The Ultimate Metaphor...

   I am not one to admired "staged" photographs but in the case of this series by one of my favorite photographers, Nick Brandt, I'll make an exception.  I talked about his contemplative wildlife photography in a previous post and this series is another jaw dropping visual display.

    Brandt's images were made at Lake Natron in Northern Tanzania.  The lakes extreme alkalinity calcifies any animal who is unfortunate enough to fall into it.  He gathered these remains and posed them, as they would be in life and the photographs he made are haunting and thought provoking in the extreme.

   Some people, myself included, may find it difficult to view these images but contemplation isn't simply thinking about comfortable and pretty things.  It is the long, slow and loving look at the real and these represent a very real situation and place.  It is helpful, from time to time, to ponder things that make us feel uncomfortable.

    These images also allow us to meditate on the ultimate metaphor - Death.  And like that ever present reality, there is something beautiful to contemplate in the final act of letting go.  I recently attended the funeral of a very dear friend who had accompanied me to Ireland in 2009.  The sadness of a life cut short is never easy but the beauty of her life and how she accepted her death seemed to ease some of our grief.  Many can teach us how to live and a few special people can teach us how to face our own death...with grace and dignity.

    This series also recalls the ground breaking exhibit by Gunther von Hagens, Body Worlds.  I've never seen that exhibit but it is the striking revelation of the intricacies of the human body. Somehow, the animals in Brandt's photographs, seen in their natural environment, seem to me more poignant and touching...less about science and more about contemplation.

   I'll leave it up to you to visit the following link and form your own conclusions.  I would be interested in your thoughts....

Calcified - Across the Ravaged Land

 

"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!

 
  

A Contemplative Souvenir...

   Last September when I was in Pembroke, Maine I collect stones on the Beach of Metaphors.  I'm finally getting around to creating a stone collage to have framed as a souvenir of my stay Down East.

   The text will actually be printed on acetate and placed behind the glass of the shadow box so the shadow of the words will be projected between the stones.

   In a previous post I talked about the souvenirs I've collected from previous trips.   Although I do buy pieces of art from local artists, some of my most favorite souvenirs are the "found objects" gather on location...like the "Pearl of Great Price" I recently wrote about.  This stone circle will be a piece I can hang on the wall and reflect on every time I pass it.  It makes it all the more special that I gathered the stones myself.

   I've already begun to prepare for my up-coming Threshold Pilgrimage.  I'll gather more mica "tokens" ,once the snow melts, that I will leave in special places on my journey.  I've completed my Vade Mecum to carry in my backpack "scrip" and I'm daily adding words of wisdom to it.  I'm even considering the purchase a smaller, lighter camera to simplify my packing.

   I have no idea what sorts of "boon" I will return with...what contemplative souvenirs I will gather en route.  That will be the joy of discovery.  Consider gathering contemplative souvenirs as you travel this year.  They will be far more meaningful than the standard tourist fare.  Your souvenirs should be more that mere objects, they should open a flood gate of memory for you.  Those are the ones you will keep for a life time.

Contemplative Poetry Series - Sara Teasdale

The Sanctuary

If I could keep my innermost Me
Fearless, aloof and free
Of the least breath of love or hate,
And not disconsolate
At the sick load of sorrow laid on men;
If I could keep a sanctuary there
Free even of prayer,
If I could do this, then,
With quiet candor as I grew more wise
I could look even at God with grave forgiving eyes.

Sara Teasdale


From time to time I hope to offer you a contemplative poem for you to enjoy and think about. There are so many wonderful poems and I often use them to enhance my visual listening exercises in the landscape...this is the first in the series.

 Enjoy!

Musing on Memories...

   I must admit that this winter has me feeling a bit like Julian of Norwich, the medieval English mystic that was walled up in a tiny cell with only her cat for company and three windows to gaze out of.  But self-enclosure has its benefits.

   I came across a bag of my old marbles one day when I was rummaging through a drawer looking for something else, my "cat's eyes".   (I know, funny isn't it.  We usually say someone has "lost his marbles"!)  I loved to play marbles in the school yard during recess when I was young.  It was more about the beautiful colors and patterns in the marbles then anything else.  I loved rolling them in my hand and watching the light dance through the glass.  Even way back then it was a visual thing for me.

   Now, contemplation is all about being present in the "here and now" so what role does memory play in the contemplative equation?  This winters forced indwelling has allowed me time to puzzle over the question.

   On one level, you might think of all photographs as testimony to memory regardless of what motivated you to make the image in the first place.  We photograph so we can remember.  The luminous light on the snow that morning, the way the sun illuminated a squirrels fur creating a delicate halo,  the almost comical icicle that formed one day...they are all small memories from this winter I thought worth gathering in through my photographs and sharing with you.  The "here and now" is so fleeting.  It quickly becomes the "there and then".  All we have left are the memories...at the end of the day that is truly all we can hang onto.

   Susan Fox, who writes the wonderful blog Finding My Bliss, sent me a link to a wonderful French film about a girl and her camera.  I pass it on to you...

Memoires

  

A Prayerful Regard for the Landscape...

   I've been receiving lovely quotations for my vade mecum and I encourage you to send me something to carry with me when I travel to the sacred sites in the Burren, Iona and Glendalough in May.  One suggestion has prompted this post.  

Absolute attention is prayer.

- Simone Weil

   What a beautiful imagining for the contemplative photographer!  In our rush to experience the landscape we often miss its meaning and message for us.  Rather than walk through the landscape we should pray our way into the mystery unfolding in front of us through the act of absolute attention.  Worshipful regard of the world around us brings us into union with the divine presence we encounter.

   Instead of anticipating, we should be soulfully open to whatever we come across no matter how humble it may seem.  Like this small and worn sculpture I discovered on my recent trip to Glastonbury Abbey.  Whatever saint it is eluding to is unimportant.  Its seemingly singular regard for what is in front of it is the message here.  The eyes don't gaze longingly into the distance but at the ground right before his feet.  It is not anticipating some distant and vague possibility but is soaking in and relishing the immediate and close at hand.  We could all benefit from that kind of thinking...

The Landscape is my Mentor...

To measure one's step by a universal rhythm and thus to bring one's life into harmony with a universal order, this is contemplation in our tradition.

A Listening Heart

David Steindl-Rast

A Listening Heart is a small collection of essays on the monastic practice of contemplation by monk/philosopher David Steindl-Rast.  I found several passages in the book that speak to the idea of contemplative photography as well and I would like to share one with you.

   Foremost is the idea that everywhere you go you are on sacred ground:

"All around in every direction; Holy of Holies." Ez. 45:1

   There are no divisions between the sacred and the secular - everything is sacred.  This, of course, is a Celtic world view and it is merely a small step from that concept to  the one which sees your photographs as icons and teachers.  Steindl-Rast calls it  Environment as Guru:

Any place is sacred ground because it is, potentially, a place of confrontation - confrontation with divine presence. -page 20

   He defines guru as a "dispeller of darkness" and he equates darkness with confusion.  Sitting in the landscape, for me, is like being in the presence of a wise and wonder-filled teacher who, as all great teachers do, does not provide us answers but opens our heart to the questions.  Great teachers direct your eye to where you should look but never tell you what you should see.

   My landscape mentor removes the clouds of confusion by presenting me with the embrace of the eternal.  I don't have to "know" everything - I just have to present myself as a willing and empty vessel.  I will be filled.