How much do we project our interior world on the canvas of the world at large?

<p>re Julie</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age,<br />Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while<br /> they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.<br>

—Whitman</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I don’t know if this is the kind of response you’re looking for, Jack, but the fundamental change in perception for me came from living in east Africa for a year: things look very different from other points of view, and others’ points of view can be just as valid (or more so) as the ones I showed up with. There’s an extraordinary richness to be had in trying to wrap one’s mind around other points of view. That translates to every aspect of life, and the connection to photography should be pretty obvious. I’ve attached an example of some visual exploring I did a few days ago: edited versions of 4 of 20 images I’d made of a rather boring stick. The stick had grabbed my attention for some reason, and I was making the photos to figure out what it was about it that had caught me. And by “figure out” I don’t mean analytically, but more at a gut level, though there was a lot of “what would happen if…” going on. A key point here is that none of these images show the stick as I was seeing it with my eyes, though there’s no editing here other than cropping and adjustments of clarity, contrast, and exposure. With each frame I was trying to bring out a different aspect of the stick or its context, and I was aware of how I was going to treat it in post to emphasize that aspect. So the relevance of the photos to a shift in perception: (1) a shift in point of view results in very different perceptions of what reality looks like; (2) the reality recorded by each image is a reality that was not visible to me as I made the original images; (3) the aspects of the stick that I was recognizing as image-worthy were the ones that for some reason were resonating with me, based on what feels right to me (inner world exerting its influence), and (4) the stick is no longer there, so the only record of what it looked like are a series of images that don’t really look like what it looked like to a human eye—to all of you, reality is based just on the images; if you’d seen only one of those images, you’d have a very limited view of what the stick was capable of looking like--you're seeing a rendition of a stick excerpted from reality in a way that feels right to me according to the dictates of my own inner world. I need to add that the caption here is a tongue in cheek homage to one of my favorite poems, “Thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird,” by Wallace Stevens—that poem implicitly makes my points a lot better than I can, and is definitely worth a read (<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/45236">https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/45236</a>)</p><div></div>

<p>Henry Wessel prefaces his new book with an excerpt from <em>Thirteen Ways</em>. He ends with three verses of the <em>Anecdote of the Jar</em> (also by Stevens; you know, "I placed a jar in Tennessee ...") which I think is equally relevant to this thread. That's the only text in his book. (Wessel is not well-known, but is greatly admired by many critics.)</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>The sweaty players in the game of life always have more fun than the supercilious spectators.</em> —William Feather</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Jack, one of the best pieces of advice I've been given was by a piano teacher who suggested I not memorize pieces of music by rote and repetition. I was to take the score away from the piano and learn it, internalize it, understand the progressions and why certain choices might have been made by the composer, get my fingers to play it in the air or on the table so I wasn't reliant either on the feel of the keys or the sound of the notes. I found it a much more secure way to memorize music, where the music got remembered in my head and not just my fingers. Used to be, for example, that if I made one mistake when playing by memory, it would throw me completely off, because I only had a superficial working memory of the pieces. Now, a mistake wouldn't be so devastating, since I knew the score from having learned it thoroughly rather than merely through repetition.</p>

<p>Now, I do a lot of my seeing when I'm not necessarily looking and a lot of photography when I'm not necessarily holding a camera, by thinking things through. Often, rather than wanting to come across something by chance or surprise, I go out looking not necessarily for a specific subject but for a photographic situation that either fulfills or pushes forward a way of seeing I've been formulating or thinking about in advance. So, for me, while the world or outside influences will often defy my expectations and cause me to see in new ways, it can be as or more important to have created a space for myself to see in some desired way and then find ways to make that seeing palpable and real.</p>

<p>Leslie above said: “The stick had grabbed my attention <em>for some reason</em>," For me that’s how it always happens. Whether I have a camera or not, potential photographs “grab my attention” even when I am not looking for things to photograph. "For some reason" is the important thing. Maybe that happens when we are "open" and being "aware." When I do have a camera I can widen, so to speak, my awareness to be even more sensitive to the scenes that grab my attention. I like the way Jon Kabat-Zinn describes Awareness in his lectures on mindfulness. <a href="

/> Couple quotes from this lecture I used in a talk in the hospital where I work on using mindfulness in health care encounters:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>“Awareness is boundless and infinitely available in every moment no matter what you’re <em>doing</em>. So if the doing is in some sense coming out of being, out of awareness. . .”<br /><br /> “Yes, we can formulate goals to get from here to there, but if we don’t know here, then the there is going to be colored by what we are unfamiliar with and unwilling to look at.”</p>

</blockquote>

<p>So, in other words, maybe for me it’s the shift from thinking, which is focused, to a more general awareness, which then opens the door to the parts of my being that “see” the potential images out there. That’s the best way I can describe it.</p>

<p>A simple example of what happens to me a lot occurred this evening when I went to the coop to buy some tomato sauce. It is foggy this evening and the trees under the street lamp in the parking lot lit up two trees. It immediately caught my attention and I "saw" a photograph. Usually I just move on, but tonight I went back and took the picture for an illustration here. Its not a "great" picture, but like Leslie, its an example of how the world "grabs my attention."</p><div></div>

<p>The strange thing is that I've been going to this store since it was built over 20 years ago! So I've seen these trees since they were planted, at all times of day in all seasons. Only tonight did I "see" them like this. Go figure.</p>

<p>Steve, I think you're too close in your narrative. What I take to be our "interior world" is our assumptions and beliefs that lie <em>before</em>, or frame, what you've described about your picture making. The assumptions and beliefs that you <em>don't</em> think about, that you don't even notice as you're shooting.</p>

<p>Step back and look at this man on his way to buy tomatoes at night. It's night but there are no starry heavens above, no gods, no demons, no moon, no fear. Two small, tidy trees and two reigning artificial lights. Who is this man? What kind of world does he <em>assume</em> himself to be in? [notice my projections in using 'tidy' and 'reigning' in my description]</p>

<p>Likewise, I think Leslie is too close. Step back. Imagine watching this person taking pictures of dead sticks in the water. What the heck is she doing? What kind of world view does she have in which dead sticks in the water are of any interest at all? What are her assumptions; what does she <em>not</em> think of at all because she lives <em>within</em> it?</p>

<p>I have a number of books on West African photography (I realize Africa is a huge continent and its absurd to equate West with East, but I'm going to do it anyway). Every single picture contains people, and in most cases, many of their possessions as well. Dead sticks? Not once.</p>

<p>One more thing, Jack . . . Your first post of 01/18 contains a statement that you're interested in how a photographer sees things. To me, in deciding to shoot a photograph, seeing isn't limited to human physiology. It's an act of consciousness that brings to bear all of the experience a photographer has had previously - as influenced by a number of factors ( socio-political, familial, etc.). This experience includes self-reflection. </p>

Michael. That inner world is like baggage we carry around with us. It is formative and effects our view but it

also clips our wings and keeps us earthbound. It's transcending this world view, finding a new synthesis, that

is always my aim as daunting and frustrating as that sometimes is. It certainly has a lot to do with consciousness which to me is practically a synonym for

awareness. But consciousness is a state and more than simply the sum of all our parts. When you say "It's

an act of consciousness..." I think you must be referring to intent, the absolute certainty that the question and

the answer are intertwined. When we surrender our ego (which sets us apart from the world out there) and

see ourselves as just another pixel in the great picture, we can experience the world anew and surprising

possibilities spring into view. I think the reason we are seldom truly surprised by our photography is because we are too

often trying to reinforce our closely held world view and fit the new within the parameters of the already known and accepted.

The great street photographer Garry Winogrand often said he liked taking pictures because it was as close

as he could get to not existing. In the few videos I've see, he seemed completely absorbed in the act of

photographing, almost frenetic. Any other thoughts - all the noise and chatter and internal dialogue - seemed

to have been banished - at least temporarily. As he said, "I get totally out of myself". The body of our knowledge and experience

certainly play a large role in the act of creation but they are not creation itself but the matrix from which the

creative act springs.

 

That's the problem with dissertations like the above, before you know it you've burned a couple of hours.

It's like a mental workout both as refreshing and tiring as a trip to the gym but definitely worthwhile in

clarifying your thoughts.

Steve - That's a terrific picture and one I would have been proud to have taken. It's always surprising when the

known reveals itself in a new light - quite literally in this instance. It reminds me of an incident that also involved a tree and that happened to

me back at the dawn of time, when I was 27 or so. I was doing "found art" sculpture at the time and didn't even

own a camera. One night I was walking to a friend's house to play Pong (You do remember Pong, don't you,

the first of the video games? That alone tells you how long ago it was.) It was winter and as I walked along the

sidewalk, I saw a bare tree, it's branches back lit by the light from a street lamp. I think it was the first time I

really appreciated the symmetry, exquisite rhythm and fractal beauty of the branches. It was a gift, a moment's

awareness, and that brief experience impressed itself upon my memory to such an extent that I'm relating it to

you over 45 years later. I think these little moments, if one appreciates them, are like seeds that grow and bear

fruit in their own time.

<p>Based on my personal experience, and as shown by my example of “finding” a photograph, I struggle to grasp the idea of “projecting” our inner experience on “the canvas of the world at large.” I think Julie is saying this is something we do before we take the picture, perhaps our beliefs and so on. I struggle because I am not conscious of that aspect. We obviously have to have our own beliefs, preferences, learnings, personal experiences, memories, etc. but it doesn’t have to be conscious. Its just there, forming the unique entity that defines <em>me</em>, as Jack states: “The body of our knowledge and experience certainly play a large role in the act of creation but they are not creation itself but the matrix from which the creative act springs.” As I walk through the world’s canvas, my awareness is stimulated by what I see. My uniqueness forms a <em>gestalt</em> with the visual world around me when just the right stimulation occurs. My job is to be <em>open</em> in my awareness in order to be sensitive to this event, and to capture it if I can. <br /> Jack’s quote by Gary Winogrand is quite familiar to most of us, I’m sure: getting lost in our craft. I know I can intentionally “turn off” my mental chatter and worldly connections at will when I am in the act of concentrating visually on the world, and in a sense, losing awareness of myself, as Winogrand is referring to. I do this when I have a camera and I am intentionally waiting for that magical gestalt to form with the visual world outside of me. But, in my everyday life, like going to the store, that gestalt can still happen out of the blue, so to say. I have no control over that. I think that’s because we can never really <em>turn off</em> who we are. I also know I am a “creative” person in a broad sense. I get ideas all the time that turn out to be valuable across a wide range of applications, typically when I run into a road block or see a problem that needs solving. So for me the photographic ideas I get visually are just one facet of who I am as a creative individual. I particularly enjoy photography because it is outside my work, home life and all the other areas where I have to solve problems. I just do it for the fun, and, because those photographs just keep popping up in my awareness even when I am going to the store to buy tomato sauce.</p>

<p>It does seem like the key idea here is mindfulness—being present in such a way that we’re not blocking our own view, and maybe seeing things in a way that separates what we know about “content”—the trees that Steve watched grow up—from what our eyes tell us about the magic of that light on those forms. Or maybe for others, quite the opposite: in a way that melds the content with the light and form in a way that provides a whole different kind of insight. But I know that when I was photographing the stick, I wasn’t seeing a stick. I was seeing light and dark and color and line and shape, and feeling tension and balance and harmony and discord, and not really thinking about those elements at all. I was snapping the shutter when things felt right. And that calls to mind Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of “flow”: "being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost." To me that sounds a lot like what Garry Winogrand was describing. Csikszentmihalyi’s model suggests that flow is achieved when the challenge is in balance with the ability—you’re essentially surfing on your skill as a photographer. The interesting point there is that flow can be achieved at any skill level if that balance is there. It also strikes me that there’s a potentially huge overlap between the concept of “flow” and the ideas of “joy of creating” and the need for “self expression.” (And I also like that photo a lot, Steve!)</p>

<p>Leslie, I agree wholeheartedly with your post above. I love the idea of "flow." I also love your reference to playing jazz. I've loved jazz since I was a pre-teen, when I discovered Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Dave Brubeck and many others. It was the act of improvisation that I resonated with so much. I took up Tenor Sax myself in high school and college, and played with my rock band buddies in my twenties. Yeah, the creative act that "flows" seemingly "on top" of thought itself. It has to be grounded on experience and skill, however, or what jazz musicians refer to as "chops." There are people looking at the brain with MRI scans to try to figure out what is happening in the brain during acts of creativity. Here's one study you might enjoy: "This is Your Brain on Jazz. . ."<br>

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/this_is_your_brain_on_jazz_researchers_use_mri_to_study_spontaneity_creativity<br>

Here's another MRI study of creativity using rappers: <br>

http://www.nature.com/news/brain-scans-of-rappers-shed-light-on-creativity-1.11835</p>

<p>Jack, look what you've gotten us into!</p>

Thanks, Steve, happy to oblige. I had replied to Leslie's comment earlier or at least tried to but I kep getting an "Unable to post" message Maybe they don't want Leslie and I too get too close! Anyway, I'll try again.

Leslie - Thanks for your thoughts and the photos you posted. Some of your comments resonated with me.

"There’s an extraordinary richness to be had in trying to wrap one’s mind around other points of view. That

translates to every aspect of life, and the connection to photography should be pretty obvious." This to me

seems an intelligent observation but it's my experience that this is not how most of the world sees it. We

seem bent on hanging

onto our world view in constant competition with those who surround us. Butting heads leaves little room for

creative

conversation, developing new and deeper understandings or personal growth. We don't spend much time or

energy

in trying to understand why others might have different views of things. We're simply quite sure that we're

right and

"they" just don't get it.

 

(I tried but I still can't post the rest of this comment though I don't know why they won't accept it. I'll try again later)

<p>The above comments, to me, seem to be mixing up creativity with doing something well. They're not the same thing at all.</p>

<p>To my eye, both Steve's and Leslie's pictures are good, but both fit very comfortably, even complacently into fairly conservative manifestations of the current 'game' of photography in the cultures in which they live. They are 'playing' the game well — maybe semi-pro rather than at high school level — but they are very securely within the bounds and the understood parameters of how current 'good' photography is 'played.'</p>

<p>I'm not denigrating what was described (a well-played game is a pleasure to watch precisely <em>because</em> I know the game), but neither Leslie nor Steve are, to my mind, in any way escaping the bounds of their internal worlds. The unconsciously assimilated 'game' of current photography is very much framing their acts, to my eye.</p>

<p>Thanks, Steve - those are fascinating studies [the gist: during periods of creative activity, the areas of the brain associated with planned activity and inhibition become less active, while those associated with self-expression and “activities that convey individuality” become more active; cognitive control is dialed back while the ideas are happening, then dialed back up as the ideas are turned into expressions of the ideas. And because the cognitive control is dialed back, “the performance could seem to its creator to ‘have occurred outside of conscious awareness’”—that last point really echoes my experience in creative endeavors.] [i was also completely immersed in playing and writing music for a while, Steve--exhilarating times!] Those papers led me to a follow-up study that looked at beginning and experienced poets and found that the experts were better able to switch off the cognitive control than the novices were.</p>

<p>So the challenge seems to be how to get into the state where ideas are flowing. Like you, Steve, picking up a camera is a pretty good ticket to visual awareness for me, but I notice that it has to be a comfortably familiar camera so I’m not hung up on trying to persuade the technology to do what I want it to. Intent is a big component, too—the time spent standing in lines or on long drives goes by painlessly if I’ve consciously switched over into the “seeing” mode. And then there are those wonderful moments like your trip to the grocery store, where the visual world asserts itself and invites you in. It also seems like creativity in one aspect of experience makes it easier to be creative in other aspects—maybe one gets addicted to feeling “flow” or the “joy of creating something” or “self expression” and so is more motivated to try new things that might get us there, or maybe it’s that one gets to be good at switching off the cognitive control at will once a certain level of proficiency is attained in a new activity.</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>Art is all a matter of personality.</em> —Marcel Duchamp</p>

</blockquote>

<blockquote>

<p><em>I am interested in ideas, not merely in visual products</em>. —Marcel Duchamp</p>

</blockquote>

<blockquote>

<p><em>No art is less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and the study of the great masters.</em> —Edgar Degas</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I hope that if I care about my subject matter a lot will follow from that. I'm after something personal (which includes something communal, IMO) that feels in some ways authentic. There are many, many ways to accomplish that.</p>

<p>Winogrand may feel like he "gets totally out of" himself, but it doesn't look like he does. His work has a consistency that shows me he's an author and not just a pixel. I have no problem with authorship, which bears a personality (maybe a better word than ego, which has a lot attached to it).</p>

<p>I'm content to be who I am, part of which is being part of what we are. I embrace that nexus. I'm happy to add a meaningful and sincere voice to a shared vocabulary. I don't make photos to lose myself or to separate myself.</p>

<p>Phil, I can relate to what you're saying and like the way you put it.</p>

<p>The way I'd talk about photographing for me is that the "flow" is the bigger picture, the comings and goings of life, the back and forth between reflection and spontaneity, between thought and action, between feeling and form.</p>

<p>So I may shoot in a more reflective way sometimes and in a less reflective way other times. My choosing of which photo of the day speaks to me may be very thoughtful and deliberative or it may be a gut thing. Same for my post processing. Throughout the process, from initial idea (if there is one) to shooting, to choosing, to editing, to presenting, I do some things intentionally and with forethought and some things spontaneously and with more gut response. They're not the same things each time.</p>

<p>Sometimes, when I go out for long walks, I forget I'm even walking. Other times, I find myself actually concentrating on the act of walking and thinking very self-consciously (or self-awarely) about my walking. When I do think about myself walking, I don't find that I start tripping over myself. The same is true when I think about what and how I'm photographing, which happens sometimes. It doesn't have to get in my way.</p>

<p><strong>"That inner world is like baggage we carry around with us. It is formative and effects our view but it also clips our wings and keeps us earthbound."</strong> <br>

<br>

Jack, there's no doubt that each of us has some baggage to carry. Some have more than others. If I didn't have the good fortune to be able to rid myself (at least partially) of certain pieces of baggage, in all likelihood, you wouldn't find me participating in this discussion. You wouldn't find me sharing photographs I've taken or commenting on yours. Indeed, you may not find me at all. My baggage goes wherever I go, but it doesn't keep me earthbound all the time. Sometimes I'm able to break loose to go exploring.</p>

<p>I'm also relating strongly to what you say, Phil--I experience additional periods of discovery and exploration when I'm looking at and editing the images; your point about viewing the images themselves as subjects really resonates. And I guess I'm interpreting Garry Winogrand's "getting out of oneself" in a different way than you, Fred--to me, it's not a matter of separating myself or shedding who I am (or am becoming--that was a nice distinction you made many posts ago), but a matter of being so comfortable with self and what I'm doing that the two meld; to me, "losing myself" implies being completely absorbed in what I'm doing. That absorption doesn't preclude the analytical aspects--there's a lot of planning and technical decision-making going on to actually craft the image, but for me the decisions in the field of what to try (the analytical step) seem to often be guided by a gut-level feel for what the image "needs" rather than by a conscious analysis of an image--I probably should be chimping a lot more than I do (which is uncomfortably close to never). </p>

Leslie, consciousness can be so much more than analysis. When I say I proceed sometimes thoughtfully and

deliberatively, I'm not saying I therefore proceed by alayzing what I'm doing. But I may be keeping goals in mind, keeping

in mind stylistic things I've been wanting to try, keeping in mind a movie I saw the other night that I feel like emulating, keeping in mind an Idea I've been wanting to work with or flesh out.

 

Yes, I understood the "losing oneself" to be a figurative way of talking about complete absorption. And, still, I'm saying

that's just not how I always or even often shoot, or process, or see. I am often distracted and not completely absorbed. Sometimes that

internal dialogue is chattering away in my head, even as I shoot. And sometimes not. I've pretty much learned to go with

the flow on what's going on with me when I'm doing various things. It's just as much fun for me to see my results when

I've been extremely self aware or even distracted when shooting as it is when I've been more absorbed. I figure I may as

well shoot the way I live and not necessarily impose particular methods on myself. Maybe for you and others it's completely natural to shoot in complete absorption mode. For me, it would feel like an imposition. I don't mind imposing things on myself sometimes and it's not like that sort of absorption never occurs for me. But, for me, it's just one way to get good results. I'm sure my non-committal way wouldn't work for everyone.

<p>I’m thoroughly enjoying reading this thread because it’s giving me a much deeper appreciation for the commonalities and differences in others’ approaches to photography. By seeing that, and by trying to articulate something coherent about my own approach, I’m getting a lot of insight into why I do what I do, and how that shapes what I end up with. That’s the sort of understanding that can come only from hearing others’ accounts of their own experience, and it’s sometimes difficult to convey those kinds of concepts and experiences because of the limitations of the vocabulary we have available—words mean different things to different people. All this is a long-winded way of apologizing for my misunderstandings of what others mean (sorry, Fred!). But it also strikes me that those misunderstandings themselves provide a lot of insight—the process of clearing them up is itself a process of honing the meanings.</p>

<p>One of the reasons I enjoy looking at others’ photos is that it gives me a glimpse of how other photographers relate to the visual world in ways that are clearly different than mine. But it takes a discussion like this to shed some light on the basis for such differences, and that makes my enjoyment of others' photos even greater. And I wonder: how much of one's underlying approach can actually be read from one's images?</p>