Remembering Paris...

   Around this time two years ago, I was in France. I've been thinking about that trip and it began when I was in Dublin in early June.

  It was June 6th and the 70th anniversary of the invasion at Normandy and I watched the commemorations in the restaurant lounge.  All sorts of emotions welled up in me...memories too.

   My primary reason for making that trip to France in 2012 was to visit Omaha Beach where my dad landed 70 years ago and it is through objects as well as photographs that we re-connect with the past.  They both have ways to trigger powerful feelings.

   My cousin gave me this plate on my return but it was the tiny container of sand that I took home from Omaha Beach that is my most cherished souvenir of the trip.  That and this image I made at the memorial.

   I looked at the album I made of the trip, my "Good Crop" of 12 icons of the experience I had while in France.  I was still totally committed to the monochrome image back then and the 12 are all in black and white, well one image has just a spot of color...an omen of what was to come in my work?  I only made one black and white image while I was on my Threshold Pilgrimage in May and June, the rest were in color. Something has changed and I'm still processing it.

   Revisiting old images is a very revealing contemplative exercise and in my next post I will talk more about that.  For now, you can re-visit my "Good Crop" from France...

Remembering France

Risk taking and the photographic process...

   I honestly thought I was done photographing Gaylord but the cheeky little fellow is simply too tempting to ignore.  His latest antics in the tree where I moved the feeders made me appreciate his uncanny ability to reach his goal no matter what obstacles I put in his way. 

   I leave for Ireland in three days and Gaylord reminded me that it is often necessary to overcome obstacles on any journey and that sometimes our best images are received when we push the envelope just a bit...when we go out on a limb so to speak.

   I'm not referring to physical danger when I speak of risk taking...there will be no hanging over the Cliffs of Moher for me!  However, what I like to remember is that when we rely only on the "tried and true" methods we miss the opportunity of discovering a whole new viewpoint...like Gaylord here.

   We can be content to look at the world through the telescope, which is to say, from a safe distance or we can choose the microscope and get up close and personal with our subjects.  Engaging with our subjects on a heart level is a form of risk taking.  It has the potential to change us and some do not welcome change...better safe than sorry, isn't that how the old adage goes?

   Digital photography has open the flood gates for those willing to engage their photographic process in new and exciting ways.  Sure, not all your experiments will be successful but it is the experimenting that is important since it keeps your mind open to new possibilities.

10 Photographic Rules to Know and to Break

"Why did you photograph that?"

Georgia on my Mind

   I often hear that from people who look at my images, especially images that are semi-abstract like this one on the left.  I have to ask myself the same question and sometimes the answer amazes me.

   This image was made in Santa Fe, New Mexico during a long day of wandering the streets, visiting museums and galleries and generally gathering in impressions.  Looking at the files later I remember thinking, "What  the????", when I looked at it.  Was it one of those "mistakes" one sometimes makes, when the shutter released prematurely? Then I remembered the context of the image.

   I had just spent a couple of hours wandering the galleries of the Georgia O'Keeffe museum absorbing the beautiful compositions of her semi-abstract renderings of the New Mexico landscape.  This was my subconscious rendering of a similar theme.  I entitled it "Georgia on my Mind".

   So much of what we observe and take in during the day settles into our unconscious mind.  It later manifests itself in our photographs.  This photograph reminds me that we often draw from that storehouse of the unconscious if we allow ourselves to abdicate some of the external controls photographers love to assert.

Visitor at the Shrine

   I later remembered it when I visited the shrine at Chimayo, New Mexico and what was initially unconscious became a conscious decision to render the scene in a unusual way...leaving the majority of the image "empty", isolating the focal point way off center but balanced by the small roof below.

   I visited the O'Keeffe museum almost as a pilgrim would a holy shrine.  I have loved her paintings since I first discovered them 50+ years ago.  I remember flying to Washington DC twice to see the National Galleries retrospective of her work in the late 1980's.  Oh yes, I was a devoted disciple.  I just never knew how my admiration of her compositional style had influenced my photography until I made the photograph above.

   So, to answer the question posed in the title of this post, "Why did you photograph that?", I guess I would point to the powerful role the subconscious mind plays on our compositional choices.  I love that idea.  It is why I make a point to visit museums as much as I can...to continually stock the shelves of my unconscious.  There is no telling when it will later manifest itself in a photograph!

 
  

Don't Try So Hard....

"What you seek is also seeking you." - Rumi

The Treasures’ Nearness

A man searching for spiritual treasure
could not find it, so he was praying.

A voice inside said, “You were given
an intuition to shoot an arrow
and then dig where it landed,”

but you shot with all your archery skill!
You were told to draw the bow
with only a fraction of your ability.”

What you are looking for
is nearer than the big vein
on your neck! Let the arrow drop.

Don’t exhaust yourself like the philosophers,
who strain to shoot the high arc
of their thought arrows.

The more skill you use, the farther you’ll be
from what you deepest love wants.
-Rumi  

   This is one of my favorite Rumi poems and it speaks to so much of my thoughts on contemplative photography.  It shouldn't be so hard! 

   Sometimes we need to release our sense of control...abdicate some of our mastery of the medium to connect with what we are seeking... deeply contemplative imagery.

   We simply need to reach out and what we are seeking will reach out for us.  We will meet in the middle.  So much of Rumi's wisdom is about letting go.  So much of what I write about on this blog is about becoming empty bowls so the wisdom of the landscape can fill us up.  It is, in fact, the first characteristic of the Photographic Sage and, perhaps, the most important.

   Children have this natural capacity to engage the world as empty bowls.  We need to remember a time when we didn't work so hard on experiencing what the world has to offer us.

   Here is a past blog post that speaks to this very idea.  We need to re-experience the world around us as children do...with their kind of total engagement and lack of expectation.

           DEEP PLAY

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Footnote: The image for today's post is a playful adaptation of one of my frost etchings from the window in my barn. It seemed to illustrate the Rumi notion that what you are seeking is also reaching out, seeking you. I wanted to disengage it from it's black and white world and playfully alter tone and color.  It was a huge leap for me!   I was inspired my Susan Fox's approach to intuitive photography and her willingness to creatively alter images. You can visit her blog at Finding My Bliss.  When I was an art teacher I often encouraged my students to "play with the materials". Thought it was high time for me to practice what I preached!

 

A Matter of Perspective...

   Being confined to my house because of repetitive storms, ice and general nasty weather, I've been thinking about perspective.  If I could never leave this house, and the world was limited to what I could see out my windows, what would that do to my viewpoint?

   I was watching my cat lying on the ottoman at my feet.  His world is like my temporary condition, contained within these walls most of the time.  Then he did what cats do a lot, he hung his head over the edge of the ottoman and looked at me...up side down!

   Does he do that just for the fun of seeing me hanging from the ceiling or is it some subtle way he has to experience the world in a different way? (Best not try to over-think this!)

   Later, when I was in the breakfast room, I looked out the window and there was the concept illustrated in miniature.

   The tiny glass ornament a friend had given me for Christmas inverted my view of the woods across the street. It was a delightful little "breadcrumb" to pick up with my camera and think about.

   The message was clear...every once in awhile turn the world on its ear!  Shift perspective, figuratively or literally.  Another friend had sent me a quotation on New Years day and it is very appropriate to this post and the new year so I will close with it...

For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.

-T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

Give Yourself a TIme Out....

No man ever will unfold the 

capacities of his own intellect

who does not at least checker

his life with solitude.

- De Quincy

   I spent many years as an elementary school teacher and one of the strategies employed when children were disturbing the class was to give them a "time out".  In the class room this meant a quiet corner with a "thinking chair"...in my art room it was a desk with paper and crayons.

   We all can benefit from a regularly scheduled time out.  Our days are hectic and filled with to do lists. Busy, busy, busy but I agree with De Quincy that without a life sprinkled with solitude, times when we can just be rather than do, little growth in our contemplative life can occur.

   I like to take my time outs with my camera occasionally.  Like my recent time out on Star Island.  I'd been walking the island, absorbing the beauty and glorious weather when I came to the little cemetery.  I decided to just sit on the grass with my back to the stone wall and bask in the late day sun.  I sat there for some time with my eyes closed absorbing the ambient sounds and sunshine.  (As James Turrell says, we are "light eaters"!)

   When I finally opened my eyes this tiny bee was inches from my face, oblivious to my presence, absorbed in his work.  My brief time out brought me back into the conscious appreciation of such small and "insignificant" happenings and after the bee moved on, so did I.

   Here is a link to a wonderful poster by Karen Horneffer-Ginter on her website Full Cup, Thirsty Spirit...

50 Ways to Take a Break

Moving From the Word to the Image and Back Again...

   I think the one question I am asked the most about contemplative photography is how I tie the image to the written word and visa versa. When I share my reflections about a particular photograph with people they often wonder how I "see" that in the image. That is a very important question and it has several dimensions to it.

The Two Halves Coming Together

    For me, writing about my images is merely responding, in words, to what I first experienced in the landscape. I developed a sequence I call Photo Lectio (reading the image) based on the monastic practice of Lectio Devina or sacred reading. (Read the post about PhotoLectio here...) That is a process that takes place after the image is made. But in this post I want to talk about the more abstract concept of internalization which occurs before the image is made. That is where my written responses begin.

   When you are in the landscape you are, at the same time, both observer and participant. You move back and forth between the two ways of being. As observer, you make lists, record "things", document specific elements in the landscape including making photographs. As participant, you enter into a more intimate engagement with the landscape. It is an empathic relationship and you internalize the more subtle nuances of the natural world in front of you. In essence, you are reading the atmosphere and energy of the place. For comparison, imagine the different ways a botanist and a poet would engage with the landscape. The first would list the plants and their characteristics, the latter would speak about the more ethereal qualities of place that they encounter.

   For me, it is the gentle dance between the two modalities that satisfies me the most. When I am able to enter into this rhythm, the words just seem to flow. Try it the next time you are in a landscape. Ask yourself...What would the scientist observe? What would the poet respond to? Write these in your field journal and then make your photographs. Later, as you sit with your image look back to your words. See what this dance inspires in you.

   Below is a link to an interview with Christine Valters Paintner on the wonderful blog Faith Squared where she talks about this relationship between the image and the word. You'll have to scroll down about half way to see Christine's interview....

Faith Squared 

Open Yourself to the Mystery...

Mystery is what happens to us when

we allow life to evolve rather than

having to make it happen all the time.

- Joan Chittister

The Gift of Years

The Empty Chair

   Human beings are rational, fact-based creatures on the whole.  We need to know and to explain everything.  Of course, that obsession for getting to the truth of things has brought us far over the millenniums but in the quest to answer every question, we have lost the appreciation of the mysterious side of life; the acceptance of the unknowable; the joy in the hidden energy of existence.

   So much of Taoism is rooted in this acceptance of the mystery...being open to the natural flow of life without needing to direct the outcome.  I see contemplative photography that way as well.  Part of my process is to simply let go and allow the mystery to unfold and enfold  me.  Why am I drawn to a place?  Why am I urged to take my time and absorb the energy of the landscape?  You must ask yourself if you are content to skip over the surface, like the flat stone thrown from the shore, or do you desire to sink below the surface to experience the hidden truths, the true mystery behind the veil?

   This doesn't mean you need to "know" the landscape, as a geologist or a botanist would.  You can simply revel in the mysterious energy of place and see what it can teach you.  You can always recognize those for whom this mystery is most important.  They don't walk through a landscape with their nose in the guide book but, rather, with their face turned towards the sun and wind or they simply sit quietly and still content with just being there.  The former will get the facts, no doubt, but the latter will absorb the essence, the true sense of place.

   So much of life, I think, is mystery and I  prefer to keep it that way.  I will get where I need to go and I'll receive the images I need to receive - that's enough for me.

I see my path, but I don't know where it leads.

Not knowing where I'm going is what inspires

me to travel it.

- Rosalea de Castro

Living in Liminality...

Descent into Lightness

   One is always becoming - we are always giving birth to ourselves but there are times when we feel it more profoundly, the crossing of the threshold.  These are our liminal moments.  The word liminal comes, as so many of our words do, from Latin -"limen" meant the starting place of a race, a beginning or a threshold.

   Contemplative photography gives us the opportunity to reflect on these moments through our images.  What I've discovered, over time, is that these moments are much more frequent than we imagine and they are not necessarily momentous moments either.  In fact, the vast majority of these threshold moments are seemingly inconsequential; so much so we hardly notice them at all.  We simply step from one way of being, one mode of thinking, into another subtly different one.  These slight shifts of consciousness, over time, transform us.

   As a contemplative photographer, I can sometimes record these liminal moments which really don't reveal their true nature to me until much later.  Hindsight is, after all, 20/20.  When we finally and fully resign ourselves to living in liminality the journey becomes more interesting and at the same time more mysterious.

   I've been dwelling on the photograph of the staircase at Rouen recently.  When I wrote the post of the metaphor of staircases I realized that I had described those stairs as an ascent into "simplicity and light". (read it here...)  I named my folio of Shaker images that eight months later.  The folio includes this image which I had labeled the "descent into lightness".

   This is one of those liminal moments for me.  Seeing the search for "light", with all its metaphorical connotations, as an underlying theme in my work.  Light may be a universal metaphor but what I've also discovered is that metaphors are intensely personal things.  What "light" means to you may not be what it means to me.  The meaning will come in time to each of  us but these images have certainly awakened a new sense of myself and a new avenue of reflection.  That is, in the final analysis, the real worth of pursuing contemplative photography for me  and why I have become such an advocate of it through this blog.

Blessing the Space Between...

   One of the themes for our photography at the Bethany Springs retreat was the space between.  This is one of the images I made for that theme.  As it happens, I found a wonderful pin on Pinterest that fit right into this theme and I would like to share it with you.

   In Japanese, ma, the word for space, suggests interval. It is best described as a consciousness of place, not in the sense of an enclosed three-dimensional entity, but rather the simultaneous awareness of form and non-form deriving from an intensification of vision. Not something that is created by compositional elements, it is that which takes place in the imagination. -Larry Schenck

   I love this image because, while it seems that the two chains could be one chain that connects the two bolts you are not really sure because they disappear out of the frame of the photograph.  They go up but do they connect?  There is a real tension here. This is one of those incredibly simply images that I would not have even noticed on our contemplative stroll had I not been asked to look for the spaces between.

   I think this is a great practice for contemplative photographers to do from time to time and I thank Kim Manley Ort for suggesting this at our retreat.  Don't look at the objects, look at the spaces between them.  I remember my first year in art school when our Drawing 101 professor set up a pile of easels in the middle of the studio and told us to draw the easels...not by drawing the easels themselves but drawing the spaces around and in between the easels...the so-called "negative" space.
  
   This is the Japanese character for "space".  As you can see, it is anything but "empty".  Next time you are out with your camera, focus your attention on the space between and see what it reveals to you.  I doubt you will ever consider that space "empty" anymore.


 

Hidden Truths, Obvious Lies....

   I've written before about using Photoshop to manipulate your images.  In one of my PhotoTao cards I encourage people to explore the possibilities but I want to write today about what I see as the Photoshop dichotomy...the hidden truths and the obvious lies we can create with this wonderful technology.

   In my post "The Annaberg Encounter", I spoke about needing to find a way to process the images I made that day in a way that would more clearly reveal the emotions I had at the location.  I used an infra red filter and a solarization effect to get the result I was after.  Both those process have been around for a long time. One could use infra red film and create solarized effects in the traditional dark room. It is just so much easier today in the digital darkroom.

   The photograph above was made in Rouen cathedral this past summer.  It was nothing wonderful in its original state so I tried a digital filter - neon glow - to bring out the edges and the wonderful stained glass...to give it the "other worldly" ambiance that I felt that day as I wandered through the cathedral.  Anyone looking at this image will clearly see the manipulation, like the Annaberg photographs, it was done for artistic purposes and to make visibly concrete the ethereal emotion of the place. I saw the use of these techniques as a way to reveal a "hidden truth" I'd discovered in the landscape at the Annaberg sugar mill and the interior of Rouen cathedral.

    What I object to, well perhaps "object" is too strong a word, is when Photoshop is used to create "obvious lies"...like taking a sky from one image and putting it in another...or importing objects, people, buildings, etc. into a landscape that weren't there originally.  Why do I avoid such manipulations?  It gets to the idea of truthfulness.  Today, when we go to movies or see photographs on the internet or in magazines, we question whether what we are seeing is an accurate rendition of the world or is it "photoshopped".  You really can't tell anymore and somehow I feel that that it is a bit dishonest. It's fine when the artist makes clear his/her intention to create a fantasy world but most of the time it is presented as the "real" world.  Isn't the real world wonderful enough?  Sometimes I think it is just laziness.  Much easier to make-up a dynamic, breathtaking image in photoshop than to spend time in the landscape seeking out the authentic one. We have become quite the "cut and paste" society today.  If we don't like something it is so easy to manipulate the reality to make it fit some inner criteria of perfection. 

   By all means, use photoshop to enhance your images.  Use it for an artistic effect to create a photograph that will inspire greater insight and further your contemplative practice but think about the truthfulness of those images.  Are you responding to a landscape or rejecting it?  Is your process one of co-creation or detached manipulation?   Are you looking for the sacred in the commonplace or are you just playing God?   You decide.

Late Day Light...

A New Mexico Landscape

   I've always loved photographing late in the day.  In Scotland that could mean 10:00 pm in the summer but here in Maine in February it's more like 4:30 pm.  This image was made in New Mexico late on a February afternoon.  I love the long shadows and the angled light creates lovely textures that the mid-day light simply burns out.

   When I was in Giverny this past summer, at Monet's garden, I started to think more about the idea of photographing at different times of day.  I think I will experiment more with this this year.  I will continue my series, "Winter Etchings" because I will never tire of the delicate shadow patterns on snow.  I just avoid a brightly sunlit day which is too harsh in favor of the lightly overcast day.

     Late autumn and winter is a great time to explore the late day light here in New England with the trees devoid of leaves and the sun lower in the sky, it makes for wonderful shadows.  There is a "bare bones" quality to the landscape that is very appealing for me.

   Early morning offers it's own quality of light and is well worth the effort to set the alarm for a pre-dawn wake-up call.  They say the early bird catches the worm but in this case you might just catch some amazing light effects!  Light is probably the most revealing metaphor for the contemplative photographer.  One could dedicate their whole photographic life to just exploring the qualities of light it is so rich in metaphoric possibilities. Nature communicates most profoundly through the interplay of light and shadow...make it a point this year to read her subtle messages.

A Lesson in the Snow...

A Lesson in the Snow

   As you know from previous posts, I've chosen "pathways" as my guide word for the year.  I promised myself that I would try to be more aware of the various pathways in my life and to be on the look out for any visual references that may come my way.  This photograph was made in my front yard the day after a recent snowfall.  I am sure the tiny footprints were made by my neighbors grey cat that seems to circumnavigate by house on a daily basis. I was getting out of my car and thought, yes, a pathway but really...isn't it a bit obvious?  Hardly worth the effort to go in and get the camera but then I noticed something, something that changed my mind.

   I've often observed this cat on his daily ambles and I have noticed that when he walks in snow he always walks in his own footsteps when he returns.  It never fails.  He always steps carefully in the paw prints he made on his way out.  But here, in one small section of his track, he stepped out, for just four steps and I wondered, why?  Who knows.  Maybe he saw a bird or squirrel that distracted him and he veered off track.  I was able to make an observation for my own "pathways" from this simple image. (Which also made me realize that I shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the "obvious"...it could still have a lesson to teach.)

   While it is always so much easier to follow a path we've walked before or to follow carefully one someone else has made before us, we often miss so much of life in our concentration to "stay on track".  The real joy in our lives often comes when we allow ourselves to be "side tracked".  When we take our eyes off the path and look elsewhere.  The path we're on will always be there...we can always join up with it further down the trail or, we may find, the new path is the right path.  I hope I give myself the freedom to do just that this year.  My Grandmother use to admonish me as a child when my distraction caused me to bump into something..."Either look where you're going or go where you're looking, you can't do both!"  Wise words....

Thoughts on a Very Cold Day...

Why I Use Pinterest....

    I'd never heard of Pinterest when my friend introduced it to me some months back.  When I first explored it I thought, "This is not for me..." but later, upon reflection, I realized that if used correctly it could act like an on-line filing system and a resource for my blog followers.

    Bookmarks are helpful but as we all know, in a short time they become unwieldy...impossible to locate what you so earnestly saved a month ago.  Pinterest allows a person to create pin boards and you can easily add items whenever you come across them on the internet. On my Pinterest site, you can find "On Location" boards for all the places I've photographed in, boards on Taoism and Contemplative Photography, photographers I admire and even my "Bucket List" of locations I hope to photograph in someday.

    This book is one of my latest "pins" - to my Inspirational Media board. I find Pinterest a great resource for those of us who need an easy and quick way to organize all the myriad of on-line materials and resources we use and collect in our lives and it is wonderful to be able to share them all with you. When you "pin" something it saves the original link so that you can go back and visit it whenever you want. Visit my Pinterest site (you can click on the link above or on the permanent link in the right side bar) when you have a moment and see what I mean.  I hope this site will be a source of inspiration for you...you might even want to start your own!