Searching After Wildness - journals of a photographic artist

Fairies Footage

Earlier this week, Wug Laku and I discussed the Where The Fairies Are exhibit as Pete Brown took video.

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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.

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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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Leave Everything To Save It

I was overwhelmed, stressed out and losing motivation. But, there were things to get done. If I could just stay on task the world might not fall apart. I needed to prepare for an art show the coming weekend, there was still bookkeeping to do from the previous show and an approaching deadline for a freelance job. Not enough hours. The house was getting messier too. The lawn, overgrown. Piles of paper around my desk. I was running out of clean clothes. And, it was getting harder to like people, because all people do is generate more stuff to do.

Over breakfast, I mentioned my mood to a friend. Exasperated, I sighed, “Maybe I should take a walk in the woods.” “Yes”, David replied. He looked me deep in the eyes, the way you look at someone when you’re giving serious advice. “You should do that.”

Back at home, I recounted the breakfast conversation to my wife, Hannah. “Yeah, you should take that walk in the woods.” I nodded in agreement and promptly went to my office. I answered a few emails and fired up the accounting software. Sure, it would be nice to take a walk, but I was already behind on my work. It would be irresponsible to fall behind any further.

A few hours later,  Hannah came by. “What are you still doing here?” I blathered some excuses. Feeling defeated, I hopped into the car and drove towards my favorite park. It was painful to leave.

I parked the car, all along feeling sorry for myself. I walked into the woods, down a ravine and found a log by the river. And there I sat, on the log. I became still and watched the water flow by. About an hour passed.

It was just what I needed. Was it the meditation, the change of environment, or the peaceful quality of the woods? I don’t know. But I did know that things were going to be okay. Not only that, but I was grateful.

And then I picked up my camera and took a few pictures. I hadn’t taken a picture in weeks. I came home, lightened. On my camera was Root Swirl, the picture above.

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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.

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What We Don’t Know

I lost the ability to take pictures. Sure, I could still operate a camera, but something was off. I would be looking through the viewfinder, but there was no connection to the subject. I didn’t feel in tune with what I was photographing. Puzzled, I put the camera down and rubbed my head, nursing a dull headache. That headache was now on day three. Or, was it four or five? Maybe I was feeling stressed. That would explain the headaches and a lack of connectivity.

Two days later, I picked up the camera again. The headache was still there. I pointed the camera at the bulletin board in my office and tried to compose and focus. Something wasn’t right. No matter how I tried to focus the lens, the subject still felt disconnected. It just wouldn’t come into focus. Those words rolled around in my mind: wouldn’t come into focus. Into focus…..

Ah. I twiddled the diopter adjustment on the viewfinder, and guess what? I could see again. But, I never needed the diopter adjustment before. I ran into the restroom, and swapped my left contact lens with my right. And, the world become clear. For the past week, I had been wearing my contact lenses in the wrong eyes! That also explains the headaches. I felt like a doofus. But I didn’t mind one bit. With one minute of effort, I overcame both the headaches and my distance from the camera.

Interesting though, that it took a whole week to notice. Even though I couldn’t achieve a focused image in the camera’s viewfinder, I still didn’t guess that my eyes were off. I just assumed I had some kind of mental block. How subjective it must be to see something. How much needs to come together for me to take a specific picture? How much is going on physically and mentally that I’m not aware of? How much of these out-of-awareness criteria is holding me back from becoming a better photographer? How much of it enables me to be the photographer I already am?

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Proofing Prints and HP Z3100 Support

Last week, I made a 22″x33″ print of one my recent canyon images. When I was reviewing the print, I noticed some over saturated reds along the horizon, and a spot from sensor dust. I can’t help to feel but a little bit defeated when I need to redo a large print. I suppose I could have caught the dust spot and reds while I was proofing the image on my monitor, but some things you don’t see until you see. I’ve spent the past couple of weeks looking at a 10″x15″ print of the same image, and never noticed those two issues until I made the bigger print. Especially the dust spot. After you notice a dust spot in an image, it just glares at you.

I made adjustments on the image yesterday and send it off to my printer, a 24″ HP Z3100. The print gets about a third of the way through, and stops. Ugh, I’ll have to redo the print again. The printer’s display informs me that one of the ink cartridges, the Gloss Enhancer, is faulty. Not empty, but faulty. The cartridge is still under warranty, so I call HP support.

HP’s automated answering system asks me what product I’m using and puts me on hold for awhile. I get transferred to a real person, and she promptly asks me, “What product are you calling about?” Why is it that every answering system for any company I call asks for up front information and when you finally talk to a real person, the first thing they ask is what you’ve already told the robo voice? Every time.

Anyways, I provide my information: Name, address, phone, email, printer serial number, printer model number. This takes a few minutes and then I’m put on hold. I’m transferred to the DesignJet printers division. I give all my information again, another five minutes. It takes five minutes because I have to repeat and spell out each word multiple times.  And then, I finally get to explain why I called.  ”I’ve got a faulty gloss enhancer ink cartridge”, I say. “It’s under warrenty, can you send me a new one?” “Sure”, she says, and asks for more info. She asks for the letter on the cartridge. It’s an E, which stands for Gloss Enhancer. “Are you sure”, she asks? She asks me two more times to tell her the letter on the cartridge. “E”, I say. “It’s the Gloss Enhancer.” Hmm, she ponders. She’s stumped. I’m bewildered. I’m talking to the tech support within the DesignJet printer division of HP, and they don’t recognize the name of the ink cartridge that goes into their product. She says she needs to find some more information and puts me on hold for a couple of minutes. I’m listen to the pleasant hold music. She returns to the phone and says, “Ahh, you need the Gloss Enhancer cartridge.” Yes, I say. “I need the Gloss Enhancer cartridge.” 

She says they’ll ship it to me, but she doesn’t know when it will ship. She’ll send me an email. That was some twenty hours ago, and I haven’t received the email. I have two exhibits coming up and need the printer working – working soon would be good. So, I went to an online merchant and placed an order.

Ah well. At least I didn’t have to fight to convince them that the faulty cartridge fell under warranty.

Update: I just got a FedEx package. It’s the Gloss Enhancer ink cartridge, overnighted from HP. Nice. No email notice though.

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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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Having Eyes to See

I like being able to see things. I’m extremely near sighted. Without my glasses or contact lenses, the world is a blurry mush, like walking around in one of Monet’s paintings. Each morning, I get to step between these worlds, from the undefined to the crisp as I put my contact lenses on. Once the contacts are in, I mostly take this crisp vision for granted. Except, every couple of months, when I go to the doctor for a glaucoma checkup. Glaucoma is an eye condition that eats away at your vision. It starts at the edges and works its way in. At each of those visits, I go in a little anxious, hoping that I won’t be hearing bad news.

A couple of days ago, I got an irritation in my right eye, so I’ve been wearing my glasses rather than the contacts. That would be fine, except my glasses are a prescription behind. I can mostly see, but not the fine details. I can see fine enough to walk around, but not the subtleties. The details come to a blur just as I reach out to them, like grapes just beyond my reach. I feel disabled. Something vital to the way I make photographs is gone. It’s frustrating.

I’m currently in Port Huron, Michigan, at the beginning of a two month photographic road trip. Rather than taking pictures, I’ve spent the day trying to find an ophthalmologist with an opening in their schedule.

When people view my photographs, sometimes they’ll comment that I have “good eyes”. On days like today, I mourn a little over the goodness of my eyes. It is really good to be able to see. By seeing I get to make pictures and by making pictures, I strive to see the world even deeper.

Two women came to visit once when I was exhibiting my work. One of the women had her arm linked around the other’s as if being guided. As they viewed the photographs, one of the women would pause to comment on each image. “This photograph has several small branches that are dancing around each other. There’s an airy softness, but there’s also crisps bits pink as the lines lead to small flowers.” After a few images, it occurred to me what was happening and I was deeply honored. Her companion was blind. The sighted woman was being her eyes, so that they could both see the photographs. She was, in the truest sense, giving my work to her friend. They had eyes to see.

Update: I got in to see an eye doctor, and everything is fine. He pulled a bit of fleshy growth (ugh!) out of my eye and put me on some antibiotic drops. Contacts can go back in the next morning. Onward to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

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Photography and Big Prints

I delivered a group of photographs to a gallery today. Two of the pieces were printed at 33″x50″, larger than I’ve ever printed before. Now, I’ve heard a range of rants against large prints: Big prints are just a fad. You don’t have the intimacy that you do with small prints. I’ve heard that large prints are just compensations for ego, shouting out “pay attention to me!”

When I started photography, an 11×14 was a really big print. The first time I framed an image to 18″x24″, the final result seemed impressively humongous. I felt dangerous working with such a large piece of glass. Why, a few months earlier my largest images were 5×7’s and that was splurging. That changed last year when I bought a printer that uses 24 inch wide rolls of paper. These “huge” prints only seem so large because photography as a medium has, for most of it’s history, been tech-limited to printing smaller. Bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better, but smaller doesn’t either. They’re just different. And, with different options we can express different things. We’re used to paintings in large and small sizes. We’ll get used to it in photography as well. 

Now, I’m not dismissing the small photograph. There’s something precious to holding a photograph in your hand and taking in the detail. However, looking at my images printed big, the size just feels right. Especially in the images with all the little pieces. There’s enough detail to let each little piece be it’s own entity, and enough presence to stand back to observe the overall motion in the composition. Yeah, I just love those big prints.

By the way, one hazard of printing big is framing big. I spent a couple of days last week cutting two inch strips off the long side of 32″x40″ glass sheets. I had to give myself a little pep talk before each cut. You need to have a cool demeanor when cutting glass, ’cause if you get frustrated there’s nothing safe around to punch. I had a couple of cuts go wrong and felt doomed to losing every piece of glass in the case. After the next cut came out perfect, I leaned back in a sigh of thankful relief. By the time I was done, I had broken just the right amount to have enough left over to frame everything. Whew.

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