Friday, August 19, 2022

Universe as Self-Excited Circuit

“Through our eyes,
the universe is perceiving itself.
Through our ears, the universe
is listening to its harmonies.
We are the witnesses through
which the universe becomes
conscious of its glory,
of its magnificence.”

Alan Watts (1915 - 1973)

"Each query of equipment plus reply of chance inescapably do build a new bit of what we call “reality”. Then for the building of all of law, “reality” and substance… what choice do we have but to say that in some way, yet to be discovered, they all must be built upon the statistics of billions upon billions of such acts of observer-participancy."

"Beginning with the big bang, the universe expands and cools. After eons of dynamic development it gives rise to observership. Acts of observer-participancy... in turn give tangible 'reality' to the universe not only now but back to the beginning. To speak of the universe as a self-excited circuit is to imply... a participatory universe."

John Archibald Wheeler (1911 - 2008)

“You are not a drop in the ocean.
You are the entire ocean in a drop."

Rumi (1207 - 1273) 

Thursday, August 18, 2022

Different Perspectives


"Question: You mean it's a matter of different perspectives?
Each person has a different reason for being here;
if a person looked at it from the outside, he'd see
us all sitting here and maybe wouldn't know why.
And then...?

Trungpa Rinpoche: I mean we are trying to unify ourselves through confusion.

Question: The more confusion, the more unity?

Trungpa Rinpoche: That’s what tantric people say.

Question: You mean the more confusion there is,
the more difficult it is to stamp a system on reality?

Trungpa Rinpoche: You see, chaos has an order by virtue
of which it isn’t really chaos. But when there’s no chaos,
no confusion, there is luxury, comfort.
Comfort and luxury lead you more into
samsara, creating more luxurious situations
adds further to your collection of chaos.
All these luxurious conclusions come back on
you and you begin to question them,
which leads you to the further understanding
that, after all, this discomfort has order in it."

- The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa, Volume 4

Tuesday, August 16, 2022

Light Prancing


"The artist’s world is limitless.
It can be found anywhere far from
where he lives or a few feet away.
It is always on his doorstep."

- Paul Strand (1890 - 1976)

Postscript. These images were all captured within minutes of each other in a garage near a local farmer's market this past weekend, as I was waiting for my wife to gather our grocery bags to go shopping. I have written before about how mesmerizing the "abstract cacophony" of shimmering reflections off car's hoods and hubcaps are to a photographer's eye 😊 What is hard to express in words (though I'm obviously trying, obliquely), is how joyful these few minutes' worth of prancing back and forth in-between park cars inevitably are to my soul (I look forward to my "light prancing" almost as much as the delicious recipes my wife cooks up with what we gather at the market!) My only regret (as usual) is that all I had with me was an iPhone.


"Light makes photography.
Embrace light.
Admire it.
Love it.
But above all, know light.
Know it for all you are worth,
and you will know
the key to photography."

George Eastman (1854 - 1932)

Sunday, August 14, 2022

Communicating the Joys of Doing Photography - Part 2

“Nothing is ever the same twice because
everything is always gone forever,
and yet each moment has
infinite photographic possibilities.”
Michael Kenna (1954 - )

A few months ago, I wrote about five of my favorite "Youtuber" photographers whose channels I go back to again and again, and whose notifications of a new video always put a smile on my face as they pop up on my iPhone: Henry TurnerThomas HeatonNigel DansonSimon Booth, and Gary Gough. In that earlier post, I alluded to other photographers that have caught my eye - and who certainly deserve equal attention - but about whom I had not yet (at the time) written because I had only just recently "discovered" their channels and was still in the process of learning more about them, their styles, approaches, and photography portfolios. Well, having now done precisely that, I unveil an additional trio of preternaturally talented "photography storytellers" (as I referred to those in part 1): Simon Baxter, Adam Gibbs, and Steve O'nions.

All three share the same exemplary core characteristics I ascribed to the photographers highlighted in part 1: (1) they are all magnificent photographers, in the purest sense of the word; i.e., if they did nothing but stare into a camera each week and pull up whatever new images they produced since their last video, their video posts would still be a privilege to view; (2) although their channels are mostly landscape oriented, their artistic sensibilities and repertoires run considerably deeper; and (3) they all have a gift for story telling and for expressing their obvious love of being out in nature and capturing its beauty. Apart from these similarities, of course, each of them also offers a unique - and uniquely insightful - perspective on doing photography:

Simon Baxter lives and works as a professional photographer in North Yorkshire in England, is the winner of the Light on the Land category in Outdoor Photographer of the Year, and was a featured photographer On Landscape Magazine. His particular specialty is woodland photography - indeed, he is arguably the first "woodland photographer" on YouTube! - but to call Simon's gift a "specialty" hardly does justice to the extraordinary art Simon's eye and soul create. I challenge you to look at Simon's portfolio without: (1) having your proverbial jaw drop at some of the finest woodland photographs you'll ever see (yes, they are that good!); and (2) having your proverbial jaw drop a second time after you realize that Simon's images have literally changed how you will now look at "trees" - and at nature, in general, with your camera  - ever again (yes, his images are that good!). Beyond - or better, behind - Simon's superlative photography is his gentle manner and presence, the quiet but articulate cadence of his speech, and the soulful timeless wisdom that he imparts to lucky viewers of his channel. Simon is of a rare breed of photographer who is equally adept at transforming the "ordinary" into something transcendently magical with his eye/camera, as he is at helping aspiring and seasoned photographers alike forge their own path towards "seeing" and "expressing" their own vision.

“To me, photography is an art of observation.
It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place…
I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see
and everything to do with the way you see them.”
Elliott Erwitt (1928 - ) 

Adam Gibbs, a landscape photographer I "discovered" after seeing him featured on one of Simon Baxter's videos, lives and devotes many - though by no means all - of his videos to photo safaris on Vancouver Island, Canada; his YouTube channel contains playlists that include Antarctica, the Canadian Rockies, China, and Scotland (among many other places). Apart from this geographic versatility, what sets Adam apart is his ability to draw the viewer into his "aesthetic thought space." While other photographer/Youtubers have a gift for narrative (starting with any of the other artists on my two "best of" lists), and are able to bring the viewer along on an adventure using both words and images, Adam also unassumingly - and oh, so gracefully - injects the viewer into his inner machinations, sharing his thought processes on how he "sees" a place, how he makes his compositional choices, and/or what post-processing tools he uses (or intends to use) to bring out the full aesthetic potential of a given scene. He is never rushed and is ever-so-deliberate - Zen-like, one might say - in his pacing and approach to setting up a shot. I also much appreciate the "before and after" fashion in which he unveils his images: the viewer is first shown what the unprocessed raw file looks like after the image is captured, followed with a reveal of the cropped-and-edited final image. This simple narrative schema lays bare (but makes no less mysterious) the artistic transmogrification of initial impressions and intent into a completed image. Gibbs is a master craftsman/artist teacher.

“In large measure, becoming an artist
consists of learning to accept yourself,
which makes your work personal,
and in following your own voice,
which makes your work distinctive.”
David Bayles (1952 - ) and Ted Orland (1941 - )
Art & Fear

Steve O'nions is an amateur (mostly, film) photographer who lives in Wales, where by using the term "amateur" I wish only to convey that Steve does not make his living from photography (though, given the growing number of subscribers to his channel, that may soon change!), and not that his skill set is any less than expected of a "professional" of the highest level; indeed, if judged on his skill set alone, Steve is in a class by himself. I have been voraciously soaking up his YouTube posts ever since I stumbled upon one of his earliest videos about - what else (for photographers)? - Waiting for the Light during an autumn photo safari back in 2016. I was immediately struck (right from the start) by two patterns that have held true for the 50 or so videos that I've enjoyed since: (1) Steve's sparse, knowledgeable, to-the-point narratives and, on occasion, pedagogic demonstrations of technique, are simply a delight to experience (though, like all great masters, he makes things seem easy; to get to Steve's level one needs patience, practice, and a lot of time!), and (2) where most fine-art photographers profess a disdain for focusing on gear rather than the art the gear is designed to help create, Steve takes it to the next level: the gear is both most and least relevant to the contextualized vision he brings to a given shoot. Steve uses (and is equally adept at using) myriad kinds of cameras that range from old 35mm film cameras, to 4-by-5 and 8-by-10 large format, to micro-four-thirds digital cameras (among many others). But he doesn't stop there: is it black and white film or is it color, and what kind of film is it? Is it Hasselblad or Bronica? Yet, throughout all of his saunter-adventures and camera and film comparisons, Steve's focus is always on the image. Other photographers talk about how one must never lose sight of the forest for the trees (literally and figuratively); Steve shows you how this is done. In the best possible sense, Steve is a wonderful throw-back to artists of yesteryear. Give him a camera and some film - just about any camera and any film - and Steve will show you what fine-art photography is all about. (And all this is without even mentioning his unparalleled compositional skills and his wonderfully dry sense of sardonic, often self-deprecating, humor!)

As I said in my closing paragraph the first time around, you do not have to take my word that these three "photographer storytellers" are among the very best at communicating the joys of photography on their YouTube channels; just follow the links and enjoy the journey! The only down-side of watching so many videos of these accomplished photographer/story-tellers/teachers is that it leaves even less time to go out and do photography 😊

Saturday, August 13, 2022

Poetic Truth


"To get from the tangible to the intangible (which mature artists in any medium claim as part of their task) a paradox of some kind has frequently been helpful. For the photographer to free himself of the tyranny of the visual facts upon which he is utterly dependent, a paradox is the only possible tool. And the talisman paradox for unique photography is to work "the mirror with a memory" as if it were a mirage, and the camera is a metamorphosing machine, and the photograph as if it were a metaphor…. Once freed of the tyranny of surfaces and textures, substance and form [the photographer] can use the same to pursue poetic truth."

Minor White (1908 - 1976)

Postscript. In full disclosure, and unlike the "fabricated" (and eventually retracted Tweet by) physicist Étienne Klein - who playfully claimed that a photograph he took of a slice of chorizo taken against a black background was that of Proxima Centauri, about 4.2 light years away, as captured by the James Webb Space Telescope - the image above is emphatically not a photograph of some spectacular celestial object! It is, in fact, just a Minor-White-like "poetic truth" rendering of ice-on-asphalt, bathed-in-red-light, as "seen" at some point a few months ago during a winter walk during sunset 😊

Friday, August 12, 2022

Structure of Life


"The soul hungers for expression and ceaselessly strives for an understanding of all that comprises the cosmos. The more of beauty in the mind, the more of peace in the spirit. Time is a definite and moving quantity – conserve it! The structure of life we build for ourselves determines the color of our soul. Think more of yourself, realize your duty to yourself, and your duty to those who shall come after you, who shall shape their lives on your influence. Develop the sense of inner beauty and majesty of Nature."

- Ansel Adams (1902 - 1984)
Letters & Images

Thursday, August 11, 2022

Graceful Curves


"The study of the pictures of the old masters will show how much they thought of the linear composition, and I hope by some examples of modern photography to show that the value has been appreciated by the producer of them. For the benefit of the tyro I will quote some authorities which go back several centuries. To quote from Hogarth: 'Curved lines are the most beautiful. Nature displays herself in curves; even the straight pine trunk only acts as a foil to the graceful curves of the branches. Therefore, curves should predominate in a picture and where a straight line is introduced it should only be used as a foil to accent the beauty of the curve.'"

- G. Hanmer Croughton (1843 - 1920)
Abel's Photographic Weekly, Volume 20