Searching After Wildness - journals of a photographic artist

If Photographs Were Stories

You have the opportunity to stand at the rim of a desert canyon. Or, the shore of a mountain lake. The location could even be the yard around your home. You can also pick the type of light and weather. What would you choose? What kind of picture would you want to make? Would you like dramatic clouds during the stillness of the early morning light? Or, perhaps the golden light of sunset with a wide view of the landscape.

Now, think of your favorite stories. It could be a novel, a movie, or something you heard from your neighbor. What makes these stories connect with you? Do they contain humor, beauty, oppression, grieving, peace, confusion, disaster, sacrifice, healing? Probably.

My favorite stories seem to start with a nobody main character. The protagonist is on a journey, it could be great or small. There’s struggle and then some sort of redemption. The ending could be happy or sad, but something has changed and I, the audience, have changed as well.

Let’s consider again the hypothetical nature photograph. I’ve spent the past couple of weeks in the high desert, so I’ll take the canyon option. So many of the nature photographs that we are exposed to have an idealized, on vacation, I’d-like-to-be-there quality. If these photographs were to be stories, I’d tell you about lying on my back on a sand bench, falling asleep as I gaze at the stars though a frame of high canyon walls. Mmm.. that’s good.

But there’s more than just that. What about all those other elements that make up the stories we love? That kind of photograph would be just the happy ending destination. How many of your favorite stories consist of just a nicely resolved destination with no journey? What would my and your photographs look like if they contained more of the visual equivalent of a good story?

Hey, we’re an instant gratification society. Give us the destination and screw the journey. The comfort without pain. Who needs change, just gimme the cozy goodness. Interestingly, our great stories are not like this.

Photojournalism, portraiture and street photography are good at covering this fuller range. What would this look like in nature photography? What is a great nature photograph that goes beyond presenting an ending?

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A Walk to Taggart Lake

It’s been drizzling rain for days. Typically, I would appreciate photographing in the even, moody light provided by overcast days. But after days of hiking in the rain, a little sun would do much to warm my face and lift my spirits.

We’re driving south on highway 191, winding downhill from Yellowstone to Jackson Hole. Hannah is driving, and I’m gaping in awe. The clouds shift from a uniform, gray ceiling into billowing, moody islands, as if being shattered by the warmth above. Shafts of sunlight stream down. The light, delighted to greet land, kisses a spotlight on Shadow Mountain to the east. Through the clouds, there are hints of jagged, snow covered monoliths to my right. I can make out the base of a mountains, the Grand Tetons. But they are shrouded in mist, looming…hiding.

There’s public land up in Shadow Mountain, where you can camp freely for up to sixteen days at a time. Just north of Moose Junction, turn east on Antelope Flats, past the bison herd and up a dirt road through pines and aspens. We find a spot to park the camper van, but there’s a half eaten deer carcass nearby. After the bison encounter at Yellowstone, there’s no need to be around when a bear or coyotes return. We drive on and find a spot overlooking the valley and the Grand Tetons beyond.

We wake up to snow. Wonderful, cleansing snow blankets all we can see. The clouds are back, but this time I don’t care.

I love taking pictures in the snow. In a way, it feels like cheating. The snow simplifies the landscape. I can compose images considering the foreground, and the background is automatically uncluttered, clean and whitewashed.

We drove into the Grand Tetons and hiked a trail to Taggart Lake. As we walked, I imagined creating a portfolio of images from just one walk. I took about around a hundred pictures that day, more than usual. After editing, would I have enough images for a worthwhile portfolio? I could hope.

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Take Me to Your Bison Overlord

We were telling a friend about our plans for a road trip and she told us of her visit out west, to Yellowstone National Park. She was driving through the park when she found the way blocked by several parked cars. A crowd had left their vehicles to observe a herd of bison mulling around the road. One man, eager to take a picture, gets closer and closer to one of the bulls. The crowd shouts warnings to him, “Hey, I don’t think you should be getting that close. That bison looks a little nervous….” But he continues closer, unconcerned. I imagine him with eyes open wide in anticipation. He’s ready to commune with this icon of the American West. Just as he’s getting close enough, the bull snorts, lowers it’s head and charges forward. Wham! The would be photographer flips into the air and lands several yards away. I suppose that’s one way to communicate.

That story was on my mind last week as we drove into Yellowstone. We drive through the park and to a ranger’s station to ask about the back country. To get a backpacking permit, the park service requires you to watch a video that, among other things, describes possible wildlife encounters. While in the park, you may come across bison, elk, moose and bears. In Yellowstone, there are black bears and grizzly bears. To avoid surprising a bear you should sing songs and clap as you hike. The video shows a group of jolly hikers, singing and clapping through the woods. They look a little silly. They look a lot silly. There was no footage of the hikers encountering a bear, so I guess it worked. And as far as bison are concerned, I’m not planning on walking up to one within goring range, so I should be OK.

Hannah and I get the permits, strap on our packs and head into the woods. We joke about the bear avoidance tactics. We’re here to be in the wild, not to engage in some hi-dee-ho summer camp stroll. About ten minutes in, we come across some large animal tracks. Grizzly bear tracks. I give Hannah a concerned look. She looks back, a little panicked and asks, “What songs do you know?”

Cold gray rain falls throughout the day. We walk through fields of boiling acidic pools. Geysers erupt. The trail leads us through a snowy, icy pass across the Continental Divide and we arrive at a beautiful mountain lake. Birds call out and squirrels scurry. We sing and clap. There are no bear sightings.

The next evening, we come across two bison as we approach our camp site. I want to avoid being flipped into the air, so we walk away into the trees and wait. Twenty minutes later, the bison move on. We setup the tent and start preparing dinner. It’s been a long wet day, and we’re tired. Just as I manage to get a fire going, we spot one of the bison. Its the bigger one, with horns. I’ve heard that a bison can weigh up to two thousand pounds, and this one looked it. It munches on grass and edges closer to our camp. Good thing I got the fire going, that should keep him from getting any closer. He comes closer. The bison starts rubbing up against a tree, an aggressive behavior. He comes even closer, about twenty feet away. Hannah and I, now standing, slowly back away. He walks right up next to the fire. The camp is no longer ours. It was never ours, says the buffalo.

We circle around to the edge of the camp site. The bull is still there. The air chills as the sun starts to set. Hannah whispers, “Stay right there” and starts crawling toward our backpacks, toward the bison. I stand there, dumbfounded in my manliness. Hannah is brave, hardy and six months pregnant. She inches forward. I hold my breath. She sneaks on unnoticed toward the bison and scurries back with packs in hand. We scramble back to the trail, leaving the tent and half of our supplies behind. Ahead of us is a three mile walk through the dark. We utilize bear avoidance tactics as we go and arrive back at the van.

We’re back at the camp site the next morning. The ground around the camp is scraped and turned over, but otherwise everything was as we left it. We pack up our things and walk back out of the woods, grateful.

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From Michigan to Wyoming

The past week has been a blur of driving, day hikes, high winds and grasslands. We left Michigan on October 26th and spent the next several days traveling. From Marquette, Michigan to Minneapolis, Minnesota to South Dakota, the realm of Wall Drugs and the Badlands.

After miles and miles of grasslands, the ground suddenly opens to the Badland’s jaggedly eroded chasms. Bright sunny days and cold nights. We arrived in high winds, blowing up to 70 miles per hour. It took a consistent effort to stay standing when walking around. Not that the landscape seemed to care. The wind moved little, with the exception of swaying grass and the random tumbleweed.

From Badlands to Devil’s Tower, to rainy days in Yellowstone. The roads in Yellowstone National Park closed for the winter yesterday morning, pushing us onward to the Grand Tetons and Jackson Hole – beautiful to Yellowstone’s bizarre. Ah yeah… Yellowstone is bizarre. Stories to come.

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The Desert

At the beginning of May, Hannah and I spent two weeks backpacking in southern Utah, around Zion and Grand Staircase – Escalante. We were there just long enough to wet our appetites. On the way back, I picked up Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire. How is it that I haven’t read this book before?

I love that desert, I do. There is much about this world that is wild, untamed and fantastic. Go. Take a long walk and breathe it in. Your life may depend on it.

And then, there’s Niagara Falls. Makes me want to cry.

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Through The Veil

More of spring from yesterday’s afternoon walk. These tiny web resolutions just don’t do images like this justice. I’m looking forward to printing this one big.

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The Trees Dance as the Redbud Sets

It’s spring. The trees are blooming all around town. I love it.

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Taking Pictures In The Rain

There are certain types of weather that get me itching to be outside – the good weather. It started as warm, sunny, cloudless days, with a gentle breeze. A few years ago, I bought a stunt kite, the kind with two strings that allows you steer the kite into acrobatic maneuvers. I could also reliably steer it into the ground. Good weather now included windy weather. I’d see the trees swaying and itch to be out.

With photography, good weather started with the magic hour, the golden light around sunrise and sunset. Then, it became the soft light of cloudy days. Then it was harsh light filtered through leaves.

Lately though, the good weather has been with the rain. The damp earth smells good. The world changes in front of me as drops land and slide and glisten. The rain patters as drops land on my jacket hood, like a drumbeat to the soundtrack in my head. It’s me, the woods and my camera. My camera is wet, as are my nose, and my knees, and the trees. Through the puddles I play.

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Little Pieces All Together

If you have been following my work, you may have noticed that many of the images depict lots of small bits of things: leaves, grass and bits of trees. They are abstractions of organized chaos, if you will. I started making photographs like this about two years ago. I didn’t start out seeking to make these kinds of images. It was after the fact, as I reviewed my shots, that I would notice I was attracted to these types of compositions.

Just about a year ago, I tried to explain why I was drawn to these coordinated little pieces, which resulted in a blog post.

…There is something really amazing about orchestras and choirs. Perhaps it’s the large group of people, each with their own talents, textures, voices and parts. When they all move together, they create something wonderful, something larger and outside of themselves…. This fascination has tumbled into an appropriation – at first subconscious and now intentional. I’m viewing nature and considering the orchestra.

Now that I had a notion of where I was going, I no longer had a random trend. I had a project. In the past couple of months, I’ve been editing down the images to a smaller, cohesive portfolio. And now, I’m finally at a point where I feel it’s ready to share. The project is called Little Pieces All Together. You can view the images, along with a statement about the project, in the gallery area of my website.

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Beauty and Silence

At the recommendation of Paul Buzti, I picked up a copy of Creative Authenticity, by Ian Roberts. The book is a collection of essays about artistic vision. The first chapter explores the role of beauty in art.

With my images, I attempt to express beauty. Not necessarily pretty, but beauty in a deeper sense, one that expresses truth. As an aside, by truth, I don’t mean the same thing as fact. Truth and fact may overlap, but they don’t have to. Statistics are facts, and yet they can easily lie. A parable, or myth can be a work of fiction, but be resoundingly true.

OK, so I’m exploring beauty. Among the many reactions to my work, one that keeps coming up goes something like this: The person sees a piece and immediately exclaims, “Oh, wow.. that is so beautiful! Gee, isn’t that amazing… You’ve done a great job!” And then, just as quickly, walks away. I enjoy getting compliments. And, I’m thankful when someone appreciates something that I’ve created. But, this use of the word “beautiful” is different than what I’m striving for.

As languages age, words change in meaning. In this case, beautiful is losing meaning.

From Creative Authenticity:

I like Ken Weber’s definition, that beauty “suspends the desire to be elsewhere”. In the face of great art we experience transcendence….

In the face of beauty, we are silenced, because beauty expresses silence. In lavishing attention on the object of the artwork, the consciousness of the artist can touch something divine, some transcendental quality, and that transcendent element now resides in the artwork. How do we know it? We feel it. We experience it. Our heart responds to that sublime quality the artist infused into the work.

Now, my work may not yet be to the point that I can expect people to call it beauty. But, that’s what I strive for.

A few weeks ago, Hannah and I spent a few days backpacking in Red River Gorge. The weather was cold and the packs were heavy (ugh.. a good portion of that weight is camera gear). I spent a good amount of time during those few days responding with silence. I would come up to an amphitheater carved out in the rock, several stories high, and stand in wonder and awe. I had no desire to be elsewhere.

A few weeks before that, during a road trip, I was at a rest area in Tennessee. There was a woods next to the parking lot. I ran over to the woods, spread out my arms, and took a long deep breath. I felt an urge to run into and just breathe in those woods. I was at a rest area. And yet, the beauty was there waiting.

In light of this, one of the highest compliments someone could give would go something like this: the person would come up to a piece, spend several minutes looking at it in silence, turn to me and in the slightest of whispers, say thank you. And then, walk away. That would be the deepest sense of wonderful.

I suppose they could also buy the piece. But um… that’s a different topic.

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