Searching After Wildness - journals of a photographic artist

Art Festivals Are Alright

It’s summertime, which means that art festival season is underway. I can tell that I’m getting older. My body now takes a couple of days to recover after each weekend. One recent show in Chicago provided back to back eighteen hour days of low sales. Drive in on Friday evening. Get up at 5 a.m. to set up in the cold fog. Stand in the chill all day until the show closes at 10 p.m. Get a few hours of sleep and repeat. Tear down the next day at 9 p.m. and arrive back home in the middle of the night. It would have been alright if I had more sales. Sales have a way of warding off the chill and adding energy. Funny how that works. Is there a way to separate money from the appreciation of the experience? After a weekend like that, you spend a few days questioning. Why am I making pictures? Who is it for? What’s the point? I really should find an easier way to make money, like being a waiter.

Then there are the weekends where collectors show me pictures of my photographs hanging in their homes. Or when I get email from a framer complimenting a piece that their customer brought in. I get to be outside on breezy summer days spending hours talking to people about my work. That is really quite alright.

And, I get to have conversations like this. A stranger walks into my booth, looks at my work for 5 seconds and…

Stranger: I’m looking at your work because last weekend I was looking at work by this oriental artist. He had this picture of a bridge with people on it. I was fascinated because it seemed like he would have to be standing in the water to get that picture. I asked him, how were you standing in the water? He said no, there was a piece of land jutting out across from the bridge. I was standing on that land.

Me: I stand in the water for all my pictures.

Stranger: Oh. (walks away)

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The Fairies Are Live

A Chance Meeting – from Where The Fairies Are

My project Where The Fairies Are is now on the gallery section of the website. View it here.

I’ve been exploring themes of enchantment for a few years now, so you may guess that I’m really quite excited to present a collection of this work.

These photographs portray natural settings as more than what we expect them to be. They are a hope of things mystical and mysterious. If fairies existed, where would they be? They would be on the edge of a world that is breaking into ours. They would be among the miraculous that we take as mundane.

There will be opportunities to see pieces from this collection in the next couple of months. I’ll keep you posted.

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Perfect Lighting Is A Distraction

Gestures and Dreams – from Where the Fairies Are

I am a lazy photographer. People will view a dramatically lit image of mine and say, “Wow, how long did you have to wait for the light in that one?” I’d respond, “I don’t know. Maybe two minutes.” Even that may be an exaggeration. I pretty much don’t wait for the light. Sorry, all you patient nature photographers. My apologies especially to the wildlife guys. They wait all…day…long.

I didn’t use to be this way. The first year I took up photography as a hobby, I saw more sunrises than the rest of of my life combined. I would scout out a location before and then return in the dark just before dawn. I’d stand there eyes still bleary with sleep. I’d setup my camera and tripod, rub my hands to warm them and wait for the light to be just right.

Waiting for light goes something like: find and frame a subject, anticipate lighting and then wait until that light arrives. But not anymore. Why not? Let’s consider the act of looking and a story of a street musician.

During morning rush hour, an anonymous violinist set up in a Washington DC subway station. He played for 43 minutes as 1097 people passed by. Of those 1097, 7 people stopped for about a minute to listen. The musician was world renowned violinist Joshua Bell, playing on a 3.5 million dollar violin. He played music that only three days earlier was played to a packed theater of $100 seats. You can read the full story here.

Most everyone, 99.4% of the people, walked by without pausing. Joshua Bell is one of the best classical musicians in the world. He was playing some of the finest pieces ever composed. What happened? The people in the subway station were on their way to somewhere else. They were distracted by a predetermined destination. They were waiting for the light and they missed Joshua Bell.

Guess what, there is always something interesting happening. Have you heard of the movie, Microcosmos? It’s a gorgeous documentary showing insect life. Who knew there was so much wonder in grassy bits around me? I rarely think of it. In fact I miss out all the time.

With my typical subject matter, there is so much interesting around me that something nearby already has the “perfect” light, waiting for me to notice. If I’m in a state of mind to appreciate what’s around me, then I just need to look. There’s so much unplanned goodness that I have too much to photograph before I’m in a situation where I feel the need to plan for lighting.

Posted in Images, Photographic process, Where The Fairies Are | 3 Comments »

Beyond the Decisive Moment

Moss – from the series Where the Fairies Are

A photograph captures a moment in time. It would seem to follow that a photographer would want to create images that depict a special moment, where the viewer can savor the nuances of that slice of time. Photojournalists are inspired by the “decisive moments” captured by Henri Cariter-Bresson. Landscape photographers retell the story of Ansel Adams capturing quickly passing light for his most popular image, Moonrise, Hernandes. Think of the artist waiting for just the right expression in a face, or seeking that magic sunrise hour on the side of a mountain.

There’s a problem with this approach. The camera may be capturing a fleeting arrangement of light, but I don’t want to draw your attention to a specific moment. I want the story. I want your mind to fill in what happened the days, months or years that could have led up to the image. And, when your eyes turn away I want you to know that the story continues.

We know this already, don’t we? For the climax to be effective, we need the context of what happened before and how events may resolve after. Well, what if I don’t want my photograph to even show the climax? What if I just want to give you a sense of the journey?

Step into the journey. The moments will come. I don’t need to show a special moment to you, because they’re there all along.

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I’m Andy and I Have Nature Deficit Disorder

I live in the city and I love it. However, something about living this way is not quite right.

I grew up in the suburbs. The backyard of my family’s house came up to a woods where we neighborhood kids spent a lot of time getting lost. We made hideouts, buried treasure and went on long explorations. If we explored really, really far we would get to the other side of the woods and arrive at a street corner with an ice cream shop. To my 9 year old eyes, those woods were practically endless.

That was my initial taste of wildness. Those years were followed by TV, Nintendo, classrooms without windows, cars, shopping malls, air conditioning and cubicles. The wildness went from the expected to the other. You may be familiar with “the other”. It is that which is different from your daily experience. We tend to fear the other and make up excuses. Dangerous, unknown. You could get kidnapped, or eaten by a bear. The other is uncomfortable. Humidity and bugs. Excuses or not, I want it. For my sanity, I probably need it.

Henry David Thoreau wrote:

We need the tonic of wildness…At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things by mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.

“In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World”, is a photography book by Eliot Porter published in 1962.  The title was taken from a passage by Thoreau. The book is a masterpiece of color nature photography. It is a statement about the lure of wild places and a celebration of the beautiful in what we mistake as common. And here we are, decades after Thoreau and Porter. 

And here am I, living a life after wildness – after Porter’s book and after a time when the wild was a regular part of society. At the same time, I am after wildness – after, as in “in pursuit or quest of”. There is a struggle between my contemporary, city life and my need of the wild. This has been gnawing at me for the past few years and I suppose will be for some time. Looking at my recent photographic projects, the pursuit of the wild was there waiting for me to realize that I have been searching all along. 

This need for wildness in my life is now strong enough that it requires a name. At the same time, this blog needs more focus (photography pun, hah). Blog, I christen thee, “Searching After Wildness”. May we all learn something worth living for.

Posted in Announcements, Images, Photographic process | 4 Comments »

Big Sky

One on my recent projects, “Big Sky” is now on the gallery section of the website. View it here.

There are places where the trees are sparce, the cities become scattered and the sky revealed. The heavens, vaster than my imagination can hold, rests on broad shoulders of earth and stone. I am no longer at the center.

Most of these images are from the two month Camper Van Chuck road trip. There was a certain kind of pleasure in making images of broad landscapes, which I otherwise generally avoid. I avoid them because I want my images to have a bit of intimacy, a perspective that delves deeper than a flitting glimpse of a wide vista.

But, how could I ignore those luscious far reaching skies?  So, I go where the spirit leads. Or the gut as it may be, although I don’t think indigestion played a part.

You can see several of these images this Friday as part of the Open Studio walks. Come by and have a chat:

April 3rd, 2009, 7 – 10pm
First Friday Open Studio 
Studio #302
Murphy Art Center
1043 Virginia Ave, Indianapolis, IN 46203

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Take Off Your Shoes

I grew up in an Asian household. When you enter an Asian home, you take off your shoes. I took this as a bit of a hassle and included it among the strange Asian habits of not wanting to use things. I have relatives that live with plastic coverings over their coffee tables, couches and carpets. Taking off your shoes seems like an obvious extension. I didn’t have to take off my shoes at my friend’s houses. Why did my parents have to be so finicky? What’s with this no shoes in the house policy? Is it just neurosis?

It wasn’t just shoes, I didn’t like taking off my coat either. I like coats. As the weather cooled in the fall, I’d look forward to rediscovering the winter coats that had spent their summer exile in the attic. Perhaps it was a metaphor for wanting to shield myself from the world, like the teens that walk around school wearing trench-coats all the time. I think I just liked the feeling of being wrapped up warm and cozy. I had a habit of keeping my coat on after entering a home. The hosts would encourage me with a smile and a wink, “Why don’t you take your coat off? Stay a while.” I didn’t feel like I was on my way somewhere, I just like my coat, OK? Leave me alone.

Maybe I didn’t really want to stay somewhere. That could be why I love backpacking – it’s a kind of way of leaving. Interesting then, that when backpacking, one of the great simple pleasures is stopping for a break. For short breaks, you rest just long enough to take off your heavy pack. However, if you’re fortunate to stay longer, you can unbind your feet. Taking off your boots is an experience worthy of being a holy ritual. It’s like the first bite of food after a fast. There are stages of relief and sighs of pleasure. Ahhh, as you set down the pack. Oh, yes… as you loosen the laces and feel the extra room to move your toes. The boots come off. And then comes the ultimate freedom. You peel off the tight, woolen, hiking socks and your feet leave the confines of moist constriction to meet the open air. And then, you breathe. With toes wiggling in the breeze, you linger and take in the glory of the surrounding nature. To experience this pleasure, you need to be committed to stop for awhile. After you shed the pack, shoes and socks, you won’t be in any hurry to put them back on. Sometimes, it’s nicer to stop when it’s not as easy to leave.

In many natural scenic places, the park service has seen fit to build nice paved roads right up to a dramatic viewpoints and landmarks. In Yosemite National Park, Hannah and I took a walk from the valley to Glacier Point, a location that provides a breathtaking view of the area. We hiked a trail up switchbacks that wind through intimate glimpses and spectacular vistas. After a few hours, we near the top. We’re short of breath and eager for the serenity of the Glacier Point view and arrive at… a parking lot. There are families spilling out of their cars, grumpy kids, people carrying dogs and wearing high healed shoes. Most of the visitors stay for five minutes, force their bored children to pose for a picture, and then hop back into their vehicles for the drive back down to the valley. That is the nature of nice roads and nearby parking lots. You aren’t ever far enough from your car to let it go. Why consider staying when it’s so easy to leave? It’s time to check this site off the list and move on to the next destination.

During our two month road trip, we had days that were mostly driving. All day, incredible landscapes would slide by like a picture show through the windows and I would sit there with a slow, gnawing frustration. I suppose just seeing such beauty is privilege enough, but I want more. I want to feel the rock and soil under my feet. To smell the pines and sages. I want to brush up against willows and hear the twinkling leaves of cottonwood trees. Just to see and pass by is not enough. Get me out of that metal prison with windows posing as televisions. I want to know the place with all of my senses and them some. To know what things are named and how they interact and the stories they’ve lived. To linger. Remaining in the car feels distant from the moment where I’m sitting on the rock near my backpack and without my shoes.

In Hebrew scriptures, there is a story where Moses is taking a walk and notices a bush on fire. He nears the bush to get a closer look and is greeted by God. God says, “Moses, take off your sandals. You are standing in a holy place”.

The road trip took us from Indiana to California and back. In California, we met up with my sister, Tai-sing. Upon entering her home, she asked if I would take off my shoes. Delighted, I obliged.

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From Arid Arizona To Icy Indiana

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in California with my sister. After that, we drove south along the coast of Highway 1 and then back to the desert for a whirlwind tour: Grand Canyon, Oak Creek Canyon, Cococino National Forest, Petrified Forest, Canyon de Chelly and Frijoles Canyon.

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Yosemite and John Muir

Just before Thankgiving, we stayed a few days in Yosemite. Since then, I’ve been reading John Muir. From over a hundred years ago, he described nature in a way that resonates strongly with some of the pictures I take, particularly those from the Little Pieces project.

“When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.”

On wilderness, Muir wrote:

“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity, and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.”

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Urban Dwellings And Desert Wanderings

Highway 191 continues south from the Grand Tetons in Wyoming to the desert canyons of southern Utah. The drive is beautiful and it’s good to be back in the desert. The Tetons may be breathtaking, but there’s a heightened anticipation as the landscape turns sandy and red. It feels like coming home.

This trip has been a gradual removal of the conveniences of urban life. From the house to the camper van, we went from several rooms of living space down to one room of fifty square feet. Compared to what I’m used to, I’m living simply. But, those fifty square feet are packed with running water, sink, toilet, bed, futon, stove, heater and electricity – more accomodations than most people living on this planet have. From the camper van to the trail, I have with me only what I can carry on my back: a pack, sleeping pad, sleeping bag, tent, water, some food and a stove. And, the heaviest single item: my camera. I have to plan carefully to only bring that much.

The transition to living out of a backpack takes some discipline. Water is rationed until the next spring can be found, and I can only stay out until I run out of food. The days are hot and the nights cold. I like to stretch out and roll around in my sleep, but the mummy style sleeping bag binds me in like a straightjacket. I suppose this is “roughing it”, but how rough can it be with my high tech, ultra light, weather shedding, water wicking gear?

I am well equipped, but while out in the wilderness, I leave much behind. There’s no internet, no phone, no social network. There’s no career, no mortgage. I’m not concerned about if anyone appreciates how I look or dress or what I own, or how clever I am. Who am I without these things? How can it be, that while in the desert, without these decorations of identity, I can feel so fully alive?

I’ve spent more nights in the desert than any other wilderness climate. Within the scarcity, there is a richness. The rugged twisted juniper trees. The ecstatic explosion of desert flowers. The towering rocks and the stillness. Its inhabitants scrounge for food and water, living close to death yet full of life. “…perhaps that is why life nowhere appears so brave, so bright, so full of oracle and miracle as in the desert”, says Edward Abbey. So much is taken away that what is left is precious. Every bit of it. I re-learn what it is to appreciate. What’s funny is, that I suspect the world outside of the desert is like this too – every bit precious.

What does all this have to do with photography? From what I experience, from who I am, is what I see, becomes the pictures I create. I love that desert.

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