Ergodicity and (Abstract) Art

I am both blessed and cursed with a need to simultaneously nourish two complementary sides of my soul: physics and art. So, typically, even as my camera and I happily enter an otherwise ego-less state of tranquil communion with nature's sublime forms and patterns, the "other" half of my soul inevitably intrudes - albeit gently - with somewhat more cognitively-inspired thoughts and impressions (and an occassional impromtu equation or two;-)

Thus we come to the subject of this Blog entry, which has to do with what may be a curious conceptual overlap between ergodicity and art (fused, I will argue, by a conscious act of selection). "Ergodicity" is a technical term used in stochastic physics, that, roughly speaking, refers to any process whose "time average" (taken over a single realization) converges to the corresponding "ensemble average" (taken over many realizations). At the risk of oversimplification, think of an ergodic process as one in which one may understand what happens at a single point (in a system's phase space) by either averaging over what happens at that one point over a long time, or by averaging over what all of the points are doing at a given instant in time. In other words, for an ergodic process, a spatial average at one time is equivalent to a temporal average at one spatial point.

What does this have to do with art, photography, and abstraction? Well, one way to characterize the difference between what a traditional artist (such as my dad) does and what a fine-art photographer (such as what I am slowly trying to teach myself to become) does - assuming each is exploring, in his/her own way, the conceptual equivalent of an ergodic artistic landscape - is to look at how the two respective types of artists arrive at their art; or, more precisely, to look at how artists and photographers go about creating the physical form of their art (a painting or a photograph).

The traditional artist sits at his easel (either in a studio or "in the field"), which thus defines a physical space-time "region" for his brush, and actively creates the art on a canvas. To fully "understand" this traditional artist's art - of which each individual painting is but one example - one can imagine taking a time-average over all possible art-works that the artist's brush can "create" over the artist's lifetime; or, equivalently, one can sample over all possible "mind states" that the artist traverses over his internal artistic landscape (while sitting at the same easel at the same physical location!).

In contrast, the photographer wanders over (sometimes enormous stretches of) the physical landscape in hopes of finding an exemplar or two of what it is he/she wishes to express though his/her photographs. The photographer's equivalent of the traditional artist's "brush" (which sits roughly at the same "point" in space and whose subtle movements reflect the artist's inner world) is the camera, which roams over the physical landscape in search of what is, effectively, an already completed canvas. While one can argue that the photographer also has a "brush" of sorts in the guise of a "darkroom" (analog or digital), the most important element of the photographer's "art" is also arguably the moment of "capture." In order to fully understand the photographer's art - of which each individual photograph is but one example - one could imagine taking an average over all possible photographs that the photographer will choose to "create" over his/her lifetime; i.e., an average over all possible "physical states" that the photographer traverses in his search for exemplars of his inner artistic landscape.

Note that while both kinds of artists select their work (out of all possible realizations in a huge multidimensional "art" landcsape), they do so in complementary ways. The traditional artist selects by sampling over an inner landscape of the mind/soul, commiting only those images to his/her canvas that communicate a desired vision; he "selects" to use one type of brush instead of another, and this color and quantity of paint instead of another, and so on. The photographer's selection is also born of an inner vision (as is true for any art), but the selection is not made incrementally, as though the photographer has individual control over which pixels (on a digital camera's CMOS or CCD ship) will receive which signal; rather, the selection is made all at once, when all the tones and textures and forms of a scene are just right for the finger to press the shutter. The photographer selects his art by literally finding it, or, more precisely, by finding some worthy exemplar of the message the artist wishes to impart via his art.

Toward the end of his life, my dad (who passed away in 2002) created some truly extraordinary art that might conventionally be "labeled" as abstract expressionist. A generous sampling of his later work can be viewed here.

While my own art also leans heavily to the abstract, I have not been blessed with my dad's gift of expression with brush and paint. I must instead rely on my inner eye to guide me (and my camera) to examples of "abstract art" as they appear in the world. Out of all such exemplars that I thus discover, I "select" those that come as close as possible to what I would have created myself, if only I had my dad's ability. Such is the photographer's art.

While my dad looks inward to create such works as...





...I must instead hope to stumble across some composition, somewhere out there in the real world (whether by chance alone or enlightened synchronicity!), that captures - in an abstract form - what is in my mind's eye (that I cannot express nearly as well with my camera as my dad did with his brush). I must thus content myself with images such as these...





While I have not "created" any of these images, in the strictest sense of the word, I do take responsibility for carefully - and, I hope, artfully - selecting precisely those ineffable points in time and space that, when rendered by my eye and camera, communicate essentially the same message I would have communicated had I had my dad's artistic genius (and substituted a brush, paint and canvas for my camera, lens and compact flash card.)

Ultimately, the purest form of art, whether it is manifest in painting, photography, sculpture, architecture, or dance - or all of these things, at different times of an artist's life - resides in the life and soul of the artist. Art is seldom found "in" (or confined to) the work that an artist produces, but can readily be observed - even by non-artists - by looking closely at how the artist creates his work (and lives his life!): art is a soul's meta-pattern of willful creation.

I know this to be true, because I saw first-hand how "art" is lived (by a soul known to others as Slava the artist, and whom I simply called "dad"). To help heal my heart after my dad's passing, I sometimes imagine that, somewhere on my multidimensional ergodic artistic landscape, my photography and his art have finally brought the two of us together to some magical space-time-averaged "point" where we are each able to see the beauty of the world through the other's "artistic" eye.

Finally, how does all of this connect back to "ergodicity" as defined at the start of this entry? My "theory" is that just as one can get "to know" a traditional artist (his "style") by looking over a lifetime's worth of work (i.e. by taking a time average over all the works the artist can produce while sitting in roughly the same point in physical space), so one can get "to know" a photographer by looking over all possible images the photographer can take from all possible vantage points in space (i.e., by taking a spatial average over all possible images the artist can take at one time). Of course, this leads open the possibility (even likelihood) that the "styles" of artists change, and evolve, in time. But as a crude conceptual characterization of the fundamental difference between how traditional artists and photographers "create" their work I think it offers an amusing stepping stone.

At the very least, such musings (what might be called ramblings by some;-) beg questions such as "What does an "artistic landscape" look like?", "To what extent does it characterize an artist's unique style and vision?", and "How do different artists traverse this landscape in search of their art?"

"Artist at Work" ;-)

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

Science "Abstract"

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day website (which is a must-save bookmark for anyone with even the slightest interest in science and imagery!) contains an incredible digital composite of the sun's corona (taken during the recent March 29 eclipse). The composite was created by Koen van Gorp.

The Sun's "atmosphere" (i.e., its corona, which consists of extremely hot gas with a density less than one billionth that of the earth's atmosphere), scatters light from the Sun in all directions. Since this scattered light is very dim compared to the light emanating directly from the Sun, it is normally difficult, if not impossible, to see the corona. However, the corona becomes visible during a total solar eclipse, when the Sun's disc is covered by the moon and its atmosphere becomes visible as a bright, shimmering ring around the moon. Nonetheless, even during such favorable viewing times, it is difficult to capture - at least, to capture in a single image - the typically 10,000 to 1 range of luminance levels.

To circumvent this diffulty, and as explained at the site, the composite image shown above contains 33 separate digital photographs, that collectively reveal remarkable detail that would otherwise remain invisible. Individual exposure times range from 1/8000 sec to 1/5 sec. The resulting image is, in a word, breathtaking!

This extraordinary image is also a great example of how a purely aesthetic experience may be enhanced (indeed, profoundly intensified!) by appreciating the science on which it rests. To be sure, this image may certainly be appreciated purely on its own terms, without the slightest understanding of what it depicts or how it was created. It is a marvelous "abstract" that any abstract expressionist artist would be proud to call his or her own. But to learn that the image is emphatically not the isolated product of a creative artist (drawing on inner inspiration) - rather, that it is a creative collaboration between artist and nature, in which the artist draws upon science (by using scientific tools to visualize otherwise unseen processes and enhance his/her understanding of natural phenomena) - for me, only transforms an already impressive image into something truly special!

Perhaps the only important difference between those who choose such fields as physics and mathematics as lifelong pursuits, and those who do not, is that those who do are able to see the same kind of resplendent, radiant beauty displayed by this image in the very equations that describe the physics that underlie it. Thankfully though, for those for whom "equations" were more of an anathema in school than a stepping stone toward enlightenment;-), such a deep level of understanding is not needed to appreciate nature's gentle grace, elegance and beauty!

Kafka's Door

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

 

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

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

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

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

Ten "Epiphanous" Photographs: #10

The tenth (and last) "epiphanous photograph" - in a hand-picked series of photographs as defined in an earlier Blog entry - is...

Epiphanous Photograph #10: Josef Sudek's At the Janaceks (1948)


Josef Sudek (1896-1976) was one of the great photographers of the 20th century, and perhaps the best-known Czechoslovakian photographer. Sudek was already an accomplished amateur photographer when he was called up for combat in WWI, and continued to photograph during his military service. Having lost an arm in the war, Sudek was able to get a free scholarhip for a photography course, from which point his life's course was essentially set.

Like Andre Kertesz, Sudek's photography is subtle, and intensely poetic. Though the works of both artists reflect a deep inner meloncholy, where Kertesz focuses (though not exclusively) on daylight scenes and subject matter than spans his travels, Sudek's images are confined mostly to Prague (indeed, to his own studio!) and are often dark and charged with a palpable mystery; few, if any, of Sudek's images would appear out of place as "illustrations" of a Kafka novel!

Consider my tenth, and final, selection as an "Epiphanous Photograph," Sudek's At the Janaceks. Using the simplest of aesthetic primitives - a chair, a window, light and shadow, and diffused light - it simultaneously evokes mystery (of undefined, hidden, meaning) and intensity (in the tangibly psychological presence of the "life" that pervades this room); a seeming paradox of clarity and ambiguity!

It is precisely because of the ambiguity of visual cues and delicate nature of the image - the hint of a yard and fence outside the window, the subtle suggestion of either a candle or small light bulb as an additional source of room light, the small, but otherwise distinctive "peeks" of furniture and a picture (?) in the corners - that the image is able (as so many of Sudek's photographs are!) to strike such powerful emotional chords in the viewer. In Sudek's hands, the camera (with help from Sudek's artistic eye!), becomes a magical tool to capture, probe, and ask what are ultimately unanswerable questions of the meaning and purpose of everyday life.

Sudek once said of his own work, that...

"...everything around us, dead or alive, in the eyes of a crazy photographer mysteriously takes on many variations, so that a seemingly dead object comes to life through light or by its surroundings....To capture some of this - I suppose that's lyricism."

To which I can only add that - if one spends even one afternoon gently immersed in Sudek's work - one can only conclude that in the eyes of a crazy but preturnaturally gifted artist, no part of the world is ever devoid of life and inner radiance. Although this is surely a basic lesson that all photographers, to one degree or another, teach, an examination of any of Sudek's best works makes this "lesson" almost obvious. I am humbled to know that on those rare days on which I dare call myself a "photographer" I at least share a common vision (if not divine gift of expression) with a true genius by the name of Josef Sudek. There is no question that in the right hands, photography is art.

Indeed, perhaps the shortest answer I can give to the original question that led to my soul-searching selection of ten personally "Epiphanous Photographs" - rephrased to read "How can you demonstrate to a non-photographer the nature of fine art photography and why you are so passionate about it?" - just look at any of the photographs by Josef Sudek! (More of Sudek's work can be seen here (#1) and here (#2).)

Ten "Epiphanous" Photographs: #9

The ninth of ten "epiphanous photographs" - a hand-picked series of photographs as defined in an earlier Blog entry - is...

Epiphanous Photograph #9: Aaron Siskind's Jerome (Arizona, 1949)


Aaron Siskind (1903-1991), an American abstract expressionist photographer, began his career on his honeymoon, after receiving a camera as a wedding gift. Originally an English teacher, he later taught photography (with Harry Callahan) at the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago (from the 1950's into the 1980's). As an artist, he started taking documentary photographs of Harlem in the 1930s when he was a member of the New York Workers' Film and Photo League, but later evolved into a deep abstract impressionist, focusing his attention on cracked walls, peeling paint, fences, and graffiti. His own transition from documentary-style photography, and its strict adherence to the primacy of subject matter, to abstraction, as a conceptual and artistic vehicle for individual expression, marked a general turning point in twentieth-century American photography.

His Jerome, Arizona image is a good example of his unique artistic eye; it is also the very first image by Siskind that I can recall seeing (and being mesmerized by ever since!) While it shares the same basic abstract impressionistic aesthetic space as Weston's Pepper, Minor White's Capitol Reef, and Harry Callahan's Ivy Tentacles on Glass, it (and Siskind's whole general approach) represents a subtle departure from those other photographers.

For Siskind, the flat two-dimensional frame of the picture surface is the sole frame of reference of the photograph. As Siskind describes in an exhibition catalog of his work in 1965,...

"...The experience itself may be described as one of total absorption in the object. But the object serves only a personal need and the requirements of the picture. Thus, rocks are sculpted forms; a section of common decorative iron-work, springing rhythmic shapes; fragments of paper sticking to a wall, a conversation piece. And these forms, totems, masks, figures, images must finally take their place in the tonal field of the picture and strictly conform to their space environment. The obejct has entered the picture, in a sense; it has been photographed directly. But it is often unrecognizable; for it has been removed from its usual context, disassociated from its customary neighbors and forced into new relationships."

Weston, White and Callahan all taught (me) that "ordinary things" may be viewed (and understood) as symbols of abstract "otherness" (and, in White's case, of one's "inner state"); Aaron Siskind has taught me that when the last vestiges of all conventional reference frames are removed from a composition - deliberately, so as to force the viewer to rely on a more primitive language of context-less shapes and tones - a even deeper, ineffable beauty emerges. And Siskind's Jerome, Arizona is another reason I love fine-art photography. (More of Siskind's photographs can be seen here (#1) and here (#2).)

Ten "Epiphanous" Photographs: #8

The eighth of ten "epiphanous photographs" - a hand-picked series of photographs as defined in an earlier Blog entry - is... Epiphanous Photograph #8: Galen Rowell's Rainbow over the Potala Palace, Lhasa (Tibet, 1981) Galen Rowell (1940-2002) pioneered "participatory (wilderness) photography," in which the photographer becomes an active creative participant in fine-art image making. An accomplished outdoorsman and adventurer, his deep emotional connection to nature pervades virtually all of his photographs. Another signature characteristic is his vivid use of color during the "magic hour" (at sunrise and sunset); indeed, it is arguably true that Rowell was as much a "master of color" as Ansel Adams was a master of black & white. (It is fitting that he received the Ansel Adams Award for his contributions to the art of wilderness photography in 1984.) The life of this extraordinary artist was cut tragically short in 2002 when the plane carrying Rowell and his wife (Barbara Rowell, herself an accomplished photographer) crashed as they were both returning home from a Workshop in the Sierra Mountains. Rainbow over the Potala Palace is, according to Rowell himself, one the great photos of his life. I have selected it as one of my own epiphanous photos for two reasons: (1) it is a magnificent Wagnerian-like "epic" photograph, that is jaw-droppingly beautiful as a print and even more so as a symbolic synergy of aesthetics and spiritual meaning, and (2) it is a quintessential example of Rowell's lifelong practice of participatory creation. According to Rowell (see The Power of Participatory Photography in Inner Game of Outdoor Photography, pages 41-43), this image was captured not long after a trekking group (consisting of about 15 people) that Rowell was a part of in Tibet was called to dinner. A rainbow suddenly appeared in a field below them, though not (from the point of view of the trekkers at that particular moment, as they were all settling down to dinner) in the spot that it appears in Rowell's subsequent photograph. Rowell, relying on his years of experience with optical phenomena in diverse environments, imagined in his mind's eye the precise spot he must get to from which the rainbow would appear to emanate from the roofs of the Dalai Lama's Potala Palace. Dropping his dinner, and running into the fields as fast as he could to get to where he knew he had to position himself, he managed to capture this incredible photograph. None of the other trekker/photographers budged an inch; although many later "claimed" to have captured the same image. In fact, none of the other images even came close to having the same drama, with the rainbows in other "versions" (having been captured from obviously wrong angles) either badly missing the Palace or invisible altogether. Only in Rowell's photograph does the rainbow rise majestically out from the Palace. Only Rowell had the forethought, intuition and strength of will to get himself, his camera and his "eye" into the right place at the right time. Rowell, in his essay (see above), quotes Jacob Bronowski, who finds a similar pattern in the history of scientific creativity: "The mind is roving in a highly charged active way and is looking for connections, for unseen likenesses...It is the highly inquiring mind which at that moment seizes the chance...The world is full of people who are always claiming that they really made the discovery, only they missed it." Rowell's Rainbow over the Potala Palace taught me that a great natural scene is not always (perhaps even rarely!) enough, by itself, for a fine art photograph. It is not enough to be properly attentive, but then sit patiently, passively, awaiting the right confluence of light, tone, texture and form to present itself; one must imagine the exact space-time-soul point where that magical confluence will arise, and then act swiftly, and decisively, to grab it!

Ten "Epiphanous" Photographs: #7

The seventh of ten "epiphanous photographs" - a hand-picked series of photographs as defined in an earlier Blog entry - is... Epiphanous Photograph #7: Bruce Barnbaum's Circular Chimney, Antelope Canyon Bruce Barnbaum, as he reveals on his website, entered photography as a hobbyist in the 1960s; he is still at it today, though his "hobby" has turned into a life's work. His photographs typically contain ambiguities of scale and perspective, inviting the viewer to actively participate in the recursive creative process. Earning Bachelor's and Master's degrees in mathematics from UCLA in 1965 and 1967, and spending a few years working as a mathematical analyst and computer programmer, Barnbaum quit the field and turned to photography full-time in 1970 (though his "eye" retained much of his mathematical training; the importance of which I can attest to as well, speaking as both photographer and physicist). Bruce Barnbaum is widely regarded as one of the world's finest living photographic craftsmen and darkroom printers. I confess that my seventh "epiphanous" image, Barnbaum's Circular Chimney, proved to be a particularly hard choice to make, because it is, in truth, but one example of an entire gallery of exquisite Slit canyon photographs, any one of which most photographers would be proud to call their own masterpiece!. It is also but one of the many spectacular photographs my eyes first fell on in 1987 as I was slowly (in rapturous awe really!) thumbing through my then newly purchased copy of Barnbaum's first book, Visual Symphony. The book is organized into four movements - The Landscape; The Cathedrals of England; Urban Geometrics; and The Slit Canyons - and contains images that are so beautfully composed and exquisitely toned and rendered, that (certainly up until that point in time) I had never seen anything approaching that standard. This book remains as one of the most remarkable collections of photographs ever to grace the covers of a book. While Barnbaum is not the first photographer to photograph within the often claustrophobic confines of Arizona's slit canyons (nor the first to cast an artistic "eye" on the sanctified spaces of Cathedrals), he was the first to elevate their light and form into fine art. What is even more remarkable, is that in this one book (now, sadly, long out of print and unavailable) - Barnbaum does the same for each of his chosen subjects. Matching (maybe surpassing) Weston's compositions for clarity and purity of expression, and with tonal ranges that sometimes exceed Adams' finest efforts, Barnbaum's photos reveal an almost supernaturally transcendent beauty no one had imagined lurked beneath the surface of canyon walls, cathedral pillars, architectural forms and landscapes. To be sure, photography generally works best, as an art form, whenever it reveals the hidden beauty of nature; and there are many gifted artists who manage to do this time and again. But what Barnbaum's photography revealed to me back in 1987 (a lesson I have carried with me ever since), is that there are even greater depths of aesthetic, even spiritual, beauty to be plumbed in what otherwise, and to others, may appear to be "old themes" and "tired" cliches. When I first saw Barnbaum's Circular Chimney, I could not help but feel that I was somehow looking directly at the face of God; it was that powerful, as a photograph, and as a visual, and spiritual exprience. I learned that photography, if practiced in a dedicated, empassioned soulful manner, can indeed elevate the utterly mundane (rocks and light) to the highest planes of spiritual understanding, and communication (as art). The possibility of this magical transformation from the ordinary to ethereal is what drives much of my own photography, and is another reason why I love fine art photography.

Ten "Epiphanous" Photographs: #6

The sixth of ten "epiphanous photographs" - a hand-picked series of photographs as defined in an earlier Blog entry - is...

Epiphanous Photograph #6: Harry Callahan's Ivy Tentacles on Glass, Chicago, 1952



Harry Callahan (1912–1999) - a renowned, self-taught American photographer, born in Detroit, Michigan - bought his first camera in 1938 and was appointed in 1946 by László Moholy-Nagy to teach photography at Chicago's Institute of Design. He taught at the Institute until 1961, after which he continued teaching photography at the Rhode Island School of Design, until his retirement in 1977.

Callahan was best known for his dedicated experimentation with subject matter, theme and the printing process. While his subjects varied from landscapes, to street scenes, to pedestrians, to parks, and to intimate portraits of his wife (Eleanor), all of his photographs are marked by a strong sense of elegant design and gentle simplicity.

His Ivy Tentacles on Glass, which he took in 1952, illustrates one kind of experimentation with extreme contrast. Callahan had been heavily influenced by Ansel Adams when he took a workshop with the master in 1941; so much so that the experience compelled him to trade his 35mm camera and darkroom enlarger for an 8-by-10 view camera. After mastering the fine art print, with its great tonal range (following Adams' well known example and lessons in the "Zone System"), Callahan took his first steps toward a lifetime of constant experimentation, in which he sometimes turned expectation and convention on its ear.

This particular photograph is a wonderful example of an extrememly high contrast print where the only "tones" as such are the colors, black and white. Indeed, at first glance, a viewer may be forgiven for mistaking the photograph for a minimalist cartoon!

For me, this photo contains the seeds of two important lessons (mini "epiphanies"): (1) that constant, playful, experimentation fuels artistic growth; that, as an artist, I must constantly seek ways to go beyond the conventions my own past work has already set in stone, and to seek ways to deform my own artistic landscape; and (2) that there is sometimes great promise in seeking abstract tones and forms without the added conceptual and emotional burden (as one senses underlies most of the works of André Kertész and Minor White) to infuse the photograph with hidden layers of symbolic meaning. Callahan is here simply having fun with abstraction for abstraction's own sake; simply because the ultra-minimalist high-contrast composition looks beautiful when rendered this way! In contrast to Kertész's photographs, almost all of which seem to exude Kertész's deep meloncholy toward life and station in life as an artist (indeed, Kertész's meloncholy is what arguably drove all his photography!), Callahan's photographs seem to be bursting with a playful - joyous even! - energy.

"I think nearly every artist continually wants to reach the edge of nothingness - the point where you can't go any farther." - Harry Callahan

While this basic lesson may seem obvious to some, it was not obvious at all to a much younger version of myself when I first encountered Ivy Tentacles on Glass so many years ago! I often recall its whimsical energy - and Callahan's tireless artistic experimentation - whenever I feel like I'm slipping into a creative rut. It is also one of the ten photographs that collectively define what I love about fine art photography.

Ten "Epiphanous" Photographs: #5

The fifth of ten "epiphanous photographs" - a hand-picked series of photographs as defined in an earlier Blog entry - is...

Epiphanous Photograph #5: André Kertész's Mondrian’s Glasses and Pipe, Paris, 1926


André Kertész (1894 - 1985) captured his first photograph while working as a clerk at the Budapest stock exchange in 1912. A member of the Austro-Hungarian Army during WWI, Kertész photographed his experiences of the war until he was wounded in battle in 1915. Unfortunately, many of the images he captured during this time were lost during the Hungarian Revolution of 1918.

Thereafter, this preturnatually gifted poetic soul traveled to Paris (in 1925), where he worked as a freelance photographer and published three books of his images; and on to New York (in 1936), where one of the 20th Century's most gifted photographers was effectively cold-shouldered by the photographic "establishment" and relegated to taking pictures of architecture and home interiors for House and Garden. In what must be one of the most egregious oversights in photographic history, not a single one of his images was selected for Steichen's famous The Family of Man exhibition in 1956! It was only after Kertész retired from commercial work (in 1962) that he was again able to devote his considerable powers of observation and feeling to the same "simple" everyday subjects of his "amateurish" youth. Kertész left behind a legacy of beautiful, meloncholic tonal poems for all future generations of aspiring photographers to marvel at; and to marvel at the breadth and depth of his feeling for the human condition.

I have selected Kertész's Mondrian’s Glasses and Pipe as my epiphanous image #5 for two reasons: (1) it is a wonderful example of his visual poetry, with the gentle perfection of the geometry of the composition (that slightly evokes the "Decisive Moment" component of Henri Cartier-Bresson's approach, though with a decidedly less-fast-paced subject!), and (2) it is also an example of how subtly Kertész is able to fuse the everyday with the abstract. On one level, the photograph is about nothing more than glasses (and a pipe); on another level, it is an "abstract" in the spirit of Minor White (in the way it uses the objective image to reflect the inner meloncholy of the photographer).

However, Kertész's fusion of the everyday and abstract features an important additional dimension (as does much of his life's work); a dimension that makes this one photograph so memorable to me (and places it firmly on my list of personally epiphanous photographs): the tonal forms of the photograph are used not just as a symbolic language of the inner emotions of the photographer, but as a language that speaks directly about how the photographer relates to humanity.

Where Minor White deliberately used essentially unrecognizable abstract forms to communicate inner states, Kertész instead used immediately recognizable shapes and symbols to convey the nature - and feeling - of his connection (or, more often than not, dis-connection) to the world around him. The fragile interconnected bond between artist and humanity was the real "subject" of Kertész's poetic gaze; and we can all feel it, as we look upon the shapes and tones of Mondrian's glasses and pipe. His work is less about the traditional subjects of photographs (people, places and things), even as the traditional subjects populate his portfolio, and more - much more - about his feelings about his relationships with the traditional subjects that came within view of this gentle artistic soul.

"The moment always dictates in my work. What I feel, I do. This is the most important thing for me. Everybody can look, but they don't necessarily see. I never calculate or consider; I see a situation and I know that it's right, even if I have to go back to "get the proper lighting." - André Kertész.

Kertész's work in general, and this one picture in particular, made me appreciate the fundamental role the capture of one's raw, emotional attachment to the human condition plays in shaping the communicative power of photography. It also intensified - immeasurably! - my love of fine art photography.

Ten "Epiphanous" Photographs: #4

The fourth of ten "epiphanous photographs" - a hand-picked series of photographs as defined in an earlier Blog entry - is...

Epiphanous Photograph #4: Edward Weston's Pepper No. 30, 1930


Edward Weston (1886-1958), was one of the masters of 20th century photography. Working primarily with large-format cameras and natural light, Weston elevated the photography of "common objects" such as rocks, sea shells, and vegetables to an artform. Through impeccable composition, masterful attention to tone and design, and consummate printing skills, everyday things became works of art. Ansel Adams wrote that "Weston is, in the real sense, one of the few creative artists of today. He has recreated the matter-forms and forces of nature; he has made these forms eloquent of the fundamental unity of the world. His work illuminates man's inner journey toward perfection of the spirit."

Weston's Pepper, No. 30, is a perfect example of Weston's artful perfection and unique eye. It is, in fact, a "mere" pepper; a "thing" we have all seen countless times, mostly without ever really looking at any given pepper's unique, and uniquely beautiful, curves and tones. But the world had to wait for Weston to show us how magnificent a humble pepper really is; and by so doing, to also show us all how all things, if seen - and displayed - with the proper eye/I, possess a resplendent inner glow.

The existence of Weston's Pepper, No. 30, has made it impossible for me to look at anything -however outwardly and objectively "ordinary" it may at first appear - as devoid of photographic opportunity and potential latent beauty. In short, this one photograph (which I first saw when I was about nine or ten) instantly transformed the banal landscape of the "everyday" into something wondrous, mysterious and beautiful. It is also another reason why I love fine art photography!

Ten "Epiphanous" Photographs: #3

The third of ten "epiphanous photographs" - a hand-picked series of photographs as defined in an earlier Blog entry - is...

Epiphanous Photograph #3: Henri Cartier-Bresson's Siphnos, Greece, 1961


Though definitive statements of the following form, particularly in an aesthetic medium, are as a rule at best controversial and at worst meaningless, one could nonetheless well argue that Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) was the most prodigiously gifted photojournalist ever to use a camera.

Paraphrasing what the mathematician Mark Kac once said of Richard Feynman (the great 20th Century physicist), one can say of Cartier-Bresson that "there are two kinds of geniuses: the 'ordinary' and the 'magicians'. An ordinary genius is a fellow whom you and I would be just as good as, if we were only many times better. There is no mystery as to how his mind works. Once we understand what they've done, we feel certain that we, too, could have done it. It is different with the magicians. Even after we understand what they have done it is completely dark. [Henri Cartier-Bresson] is a magician of the highest calibre." (see Wikiquote entry on Feynman for original quote).

Cartier-Bresson is most famous for introducing the idea of the "Decisive Moment" into the photographer's lexicon, which he described in his celebrated book of the same name in 1952 as "...the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression."

One can see the "Decisive Moment" at play in virtually all of Cartier-Bresson's photographs; there is no "one best" representative of it, and which images illustrate the idea better than others depends more on context, mood and the temperament of the observer than innate quality. The first Cartier-Bresson image that I can remember having a profound influence on me was his Siphnos, Greece shot reproduced above.

I was struck (when I first saw it as a young photographer, and even more so now, after trying, mostly unsuccessfully, at capturing that stubbornly elusive "Decisive Moment" for a few decades!) by the perfectly seamless (and, seemingly effortless) blend of geometry, time, and dynamics.

The geometry is exquisite in its "imperfect" precision; the buildings are old and withered, the road is well traveled and decaying, but together there is a deep harmony. The harmony is only enhanced by the deep contrast, with the shadows - falling just so, at this precise moment - adding an almost surreal virtual dimension to the physical architectonic shapes. As if all of that were not enough to yield a magnificent moment, the girl racing up the stairs is positioned in exactly the right spot to give life to the entire picture, and with a body posture whose geometry exactly matches that of the surrounding forms and shadows. Masterful, is not the word! You can feel her energy; you feel her heart racing as she makes her way up the stairs; the coolness on her skin as she is momentarily embraced by the precise shadow. And then, as a final reward, as the eye slowly pans around the scene, small details to savor are revealed: the texture of the road, the detail on the door on the right, the architectural "accent" on the otherwise featureless wall at the upper left. The ineffable transience of space, time, geometry, dynamics, and the natural flow of human life, is captured at the Decisive Moment. And then, Poof!, the girl is gone, the shadows pass, a cloud moves in overhead, and the moment is gone, forever.

I have been chasing decisive moments ever since; and it is the third reason I have always been passionate about fine art photography.

Ten "Epiphanous" Photographs: #2

The second of ten "epiphanous photographs" - a hand-picked series of photographs as defined in an earlier Blog entry - is...

Epiphanous Photograph #2: Ansel Adam's Monolith, The Face of Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, 1927


Apart from its aesthetic appeal, what makes this photograph so special to me, is what I learned a few months after I first saw it a book (when I was still in my teens) about how Adams made it. I subsequently learned that Monolith was the image that taught Adams the art of previsualization; that is, the ability to previsualize, in one's mind, what you want the print to look like, and to then use whatever filters (in Adams' case, a deep red filter to properly render the sky deep black) and exposure are required by the previsualized print. Adams had to work fast, and, as I recall, had only a single plate of film left to expose (after a long day of photography).

This particular image, and most importantly the way this image was conceived, previsualized and printed, marks a cornerstone in my own photography in two ways: (1) I have never approached a subject since without first previsualizing what it is I want the final print to reveal about the subject, and (2) it was the first time that I truly appreciated that a photograph need not exactly recreate a scene (as might be observed by a passive "viewer" at the scene); rather, it can - sometimes must - depict the scene in a way that best communicates what the photographer saw and felt.

In the case of the Monolith, Adams' epiphany (and thereby the epiphany for all succeeding generations of fine art photographers!) was that a filter was needed to convey how awe struck he was, as observer/as photographer, by the Monolith's shear magnificence. I, in turn, was awe struck, by the resulting print's power to communicate Adams' moving experience (just as he was sure it would when he previsualized in his mind's eye how a red filter would render this scene). And it is another important reason why I am so passionate about fine art photography!

Ten "Epiphanous" Photographs: #1

In Lenswork Issue #63 (March-April, 2006), editor Brooks Jensen has a wonderful essay that begins with the question: "If you were going to demonstrate to a non-photographer the nature of fine art photography and why you are so passionate about it, which ten photographs would you show them?"

What a provocative (and deceptively difficult) question! Naturally, it prompted me to reflect on what my own choices might be at this time and stage of creative life. Of course, I realize that what my 45 year self currently believes are the "epiphanous" photographs that have helped form and shape my photographic I/eye's evolution are likely representative of neither what my I/eye most deeply cherished ten or twenty years ago (though the overlap is large) nor what I may cite as my first inspirational visual stepping stones 20 or 30 years from now.

Having done away with this obvious, but important, caveat, I offer the first of ten photographs that were - each in their own way - epiphanous to me, as an ever-evolving photographer, and my best "explanation" (as per Brooks Jensen's question) to others why I am passionate about fine art photography...

Epiphanous Photograph #1: Minor White's, Capitol Reef, Utah (1962):

Minor White (1908-76), who taught at MIT from 1965 until his death and was one of the founders of Aperture Magazine (in 1952), was arguably one of the most gifted "spiritual" photographers of the 20th century. By that I mean that White's lifelong approach to photography was predicated on the notion that a photograph - in particular, a fine art photograph - must transcend its merely physically manifest form and capture something of the timeless inner presence that defines the soul "taking" it.

White's Capitol Reef (the exact date of my first viewing of which I cannot recall) is the very first photograph I remember seeing that absolutely stunned me, rendering me virtually speechless; all I kept saying for days afterward was "Wow!".

The reason for my reaction was (and still is) how subtly it enfolds objective and subjective realities. What at first site appears to be nothing more than a "mere" beautiful pattern of stone, quietly, almost imperceptively, shifts into an unrecognizable, and - almost paradoxically, even more beautiful - subjective pattern of shapes, textures and tones. Reality, in short, has simply dissapeared, and has been replaced - by what? - anything the viewer's eye/I happens to see at the moment of viewing.

Outer objective reality blended, and enfolded, into subjective, inner truth and vision; and a "mere" representational photograph transformed into a glimpse of a transcendent dynamic reality. It is also the photograph that made me fall in love with fine art photography.

God is at Eye Level

I saw this wonderful book at a local bookstore and was very moved by its sincerety, elegance, and depth (not to mention its fine photography!).

The book is a sublime gem that anyone who is interested in what photography is really all about, what life is all about, and what their soul is all about, owes it to themselves to keep it by their side! It will enhance and broaden your sense of the world, and deepen your interconnection with it.

The author/photographer, Jan Philips, is a rare creature who is equally well proficient (indeed, gifted), in being able to both effortlessly capture the timeless beauty and spirit of nature in her photos and provide an eloquent written context for those images to help others find the sacred in the ordinary. Spending time with even just a few pages leaves one with feelings of peace and tranquility; reading over the entire book, a few times perhaps, depending on mood and temperament, cannot fail to leave even the most downtroden of souls feeling joyful at simply being alive and having the privilege at marveling at life's beauty. The book, in short, is all about how everything that one looks at - and most of all the inner "I" that is always lurking somewhere in the mysterious depths of our souls looking outward through our "eyes" - is nothing but God looking in.

Phillips book is a small treasure of a book that is now on the short list of books I will never part with. Highly recommended. (Readers for whom this short description is enough to arouse their interest, should also look up Nicholas Hlobeczy's A Presence Behind the Lens: Photography And Reflections and Volume IV of Christopher Alexander's four volume opus, Nature of Order).

Readers are also strongly encouraged to visit Jan Phillips' website, which has information about her many other books, music CDs and workshops schedules.

Kwanon (the original Canon Camera)

I have been a devoted Canon Camera user ever since my purchase of the venerable AE-1 35mm SLR when it first came out in 1976. For fellow Canon afficionados, here is a great site that chronicles the entire history of the camera company.

The company was founded by Saburo Uchida (1899 - 1982) and Takeo Maeda (1909 - 1975), who called their prototype camera the Kwanon (after the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy). The prototype was never marketed, however, and the name "Kwanon" was soon changed to "Canon," which means "standard for judgement or biblical scriptures." The first official camera release by the new company, the Hansa Canon, was released in 1935.

Here is the announcement, as it appeared in the October 1935 issue of the Asahi Camera: "Hansa Canon camera… Canon is a Leica imitation made in Japan. Although some influence of Contax is found, the majority of its features are modeled after the Leica. The dimensions of the camera are 13.5cm x 6.8cm x 4.5cm, while its weight is approximately 650g. It uses a special magazine and the lens is Nippon Kogaku’s Nikkor 50mm f/3.5. The lens is removable… The viewfinder is a box-type, and is designed to pop up to a specified position by pressing a button on the back. 275 yen with a snapshooting case included."

Highlights of this impressive sight include separate histories of film cameras, digital cameras, and an overview of the entire design process. Here is the Museum Site Map.

Appearance vs. Reality

The checkershadow illusion is one of the more remarkable "illusions" I've encountered, that goes to the heart of how we (as visual information processors) interpret and categorize the world; it also goes to the heart of the question, "Are you really sure of what you are looking at?"

Believe it or not, the squares marked A and B are exactly the same shade of gray! If you do not immediately believe your senses (as I suspect you won't!), just copy/save the image to a jpeg file and use any image processing program to sample the actual luminosity of each square...truly amazing!).

The "explanation" is that our visual systems require more than just luminosity to assess the shade of grey to be assigned; it also needs such features as local contrast and boundary effects. A complete explanation is provided here.

The checkshadow illusion was devised by Edward H. Adelson, Professor of Vision Science in the Dept. of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His site includes many other startling illusions that explore the nature of perception and interpretation of reality (see his Illusions and Demos), as well as technical papers explaining his theories and findings. Adelson's site is a must-see for all photographers who "believe" they know all there is to know about appearance, reality, and the true nature of tonal gradations.

Additional references (and illusions) appear on the Perceptual Sciences Group homepage.

Cymatics: Revealing Nature's Hidden Patterns

Cymatics (from the Greek kyma, meaning "wave" and ta kymatica, meaning "matters pertaining to waves"), is the study of wave phenomena, pioneered by Swiss medical doctor and natural scientist Hans Jenny (1904-1972). Over the course of more than ten years, Jenny conducted landmark experiments pumping acoustic energy into, and animating, otherwise inert powders and liquids into life-like, flowing forms that mimic patterns found throughout nature, art and architecture. All of these patterns are a direct physical manifestation of pure tone vibration: dynamic form induced by material vibration.

His work is documented in a remarkable book, Cymatics: A Study of Wave Phenomena & Vibration. A few videos are available as well: (1) Cymatics: The Healing Nature Of Sound, and (2) Cymatic Soundscapes.

Jenny's work builds upon much earlier work by Ernst Chladni who, in 1787, published "Discoveries Concerning the Theory of Music." This work introduced the basic physics of acoustics (the science of "sound"). One of Chladni's many practical (and aesthetic) discoveries was a way to make sound waves visible . By using a violin bow, stretched perpendicularly across the edge of flat plates covered with sand, he produced the patterns and shapes that today go by the term Chladni figures.

Jenny's work also overlaps a bit with the work of mathematician Nathaniel Bowditch, who was among the first to study the patterns generated by parametric sinusoidal waves called Bowditch curves, but are more often called Lissajous figures.

Apart from the incredible innate beauty of Jenny's patterns, there lies perhaps an even deeper, and deeply mysterious, "beauty" that has to do with the underlying patterns of nature. As Cathie E. Guzetta puts it so eloquently in "Music Therapy: Nursing the Music of the Soul"..."The forms of snowflakes and faces of flowers may take on their shape because they are responding to some sound in nature. Likewise, it is possible that crystals, plants, and human beings may be, in some way, music that has taken on visible form." You can read more in the article Cymatics: The Science of the Future.

More recently, work on oscillons has revealed many of the same mysterious features, including that of effective atomic and crytaline structures. The physics of "small" granular media (sand, powder, BBs from a toy shotgun,...) that sit between the microscopic (atomic) and macroscopic (and cosmic) is in its infancy. Two more articles on oscillons: (1) From waves to particles: the oscillon, and (2) "Localized and Cellular Patterns in a Vibrated Granular Layer" (Tsimring & Aranson, Phys. Review Letters, Vol. 79, No. 2, July 1997).

Camera Obscura

The camera obscura (Lat. dark chamber), the basic principles of which have been known since antiquity, is essentially just a box (which may be room sized: see discussion below) with a small hole on one side. Light passes through the hole and forms an image on the opposite wall (the sharpness of which depends on the size of the hole, and with very small holes leading to problems stemming from diffraction; as the hole becomes smaller, light sensitivity also naturally decreases).

The camera obscura has long been a favorite of artists because the artist can use the projected image as the base on which to draw; since the image is in perfect perspective, the realism of the rendered image is thus hightened. Pinhole cameras are camera obscuras with light-sensitive film.

Now we come to the reason for this Blog entry: to highlight the work of a master photographer - Cuban-born Abelardo Morell - who uses a room-size camera obscura to record wall-size images of Manhattan, New York, San Francisco, CA, and the cityscape of Havana, Cuba (among many other locations). Interested viewers are encouraged to explore Morell's complete Camera Obscura gallery.

His full (and extensive) on-line gallery of photographs (including some of his early work) can be viewed here. His most recent publications include Camera Obscura, and A Book of Books. See also Abelardo Morell (by Richard B. Woodward).

Local fused w/Global via Video Feedback

Talysis (a 9 min DVD, made for the Crystalpunk Workshop for Soft Architecture held in Utrecht, Holland in Autumn 2005) navigates the "possibility of a sentient geometry to produce a stream of geometric archetypes, a collective unconscious for emergent dynamical systems, a video feedback language system for scrying and pattern recognition."

This is not "new age" silliness;-), but rather a very serious attempt to, essentially, blur the distinction between local behaviors and rules, and global patterns. As Paul Prudence (the scientist/artist behind Talysis) describes on his site, the program combines aspects of symmetry with digital video feedback, resulting in highly recursive geometric structures, including ones that are eerily reminiscent of cellular automata patterns. Cellular automata (CA) are simple discrete dynamical systems whose agents (typically endowed with a discrete set of states, such as ON and OFF) evolve according to strictly local rules. Some CA (such as the well known two-dimensional Life rule, introduced by mathematician John Conway) are known to be universal computers, and so harbor a fundamentally irreducible level of complexity (see Wolfram's New Kind of Science).

What Prudence's Talysis shows is that video feedback can mimic the calculations of recursive algorithms; which begs the question whether it can also behave as a universal computer? (Prudence claims on his site that some patterns reproduce those of the Life rule, and conjectures that video feedback therefore can act as a computer).

Prudence says..."Many of the forms generated in Talysis appear to model biological morphogenesis and suggests that at the heart of all biological growth lies some degree of feedback of information to the system. At first glance many of the stills from Talysis might have been taken from an atlas of biology. There are neural networks, synapses, biological tissues, capillaries, plant structures, and embryonic forms. All of these images were arrived at from pointing a DV camera at its own output, they are entirely self-generative."

A quote from a classic paper on the space-time dynamics of video feedback (by James Crutchfield, published in Physica, 1984): "One goal in studying video feedback is to see whether it could be used as a simulator for dynamics in other fields. Turing’s original proposal of reaction-diffusion equations for biological morphogenesis comes to mind, as well as the image processing and hallucinogenic dynamics of the visual cortex."

I have always suspected that life-like "complexity" (true nested systems-of-systems autopoietic self-organized systems) lies at the Godelian-like cusp where local and global fuse; the Godelian-loop reaching into itself and pulling itself up to higher dimensions by its own bootstraps. Video feedback may just prove to be the practical/conceptual tool with which to visualize a bit of this fundmanetal bootstrapping. Absolutely fascinating!

Additional resources can be found at this link.

Microworlds

Hidden Beauty: Microworlds Revealed, by France Bourely, is one of the finest examples I've seen of a synergy of art and science (as well as a bit of philosophy); extraordinarily beautiful images of the microworld await the lucky reader who purchases this amazing book.

Some of the photographs (captured using a scanning electron microscope), if judged on a purely aesthetic level, arguably rank with some of the great abstract photographs that have ever been taken! Indeed, I am tempted to equate what Dr. Bourely has accomplished here to what Ansel Adams accomplished for the American West with his magnificent large format photography. What Adams represents for the macroscopic world, Dr. Bourely represents for the microscopic one. She is that good...as a guide, as a scientist, as photographer, and as a visionary artist of the highest caliber.

Quite simply this is one of the most beautiful books I've ever had the pleasure of owning and I shall treasure it for a long, long time to come. If you love photography, or science, or abstraction, or philosophy, or ever simply marvel at the ineffable mystery we call the universe, you owe it to yourself to get this book. It is destined to be a classic.

Space, Time, and Perception

The Hirshhorn Museum is currently exhibiting a career survey of Hiroshi Sugimoto (b. 1948, Tokyo), a master of using photography to explore the nature of space, time and perception. The exhibit runs between February 16, 2006 and May 14, 2006.

Sugimoto is known for his starkly minimalist, conceptual images of seascapes, movie theaters, natural history diaramas and architecture, that often border on the mystical. While, at one level, his images are "simple" (his seascapes for example sometimes offer little or no contrast between object and background at all!), at another, deeper level, they all compell the viewer to ponder such questions as "What is time?", "What is space?" and "What is real?"

According to the Hirshhorn site, the Smithsonian's Arthur M. Sackler Gallery will feature Hiroshi Sugimoto: History of History (from April 1, 2006 through July 30).

Here are two online galleries of some of Sugimoto's work (the first includes an interview with the photographer): Eyestorm & Robert Klein Gallery.

A generous sampling of his images (that require much time to slowly digest, emotionally, cognitively, and spiritually) appear in the book Hiroshi Sugamoto, by Kerry Brougher.

Harry Callahan: The Photographer at Work

Harry Callahan: The Photographer at Work, is a magnificent new book by Britt Salvesen (with an introduction by John Szarkowski) on the creative life of one of the 20th century's most creative photographic artists. It is so much more than a "mere" biography.

What sets this biography (which a generous sampling of Callahan's work) apart from other books in this genre, is its elegant focus on the creative aspects of photography. In discussing Callahan's dedication to constant experimentation, choice of subject matter, his visual approaches to a particular shot, selection of themes and improvisations, sequential ordering, and the all important print process, the book provides a rare invaluable resource to the inner reflections of an artist at work (and play). Callahan's lifelong body of work is testament to the fact that an artist need not travel to the ends of the earth to find beauty; beauty is not just in the eyes of the beholder, but in the dedication and loving attention to craft and creative experimention in one's backyard.

Bytes of Science

A good friend of mine, David Mazel, who is extremely well versed in science and engineering (indeed, he is making a comfortable living with a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering), has a wonderfullly informative and entertaining site called Bytes of Science.

On it, you will find commentary and links to such topics as infinite minimal surfaces, satellite tracking, chaos for encryption, and video fly-bys of some of M.C. Escher's graphic works (among many others).

What makes the Blog special is David's passion for all things relating to math and science, and a unique gift for teaching and writing; you will likely not even notice how much serious math or science you've picked up while you're simply immersed in the shear pleasure of reading one of David's short passages. Highly recommended.

Gregory Bateson and "Seeing" with the Mind's Eye

Some of the most important basic lessons of learning to see in photography do not come directly from the masters of photography (though they obviously impart quite a bit of wisdom;-) For example, consider a deep lesson that is taught by anthropologist, Gregory Bateson...

Bateson was one of the last century’s most original thinkers. Trained as an anthropologist, Bateson made deep and lasting contributions to biology, cybernetics, and systems theory. He was also a gifted teacher. One of Bateson’s central ideas is that of the “Pattern that Connects,” or metapattern, which means, literally, a pattern of patterns.

This idea was first introduced in Bateson’s masterwork — Mind and Nature — in a story about how he sometimes pulled out a freshly cooked crab out of a bag and asked his students (who were typically nonscientists) to argue that the object represents the remains of a living being. The object of the Socratic exercise was to force his students to ponder the question, “What is the difference between the living and nonliving?” To answer this question, the students had to learn such concepts as relationship, symmetry and topology as they apply both within an organism (or object) and outside an organism (on higher levels). The deeper lesson was taking their first step toward appreciating the need for “discarding of magnitudes in favor of shapes, patterns, and relations.”

What does this have to do with photography and seeing? Well, one can begin by drawing a lesson from Bateson’s concept of metapatterns. A uniquely personal aesthetic grammar may be developed by following these three steps: (1) recognize that all conventional distinctions between objects are essentially arbitrary (i.e. learn to see the world as shape, pattern and relation rather than purely form), (2) draw your conscious attention to the visible boundaries between conventional forms that make up a photographic scene, and then (3) use your unconscious intuition to guide the camera, as a compositonal tool, to recompose the scene as if it were made up of visual elements of your own choosing. In short, decompose the world into its basic building blocks, then build it back up the way you really see it.

Another great book by Bateson (coauthored with his daughter Catherine Bateson, is Angels Fear: Towards An Epistemology Of The Sacred.

Photography and the Creative Process

Three exceptional new DVDs, released by Arte Video (and a coproduction of Arte France, KS Visions and The National Center for Photography), explore the creative process behind the works of some master photographers. Each DVD consists of about 10 short (10-15 min long) "essays" focusing on one photographer, using images (contact sheets, proofs, prints, or slides) with commentary by the artist himself. Together, these films provide an unparalleled excursion into the creative process of photography.

Contacts Volume 1: The Great Tradition of Photojournalism includes Henri Cartier-Bresson, William Klein, Raymond Depardon, Mario Giacomelli, Josef Koudelka, Robert Doisneau, Edduard Boubat, Elliot Erwitt, Marc Riboud, Leonard Freed, Helmut Newton, and Don McCullin.

Contacts Volume 2: The Renewal of Contemporary Photography includes Sophie Calle, Nan Goldin, Duane Michals, Sarah Moon, Nobuyoshi Araki, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Jeff Wall, Lewis Baltz, and Jean-Marc Bustamante.

Contacts Volume 3: Conceptual Photography includes John Baldessari, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Christian Boltanski, Alain Fleischer, John Hilliard, Roni Horn, Martin Parr, Georges Rousse, Thomas Struth, and Wolgang Tillmans.

Brilliant Lectures on the History of 20th Century Physics

My Ph.D. thesis advisor (back in the 1980s!) was Max Dresden, whose career as a theoretical physicist spanned both many decades and many countries. Max was born in Amsterdam in 1918, and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1946. During his long career (he passed away in 1997), he made made important contributions in statistical mechanics, superconductivity, quantum field theory and elementary particle physics. Another of his empassioned interests was the history and sociology of modern science. Though all of his lectures, technical and otherwise, were always a delight to listen to and behold (he was quite a showman!), it was his lectures on the history of physics that were something truly special, and his unique gifts as expositor shown brightly. Aside from his ebullient, infectiously joyful, style of presentation, his lectures were infused with personal knowledge of some of the greastest physicists of the 1920s and 1930s.

Here is an incredible collection of videos of some of Max's lectures on the history of physics (delivered between 1990 and 1996 at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center). One would be hard pressed to find better examples of love and intimate knowledge of subject matter, and simple unabashed joy at sharing it with anyone willing to listen!

During his life, Max published articles in over 35 scientific journals and was the author of a well received biography of physicist H.A. Kramers, titled Between Tradition and Revolution. As all of us who were graced by this gentle soul know well, Max was a profoundly gifted and inspiring teacher. He is intensely missed.

Here is an article, In Appreciation: Remembering Max Dresden, by Peter B. Kahn, that appeared the May 2003 issue of Physics in Perspective. Max's obituary, as it appeared in Physics Today in June 1998 appears on this page (from the State University of New York, Stony Brook).

Fine Art Photography Portfolios

Here is a real treat for aficionados of fine-art photography, in the classical tradition: an exquisite set of on-line portfolios of some of true masters of fine-art photography, including those of Ansel Adams (19 photos), Brassai (17 photos), Edward Burtynsky (20 photos), Harry Callahan (17 photos), Andre Kertesz (20 photos), Josef Sudek (12 photos), and Edward Weston (46 photos); among many others. The reproductions are relatively small, of course, but a delicious treat to the eyes and soul nonetheless.