A Transient Rumination

Original Post October 6, 2008

The genesis of my thesis work dealt largely with the physical body in relation to environment. Finding peace and deep understanding about this dynamically changing relationship caused me great consternation. Initially I was driven by a subconscious fear, a mostly undirected, vague, menacing sort of fear that I eventually realized was about the changes in my physical form and the process of figuring out how to be okay with those changes. 

My sense of self has been directly linked to my physical form, at least historically, and along with this link there has been the aforementioned unease simmering away. It was important for me to face this fear of the unknown and to come to terms with the reality of change in our bodies and the disparate relationship between our minds and the body that we inhabit. 

It was with halting steps that I began the journey of a two year project exploring various facets of identity, memory, and time. At some point along the way the morbid fascination with how my body was changing, growing older, and closer to death with each passing day faded away and I began to find peace with the realization that I am not a body. 

This post is probably going to appear nonsensical to the 2 people who may read it, but for me 2 years of work originated with a tiny seed of fear and doubt that led me a place of equanimity. I don’t think I could ask for any more from a project such as this. In the future I’ll be posting some fragments of the writing that helped me find my way.

Original Post September 30, 2008

What is it about the brain? It’s always ahead of our hands and our abilities. The wonderful visions that can be conjured up in a photographers mind-perfect light, perfect composition, a pristine vision of the most perfect moment…yet the reality always falls short, a mere shadow of the perfection in our minds eye. Does it always have to be like that? Is vision always ahead of our ability to execute? 

This phenomenon is something that has happened in my own creative life many times-and appears to be a common theme in most of my students lives as well. According to those who write about art and vision this is apparently usually the case, the brain is consistently more advanced than our abilities. Funny, because we are controlled by the very thing that controls our hands-so how is it that our brain can envision this perfectly rendered world yet all too often cannot convince our bodies to commence in the creation of that perfection? 

Why is it this way?

Original Post August 28, 2008

There is much resistance towards writing, especially when it comes to the type of person who wields a camera. It is an unfortunate situation. Unfortunate, but one that as an educator I must deal with on a consistent basis. Time and time again I have found that those students who put forth the energy to write about their work, even informally, are the ones who know themselves best. I was recently talking with a friend about how we often think the words we put down are not worthy of seeing the light of day.  They aren’t perfect enough, or they aren’t neatly packaged.  Below is a a partial response to that conversation.

Words are not all powerful-they are just as ‘mortal’, just as imperfect as our thoughts. So put them down, let them be on the page. Words don’t need to be all lined up in tidy sentences. Words can indeed just be words. Thoughts are often fragmentary and incomplete. Glimpses of a crystalline idea or a diamond in the rough often flicker through my mind, and without some way of holding onto those thoughts-through the written words, rarely do they become photographs. Words can be the bridge between my imperfect mental process and my imperfect images. Through it all I become something new-something more than what I am right now. The process is fraught with imperfections and things that aren’t tidy, but life is sometimes like that, or rather it is usually like that. It has taken me so long to find this bridge. All too often in the past I neglected the process of writing, finding it too hard to put words down in nice neat packages. While doing this is important in the long run, initially it can be just about consciously articulating those random and incomplete thoughts. The most important thing is to put it down and let the words be what they are.

Original Post August 20, 2008

I was talking with an old student today about the difference between style and voice. We all think that we want style when it comes to our photography. Style is good, it is what drives the capitalistic machine that is America and it is what photographers use to sell product. But when you look deeper at what Style really is and compare it to Voice you can begin to see that style is a veneer on the surface, a ’slick package’ with little substance. Photographers wield style in many ways, through use of Photoshop magic or specific lighting. Certain styles come into fashion and fall out of favor year after year, but what about this other thing called Voice? 

An artist that has a Voice has something that is elemental. Voice is power. Voice is rock solid. Voice never goes out of style.  When a photographer finds out what drives their personal creative process, the beginning of finding a voice can take place. When the craft of photography is mastered the Voice can become clearer. When work is continuously created the Voice becomes louder and can reach a larger audience.  The photographers Voice can grow for decades and it can be applied in many different genres yet the thread of authority in the work will remain. Voice anchors the style and binds the one to the other.