted artist - was using one of Eric's portraits to make a deeper point about what distinguishes the "best" photography from that which is merely "good." My friend opined that the best photograph - or, more generally, the best artwork of any kind - is the one that induces in the viewer the broadest possible inner experience. That is, that what the viewer experiences, transcends in some way - and in the very best art, transcends in multiple ways - the dimensions that the artist is physically constrained to using in order to express his artwork.

Superficially, of course, this is always true, even of "not terribly good" photographs. All (conventional) photographs are by their nature two dimensional, yet evoke - with varying degrees of success - a "three dimensional" experience (mostly because we "expect" to see the "world as revealed by a photograph" as we see the world with our eyes). But what my friend was thinking about was a deeper level of experiential transcendence. When he looked at one of Eric's nude portraits - which is, as are all of Eric's photographs, beautifully lit, elegantly composed, and expertly printed with a wonderful palette of tones (see Eric's on-line gallery for samples of his work) - my friend's immediate reality was temporarily replaced by one in which only my friend and Eric's model existed, and in which the model was very real. From my friend's point of view, while he was looking at the portrait, the model was as palpably real to him as any physically real person can be.

His experience of her far transcended the ink and paper on which her two dimensional form is physically expressed, and assumed multiple dimensions including touch, taste, smell, even (hints of imagined) emotion. To be sure, all of these "transcendent" dimensions are supplied by the viewer, and will be different from viewer to viewer. It is more correct to say that they are all induced in the viewer by the photograph. But that is the whole point. The photograph - as a physical cipher designed to convey a certain experience of reality - is so well executed, that the viewer experiences the full range of emotion while interacting with it. The shades of grey ink that depict a part of the model's neck, for example, are transformed in the viewer's mind into real skin, with its own unique aroma, its distinct tactile feel and texture, and so on. As tempting as it might be to think that this is true of all photographs, the truth is that it is not so. Indeed, had Eric's portrait been taken instead by a less seasoned photographer with no eye for light, let us say, but of the same model in exactly the same pose in exactly the same surroundings and background, the perceptive viewer would in all likelihood still "experience" a beautiful model in a beautiful pose, but nothing more. No extra, or transcendent, dimensions would reveal themselves; and certainly not as readily, and not all for indiscriminate viewers. Eric's fine-art "touch" reveals profoundly more. In a sense, Eric's portrait provides the raw "aesthetic" material that the interested viewer transforms into a transcendent, personally meaningful experiential reality.

So the idea on the table, as proposed by my artist friend after viewing Eric's portrait is this: that art is at its finest when the artist somehow manages to induce in the viewer dimensions of inner experience that transcend those that define the artwork itself. Just as "fine-art" music (say, by Beethoven) may be distinguished from "musak" by the fact that listening to it makes you feel alive (whereas "musak" merely makes you think that you want your elevator ride to end soon). The finest photography makes you forget you are looking at a photograph. Itand makes you experience it as if it were real; as if you were a part of it.

Put another way, and assuming our traditional store of five senses (though we may have as many as eleven, and possibly more if we include "extra"-sensory ones), the finest art is a process whereby a single sensory dimension - and at most a few - is used to evoke in the viewer the experiential equivalent of all five. The very best art makes the viewer forget she is even looking at any art at all, the artwork having evoked an experience of transcendence itself (in which the viewer "sees" herself in the art, and cosmos in self). But that's another blog entry... ;-)

On the Art of Discovering Photos on a Drab Day

"I find that if I sit down a minute and relax, a solution always presents itself…." - Professor Henry Jones (from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)

So there I was, sitting in my car, in the rain, after traveling an hour or so from my home in northern Virginia to a park (I've never been to before) not far from Leesburg: Red Rock Wilderness Park. My wife found the park for me on the web, and read that it has some nice views of the Potomac. I had a few hours to myself - my wife knows well my "Oooh, nice diffused light out there today!" look - and so decided to do a photo-reconnaissance run. And it started out great: no rain, nice cloud cover, nippy but not cold. But soon I found my Sunday fortunes waning. I got lost - twice - started hearing funny sounds from the engine and had the "check engine" light come on (which turned out to be a minor but expensive service for which I also had to lose a few hours from my "day job" in the coming days), and it started raining, hard. There was really nothing to do once I got there but wait; though, because of the time I lost getting lost, I did not have all that much time to waste. Oh, and my iPhone started running out of juice so YouTube entertainment was going fast as well. Dire situation all right! Of course, I expected my Russian blood to kick into high gear and make for an afternoon's worth of angst and brooding ;-) What a mess! But wait...I did manage to snap one simple photo with my iPhone to send my wife to show her my predicament. You see a piece of it at the top of this entry: just a simple snapshot out of my windshield. Looking toward Edwards Ferry road, it shows the parking lot and a part of the grainery and stable ruins that are still standing in the park. Predictably, just as I sent the email with the photo, my iPhone died. So I kept staring out my window, feeling sorry for myself, cursing the weather, cursing the battery in my iPhone, daydreaming a bit, but also becoming increasingly mesmerized by a particular section of wall, outlined in yellow below:

  I saw it as not - as it is in reality - an exposed section of an old wall of a Civil-war-era stable, but rather a fortified section of a phantasmagoric prison cell (a metaphoric echo of my inner Russian angst?). I imagined all kinds of Borgesian tales behind the incarceration of "prisoners" held here throughout the decades (... centuries, millenia, ... just when was it built?). Alchemists imprisoned by Illuminati minions devoted to keeping a lid on secrets best not revealed? Uber-geniuses - long since forgotten in the mists of time - who stumbled upon eternal and shocking truths, and were unceremoniously dumped into locked cells to live out the rest of their lives in abandoned sarcophagi? Perhaps these ruins were even once called home by the "Old One", who quietly inserted himself into our realm to taste life of the flesh; yearning - like many of Kazantzakis' heroes - to just revel in the struggle between earth and spirit. What became of the "Old One" I wonder; and is he - still? - struggling, even after the walls of his prison have crashed down around him so long ago? Or was something even more mysterious once living within these walls - something for which to this day there are still no words, no languages, that adequately describe "it" except in the vaguest, most imprecise terms - something that the prison was never meant to contain at all, but was rather built to prevent everything on the outside of its walls from ever getting in? What happened when the walls came down? Have the strange symbols been deliberately etched onto the textured walls by the creature (or creatures) that escaped? Are they ciphers of clues to what awaits us all? Clues to how we might find a way out of an invisible prison that still surrounds us? That contains our cosmos? That is our cosmos? Such were my (admittedly, slightly bizarre) musings as I watched the stable wall ruin out my window, wondering if the rain was ever going to stop and whether my car was well enough to get me back home when it did. Finally, there was a small break in the clouds, and the rain slowed to a drizzle. I got out my camera, steadied it on the trunk of my car, and took a single shot. I knew how the final image would look even before I pressed the shutter; it would hint - but only hint - of the surreal Borgesian world (just on the cusp between the real and unreal) my mind's eye was lucky enough to briefly glimpse on this otherwise drab "uninteresting" day in the park.

It is a photo of what was in the Red Rock Wilderness Park that day; it is also a photo of what else was in the park that day. Discovering photos such as this is why I love fine-art photography.

The Gentle Madness Known as Abstract Photography

The "abstract" image to the left is what is "left" of a framed print called "Fractal Dignity" that was part of a one-man show in Coral Gables I had in Dec 2007. I had it (along with other prints remaining from the exhibit) sent from storage this past week to my mom's home in Sea Cliff, NY (Long Island), so she could hang it in my dad's old art studio on the second floor. Unfortunately, the shipment arrived in deplorable condition. Most of the glass is completely fractured, with many of the prints scratched beyond repair. Other frames that appear unaffected at first glance, contain broken shards and smaller pieces of glass trapped between an otherwise solid piece of glass and the matte underneath, hinting at frayed and broken edges of glass along the inner walls of the surrounding metal frame. The frames themselves have also been badly scratched, as though the package delivery service used them for an impromtu baseball game (or two, or three).

  

Needless to say, my mom and I were shocked when we opened the first of four (similarly configured boxes) when my son and I arrived for a short weekend trip for him to see his "Baba." The outer condition of the boxes betrayed a bit of what we soon found inside - the boxes were smashed, dented and had major tears and rips along the edges - but we were not prepared for the extent or severity of damage. It took about two hours to fully document and inventory the damage, picture by picture; with the bottom line being that fully none of the 24 frames are in "sellable" condition, and will have to be reframed. Moreover, at least half of the prints will have to be redone as well. As for me, I quickly went through the Kubler-Rossian stages of grief over a "death of a loved one" (the "loved ones" being my prints): denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance (did I mention anger?!? ;-). I knew I finally had my emotions under (some semblance of) control when - though still miffed; good grief, I'm still miffed, as a write this a few days after the fact! - I found myself picking up my camera not to document the damage, but to actually start composing what appeared to me a rather nice little "abstract" (as you see documented at the top of this entry). Photographers - especially those whose "eye" is attracted to abstract forms - are strange creatures indeed. My 10yo son stared incredulously, dropped jawed, as his dad - who moments before was apoplectic with primal rage directed at the universe in general and the UPS delivery service in particular - suddenly quieted down, got "that look" in his eye, starting circling one of the open boxes with all of its exposed shards of glass and mangled metal, and started clicking away as if nothing at all was the matter. A lesson about how accidents can serve as catalysts for transforming representational art into abstraction? Perhaps; or it may just be another everyday example of the gentle madness known as abstract photography :-)

Postscript. Though the outcome of my claim is at this time unknown, the shipment was insured. Hopefully, that should defray at least some of the cost (though not the time) of reprinting and reframing these images.