"Equivalence" / Minor White / about images

toddr · December 11, 2009

John, love your explorations. Rarely have anything to add, but I feel a connection to White too.

My interest in White came from reading John Daido Loori's book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Creativity-Cultivating-Your-Artistic/dp/0345466330">The Zen of Creativity</a> and hearing Loori occasionally mention Minor White in a dharma talk. Loori was a long time student of White. You can read some relevant excerpts here: (click page 12) <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=C4pLBypoF3AC&lpg=PA47&dq=zen%20and%20the%20art%20of%20creativity%20minor%20white&client=firefox-a&pg=PA13#v=onepage&q=minor%20white&f=false">http://books.google.com/books?id=C4pLBypoF3AC&lpg=PA47</a> "...but something more than good technique drew me to Minor's work. Minor was a "straight photographer": he didn't manipulate his prints during the developing process, yet his images transcended their subject. Looking at his photographs, I felt myself pulled into another realm of consciousness. Minor's work pointed to a dynamic way of seeing, a new way of perceiving." It's both the "other realm" and the "new way of perceiving" that I find compelling. I've been following Loori for many years on wzen.org where they play his Zen talks online. Wish I had made it to his photography workshop before he passed on. He had the heart of what White was teaching. It seems a way of photographing that is withering away... I stumbled on <a href="http://miksang.com">Miksang</a> (miksang.com), have taken some workshops, and the approach here is in the family of White's teaching I think, but somewhat different in practice (created by Michael Wood, a student of Trungpa Rinpoche).

There is a mystical nature that speaks to my heart that I am looking for both in photographing and in seeing photographs. Not emotional...something different, bigger.

fate_faith_change_chains · December 11, 2009

Miksang, which I've been fascinated by also, strikes me more as an opposite of Equivalence, both strive on seeing and receptivity, but miksang wants to deal more with the external factuality of things in the world ; the way things are, perfectly beautiful in their own right. Equivalence also, but it wants to externalise this factuality into an expression of the internal rather then accept it as is.

Julie H · December 11, 2009

John,

I'm starting to think you don't love me anymore.

Luis,

Still thinking about White's influences on me, probably the most significant was the potential for breaking with the seemingly tyrannical issue of the medium always being indexed to a referent, and transcending it without having to resort to abstraction.

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I agree competely. But I'm feeling very grumpy that you won't bring Fred something nourishing; I know you could if you wanted to. There he sits with napkin tucked into his shirt front, knife and fork in hand, hollering for "beef!" and I'll feel like a big meanie if he doesn't get something to eat. So, here are bits from the same book quoted above, Minor White: Rites and Passages. [Note that the word Equivalence does not appear in my quotes, and, as far as I can tell (without doing a close survey) anywhere in this book. If interested specifically in that concept, you'll probably do better to look for Stieglitz's writings on the subject.]

I'm going to start with a quote from White himself. The rest is by James Baker Hall:

[White, from the end of a letter to Bill Smith describing the hanging of his pictures for a gallery show] " ... I was repeating, "It is beautiful! It is beautiful!" A phrase that has no meaning other than it is the words that come to my lips when some aspect of the visual world is so charged with meaning that you are at a loss what to do or say. These moments when the visual world is transparent. When the intangible is more solid than steel." [end White quote]

... The essence of what he was saying is this: that the profane is also sacred, that the Creation is being reenacted every moment everywhere, and that salvation lies in the exacting task of keeping those facts alive in one's daily life. Just how and why his preoccupation with the mysteries led him repeatedly into mystification is probably as complex as the man himself. Intellectual amaturishness and inarticulateness were no doubt involved, but so were a lot of deeper and more personal things.

There was something in him that did not want to be known, that was constantly withholding and protecting, that refused, as he so often said, "to let go." He promoted introspection and self-revelation and nakedness -- Being Without Clothes, as he put it, the image of paradisal innocence, of shamelessness -- because he was constantly struggling with the compulsion to clothe and obscure and hide himself, to cover his shame.

... in order to understand Minor White and his work you must understand what it means that he was essentially a religious man. It does not mean, for instance, that he was a man with a certain set of beliefs -- though he was, duiring his last dozen or so years, that also. It means rather that he was forever experiencing himself and the world, often consciously, in terms of an essential distinction between the sacred and the profane.

For such a man the quotidian world of the body, of work, of rocks, friends, rainbows, houses, love, pictures, meals, the world of the profane, ever-changing many is unequivocally real only insofar as it manifests the eternal and sacred One. No religion offers an experience of God, which by definition is ineffable and profoundly subjective, but merely a way to it. The secular man may look to religion for what to believe; the religious man looks to it for how.

... In White's best work the message in the profane mirror is always the same, a manifestation of the sacred -- "things for what they are," as he puts it, "and what else they are." For homo relgiosus every moment is potentially numinous; he makes of his life a kind of ritual, keeping himself alive to the possiblity of transcendental experience, of revitalizing the spirit within him.

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I've tried very hard to pick the less personal bits -- of which there are not many. With White, it was all personal (and that is not a criticism).

luis_g · December 11, 2009

Julie typed- " John, I'm starting to think you don't love me anymore."

You are not alone, Julie. Welcome to the Club. :-)

JH - "... I'm feeling very grumpy that you won't bring Fred something nourishing; I know you could if you wanted to. There he sits with napkin tucked into his shirt front, knife and fork in hand, hollering for "beef!" and I'll feel like a big meanie if he doesn't get something to eat."

Julie...I've made you grumpy ? Oh-oh...after reading that, I feel like a jittery, overeager-to-serve, emo-haired barista at Cafe Photon (we now use fluorite glass mugs, btw). I think Fred wants to see John contribute something of substance from his own lengthy experience with this, as I have, to his own post. Me too. But these pregnant pauses can stretch into elephantine terms, so your interjection and comic relief are most welcome.

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Earlier I remarked: "White's system was to me far less interesting than his pictures"

I wanted to clarify that I found his photographs very interesting, more so than his system. This is not to say that the former was dissatisfactory.

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Minor's philosophies, methods and life were open-ended, living, dynamic works in progress. His early exercises, before Eastern techniques (yoga, tai chi, etc) gained a toehold in American culture, consisted of military-style calisthenics, like jumping jacks, push-ups, running in place, etc. The physical exercises morphed into more refined/sophisticated ones later, but the holistic principles of the unity of being, toning, long-and-short term preparation, and many others are consistent in his teachings. One cannot begin to understand MW without actually doing the exercises and practice (or reading poetry, IMO). I understand this is not very easy for those who don't have a mentor in the tradition or hard-to-come-by literature, but....a diligent web search will yield enough for a taste.

http://www.thecameraworkgallery.org/larry_bullis_notes_on_minor_white.pdf

For those who want guidance, group support, and a deeper inquiry, this seems like one of photography's last extraordinary bargains left, if not an outright steal:

http://newmexico.augusoft.net/index.cfm?method=ClassInfo.ClassInformation&int_class_id=25390&int_category_id=4&int_sub_category_id=47&int_catalog_id=0

Did someone post this already?

http://www.tricycle.com/feature/meeting-a-man-way?page=0,3

I can not overemphasize the relevance of the two books I mentioned earlier, The First Six Acting Lessons, and Zen in the Art of Archery (resist the temptation to skim through it. It is not as simple as it looks).

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After looking at the Miksang photos and text, I'm in agreement with Phylo, and feel they would dovetail with the "Less is More" thread.

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Norma Desmond · December 11, 2009

Phylo--

Interesting harmonies and counterpoints you raise.

I see what you're talking about also as opposites, but the wonder of photography, to me, is that unlike in much discursive writing and thought, working with, even asserting, opposites doesn't have to yield contradictions or impossibilities.

Being mindful of and even presenting or doing something with the factuality you talk about that's in the world does not seem impossible to walk hand in hand with Equivalence.

In my own portraits, I am aware of and work with the facts of the person before me and, often simultaneously, use the more abstract notions of Equivalence to express not only something about me but something about my subject. These two notions, of Equivalence and Miksang, I think, are important to a lot of portrait making, if the portraits are to yield some kind of truth, which I like them to. Truth about the person and the kind of truth that comes from a genuine expression (not just facial expression, but photographic expression as well). If I can make a portrait about the person I'm shooting that is also expressive of something about that person and also about myself, and if it's visually acute (thanks to the same friend who talked about "transference") in some way, then I've made something I feel is complete. If the design elements -- the shapes, the textures, the light, the lines, the angles -- can speak along with the eyes, nose, mouth, hands, penis (if I've included one), then factuality and Equivalence may have met.

Luis--

Julie has pointed out something important. I'm sorry that I didn't acknowledge your important contribution about transcendence without abstraction. In my first post, I talked about using abstraction differently from how White uses it, saying that choosing a subject matter like clouds doesn't seem necessary or even appropriate for me. You've stated these sorts of ideas more succinctly and elegantly. I still think there can be an element of abstraction even with the most non-abstract subject matter, but yes, I think that element of transcendence of subject matter, even while presenting it, is significant.

I wonder, therefore, if Equivalence, at least the way it's described by White in the piece John linked to, isn't more of a beginning, or even an initial exemplification of broader possibilities. I wonder if clouds as subject matter don't just make the whole concept a little more graspable at first but if such "distant" subject matter is really necessary. I think not. I don't know what White would think.

I think I may use pose, posturing, gesturing, staging, etc. as the Equivalent to go along with the "reality" of the person I'm shooting. What others sometimes consider to be "unnatural," "posed" (usually said with negativity), or "uncandid", I consider to be a significant foil to and enhancement of the factuality Phylo has brought into the discussion.

mizore · December 11, 2009

I think many people have tricks that will help them get from logos to something outside of words -- and perhaps what worked for White is not something that will work for everyone. One of the things quoted above was about the teaching making him imitate himself until he could get back to the camera, stop imitating his students imitating him.

For me, visual thinking is not done in words -- and for most Westerners, a fascination with Eastern stuff tends to be much more mystical and egocentric ("I'm not linear like these other Westerners") than the real eastern experiences (see any Western martial arts movie and compare it with the average Hong Kong movies; compare Western 16th Century furniture with Chinese 16th Century furniture). The West has been far more mystical than China at least since Plato. Taoism is just common sense.

That visual thinking isn't done in words is not a statement about anything mystical. Music is thinking that's not done in words, either.

If we're too obviously grabbed by the visual equivalence of "dote on me. I'm a rose," that Keats found so offensive about the official poets of his era, the forced beauty rather than that which comes naturally, then the theory got in the way.

The message from Japan wasn't sitting contemplating; it was sitting doing something without worrying about whether it was art or important or anything. Shoot enough mug shots and you'll get something that transcends its moment. Get the ego of the artist off the back of the work. Work the work, not the theories about the work.

Belloc was discovered when I was still living in NYC -- we have no idea what was going through his head when he photographed the whores, or what was going through theirs. He was working with equipment that didn't give him the sort of leisure to overly conceptualize that our equipment today gives us. People had to wrestle with the gear then, with processing the film, with making the prints. A photographer had to have a certain mechanical patience.

These <a href="http://www.photo.nethttp">mug shots</a> caught my attention. I suspect that someone who shoots people every day can eventually find a way into the photographs that transcends their official purpose. And he's making a living as a photographer without letting ego get in the way of art. Same as the Korean woodturners who didn't try to make tea culture classics.

And the girl contributes to the effect, too, with her calm, her gravitas, reminding us that portraits are collaborations between two artists.

Visual thinking doesn't have the codifications that verbal thinking has -- it's not straight forwardly obvious that one thing is a metaphor and another a simile, or that this set of works is an allegory with one to one correspondences between the physical and an abstraction. (This may be true only in contemporary visual culture -- some cultures have generally agreed on symbolic meanings attached to various visual insignia). We associate flowers with women; we associate decaying thing with the transient nature of the world, but I don't think we make the distinctions between grass orchids and bush clover that Japanese brush drawings would be making. A bluet is different from a wild geranium, but we have to make up our own associations.

White appears to me to be drawing from Weston and less directly from Man Ray. We have the Orientalism, and some of the academic "if you don't like this or if it makes you uneasy, it's your problem." And that one strikes me as very odd if the goal is getting to the transcendental One. It's a distinction call. It's why we pay academics to beat art appreciation into the young rather than have art as just something we grow up with, a way of reaching other people though discussing it (art as way to get to feelings we can't talk about or perhaps express directly), of training our eyes by exercising them with our own fingers. Can't remember which academic professor wrote "Who Cares if You Listen," which was assigned in a university music appreciation class. (Googles). Ah, yes, Milton Babbit. When we get The Composer as Specialist, there's a divorce from this One thing.

If the thing doesn't seem useful or beautiful, then there's no reason to have it around the house. (I like William Morris). If the end of the theories is something worth spending time looking at, yay the theories, at least for that person. If not, not. And if those theories lead other people to do work that's obviously awkward translations from verbal thinking to visual thinking, not so useful for other people.

I'm very strongly divided into visual and verbal. I first experienced both as distinct mental states when I was working for the weekly paper and being asked to switch from one to the other quickly. I don't think for me that translation between them is obvious. Some of White's problems in that essay or in his writing was perhaps that he couldn't translate that well either. The writing seems less interesting than the photographs.

A photograph is always more than a representation of a thing. A thing is more than a thing. A dime is two sides and a rim of air connected by solids. Some things are just obvious, aren't they?

toddr · December 11, 2009

I think White went further in his later work and expanded on Equivalence as expressing/transmitting transcendence and spirituality in addition to feelings. I think his references to this are in his diary pages in one of his biographies. Reading his essay on Equivalence, it's not clear how he taught that this is done. It sounds like it's a conscious ordering of the outside world by the photographer. Reading between the lines, it could be a subconscious/subterannean effect that isn't directly conscious by the photographer. Or some combination? Apparently White had a teaching book in the works before his death which his estate hasn't published. It would be fascinating to read that. I'm guessing that Loori taught similar to what he learned from White. He talks about going out with no subject in mind. Allowing yourself to be drawn into connection with something. Then you stay connected with those feelings until the resonance or chi is at a peak. Then you photograph or create or allow the creation to come about. This is very similar to the Miksang method, which is an internal experience catalyzed by the external world. In Miksang, you start with an open mind with no predetermined subject. They teach exercises to "unglue" the mind from conceptual seeing that really help. But the primary focus is on a relaxed unfocused attention until a "flash" grabs you and sets up this resonance. A flash of awareness that is fresh and doesn't refer to a database of "good" images. So the resulting image itself is not primarily the goal, but both the internal experience of photographer and ideally some amount of transference to the viewer through the image. a mind-to-image-to-mind transference :) So a transmission of Equivalence, but not so consciously chosen. One thing that's interesting to me is how much this process is active, intentional and consciously driven and how much is receptive, subconscious, and unfolds through the relationship. In other words, how to practice it...and perhaps that is as personal as anything else here. These are the salient quotes by White that speak to me: "Or to say this in another way, in practice Equivalency is the ability to use the visual world as the plastic material for the photographer's expressive purposes." "When both subject matter and manner of rendering are transcended, by whatever means, that which seems to be matter becomes what seems to be spirit." "With the theory of Equivalence, photographers everywhere are given a way of learning to use the camera in relation to the mind, heart, viscera and spirit of human beings." Cartier-Bresson "To take a photograph is to align the head, the eye and the heart. It's a way of life." Does anyone else practice this? What does that look like?

toddr · December 11, 2009

Here's a discourse by Loori that I think is interesting and maybe relevant...I think this is the direction White was going later in his teaching and life....

<a href="http://www.mro.org/zmm/teachings/daido/teisho27.php">The Realm of True Seeing</a>

<h2>The Capping Verse</h2>

In the depths of stillness all words melt away, Clouds disperse and it vividly appears before you. When seen, it is filled with wonder, vast and without edges, nothing concealed.

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jtk · December 11, 2009

Phylo, Todd...great observations! I don't know anything about the progression of White's life from this to that...I have the impression that it was continuous, though confusing for observers.

I'm not personally capable of reading much that directly focuses on ideas like White's or the Buddha's. A little.

My learning in those areas, such as it is, came from people who enjoyed intensive experience with White, his direct students, his remotely-removed pseudo-students (maybe I'm one), and a few Zen practitioners and Gurdjieff/Ouspensky students. I've always been moved by their practices, including the way they wash dishes, eat, walk.

I don't think White's central practice was photography...I think it was direct instruction and development of a multiplicity of teaching techniques and experiences.

I think Zen is direct, applied. I've heard there are only two basic schools of Zen: walking and sitting. Not complicated. Basho drank and hiked, as I recall, wasn't a sitter.

jtk · December 11, 2009

"I think I may use pose, posturing, gesturing, staging, etc. as the Equivalent to go along with the "reality" of the person I'm shooting. What others sometimes consider to be "unnatural," "posed" (usually said with negativity), or "uncandid", I consider to be a significant foil to and enhancement of the factuality Phylo has brought into the discussion." -Fred G

Good stuff.... maybe by "foil" you're talking about a parallel? If one of them was absent, maybe there would be no dynamic, ie nothing happening.

jtk · December 11, 2009

...teaching methods...

One tool White used was self-hypnosis, an aid to viewing prints and slides. He credited his student Gene Saunders (later of Adolph Gasser Cameras in San Francisco) for this. The methodology involved a process of muscle relaxation (as routinely taught by psychologists in order to manage anxiety) to reduce distractions. Another was cutting up magazines in response to "assignments"...in order to eliminate photo-technical distractions. Another was the (zen) "koan," a photo assignment that couldn't be successful as long as one contrived bright photo answers. These aren't tricky, don't require big philosophic insights, they'd probably work for Popular Mechanics.

luis_g · December 11, 2009

John - " My learning in those areas, such as it is, came from people who enjoyed intensive experience with White, his direct students, his remotely-removed pseudo-students (maybe I'm one), and a few Zen practitioners and Gurdjieff/Ouspensky students."

John, I remain on the edge of my seat waiting patiently to find out just what you mean by "My learning". What did you get from Minor White (directly or indirectly)? Not so much the procedures or exercises, but what you learned. Even in general terms?

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luis_g · December 11, 2009

For the record, as of 1962, White was talking about both visualization and previsualization. How do I know this? Because, I too, was a friend of, and mentored by, someone directly connected with M. I was given a (yet unpublished, except in part in a magazine in 1983, and not on the web) bound set copy of notes from multiple MW workshops -- which were checked over, corrected and approved by M. There are several copies of this floating around. I've found some in private libraries, and a few have made their way into universities' permanent collections.

There is a latter, much larger unfinished collection (written both by M. and his students) of extremely detailed notes, about 300 pages' worth, in two volumes (though I've heard reports they also come in one) that he was reportedly working on when he died. I only got to hurriedly leaf through one copy for an all-too-brief afternoon, not allowed to take notes, & sworn to secrecy. It was then unexpectedly offered to me at a price that seemed outrageous then (more than the car I was driving was worth), a steal now. To my regret, I passed it up. A few copies exist, one reportedly with MW's archives.

MW came with all the advantages and liabilities of any charismatic leader. Although he held on to his core principles (and his poetic foundations), he evolved and changed (and yes, a lot of people, some with good reason, did not like all these changes) until the end. His teachings, like all teachings, are not for everyone, and very difficult to impart without his presence.

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Fred - " I wonder, therefore, if Equivalence , at least the way it's described by White in the piece John linked to, isn't more of a beginning, or even an initial exemplification of broader possibilities."

I think so. From the notes in my possession and my experience, it seems he was equipping his students with an elemental understanding, skill, and tool set both as photographer and viewer. From everything I know I would guess MW would agree with a path to broader possibilities.

It is impossible (and frustrating) to do this justice here because M.'s method was intense, multifaceted, densely packed with scores of concepts, immersive, participatory , alive, fluid and charismatic, and that last one is perhaps the hardest thing. Anyone reading this thread should consider anything I say in it an absurdly low-resolution hologram.

The easiest thing to talk about, albeit indirectly, is the spirit of it, perhaps because MW was so good with that aspect.

Don't forget that in between all this, he was also teaching the Zone System (!).Simultaneously, M. was growing and changing, so that one finds no two courses or workshops were exactly alike (which to me is a good thing).

Minor said: "...what could be hoped for was that a few tools could be formed, the way to the tools shown. The house that was built, using them, is up to the worker." Open ended indeed.

Later on, MW trimmed down the Equivalent definition to "A photograph which functions as a metaphor." But he also had long, extended versions of it, and although I have a couple of these in my possession, to go beyond a mere illustrative/educational quote is beyond my ethical bounds, specially because they remain unpublished.

Long before I heard of MW, I believed in the saying "That which you are seeking is also seeking you".

Some of M.'s system deals with how to allow the latter half of that to happen. Part of it had to do with things that were going on in the art world at large at the same time. Also the emergence of Holistic thinking. One logical tactic M. frequently used was to displace the student from complacency, the numbness of desensitization and habit via various means. One was by conceptually reversing field polarity, thus creating a parallax that reveals the world anew, in much the same way that ritual (not profane) drug use does, with greater clarity, more applicability, and fewer side effects.

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fate_faith_change_chains · December 11, 2009

Being mindful of and even presenting or doing something with the factuality you talk about that's in the world does not seem impossible to walk hand in hand with Equivalence. - Fred -

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Of course, I would even say that this factuality is the requirement for equivalence, because without it what else would there be to correspond with through photography, as the matter for expression ? By factuality I mean the way things are, as seen through the camera's eye, "pure" and impersonal ( a formation of clouds,...).

It's only after interpretation that subject and object are introduced and the distinction is made between the perceiver and the perceived, resulting in an "unreal" concept of clouds as the expression of a feeling. The feeling may be very real, but the clouds expressing it isn't.

toddr · December 12, 2009

not related to equivalence, but interesting....just found an article with some details on white's teaching methods...wow, he was hardcore

http://photosketchpad.blogspot.com/2008/08/on-minor-white.html

luis_g · December 12, 2009

Todd - I'd already put up the direct URL to Bullis' PDF with the account ten replies up. It's good to see Bloggers picking it up.

The social climate nowadays seems more amenable to MW's earlier ways than it's been in decades.

Phylo - Yes, that's how I see it, and in agreement with the notes I have.

toddr · December 12, 2009

thanks Luis, yes, I missed the pdf and the article by loori, very good.

Do you have any practices you do that help? Or any suggestions?

Is there anyone online who is teaching along these lines?

In a way, it seems as much about personal transformation and non-conceptural seeing as photography.

Norma Desmond · December 12, 2009

Todd--

I see evidence of your own attraction to these concepts in your recent upload of the photo with windshield wipers. Here, to me, is a case where something posed (the wipers themselves) has a ring of the every-day fact and also transforms the fact into the abstract. There is transcendence, I think, in that act of seeing. The geometry which divides the scene -- a geometry in large part created by lines, texture, and a difference in color cast from warm to cold -- seems another key element, and also is and is not a fact of the scene. Finally, the echo to be found in what appears to be the bit of legs of the person standing in the background provides a grounding but also a suggestion or hint . . . also, I think a transcending visual element. A long, long time ago, I wrote a Philosophy column for a local San Francisco newspaper called "Glimpses." The glimpses logo was illustrated by a friend's photograph which, looking back, was probably a combination of Miksang and Equivalence. Together, we came up with the title "Glimpses." I think "glimpses" says a lot about a certain kind of photograph.

Todd, how do you view these photos of yours and what in your process and your thinking relates to your results?

inoneeye · December 12, 2009

"At one level, the graphic level, the word "Equivalence" pertains to the photograph itself, the visible foundations of any potential visual experience with the photograph itself."MW

[Prints are not images. A print is primarily a vehicle for an image...Images exist in our heads]. I hope that I did not take this out of context to the detriment of the intent. A vehicle for what? I use it to transfer the image in my head to stimulate an image in the viewers head. It is a given that it is not the same image. But it may contain some significant similarities, some common factors, some equivalents that will root out connections and maybe transcend normal limits. How we respond to that connection may differ greatly or may ring similar bells. This is outside of taste and personal baggage. The viewer may have a taste for my photograph or not. But the use of equivalents to express myself can influence the visual experience that the viewer has in relationship to the print and the image in my head.

"The concept and discipline of Equivalence in practice is simply the backbone and core of photography as a medium of expression-creation."MW

"If the individual viewer realizes that for him what he sees in a picture corresponds to something within himself—that is, the photograph mirrors something in himself—then his experience is some degree of Equivalence."MW

For a print to function as a mirror (which I believe it can) I begin within myself long before the moment i am capturing.. How do I feel about blossoming flowers or dark hallways or comfort and intimidation or sensuous shapes and harsh lighting. I often use my mood to express and choose to convey it to the viewer. I will also use music to create jazz or blues or... in my photographs. I first pay attention to my internal and external world to discover the similarities and differences I have, in relationship, to some vague but not completely intangible common denominators. Universalities that connect me, to the photo, to the viewer, to me. The photo is viewer is me. (a silly take on W. Berman - 'art is love is god')

The use, role of the metaphor or symbol. Some clearly don't choose to go there. I do, as photographer and as viewer. Not literally as in a label or goal but by opening the gates within and allowing something I find to be very natural, to connect. This has been part of learning to see for me. To arouse and use connections that my conscious and sub conscious can make without effort. I choose to, because it enriches my experience from both sides of the camera. To photograph, I can choose to create these connections. Sometimes it requires conscious practical decisions to be made. Yeah, nuts and bolts with powers. Power to be suggestive and to evoke. Sight and insight. After years of practice it most often seems effortless, accidental.

John, You have posted some newer photos that I find to act as equivalents. They plant images in my head. Whether that was your intent or not, I wouldn't presume. But after encountering your 'new' portfolio I wasn't surprised to see this enquiry posted.

Todd, you have opened a connection that fascinates me. Like Phylo, I was struck by the differences of Miksang and Equivalents. At first. Then.....I believe there is a point early in the processes that they take a sharp turn away, depart from the other. perhaps to overlap again for the viewer. Comparing similarities and differences and then considering them working along side each other was fascinating for me.

fate_faith_change_chains · December 12, 2009

Yes Josh, they do share similarities, definitely running parallel with each other. But I still see the distinction in the idea behind miksang being primarily about perceiving itself, and while eguivalence obviously depends on this perceiving also, it makes a conscious distinction between the perceiver and the perceived, necessary to draw an equivalence.

Like you say for yourself, this distinction in relationship with photography ; the use of equivalence, is almost as natural and obvious as breathing to me, the whole world is an equivalence. Miksang is essentially the same what Walker Evans was on about after seeing and being struck with Atget's work ( for me being more about zen then anything else out there in photography ), and this approach, is much more elusively fascinating to me, grasping it in a photograph almost an impossibility.

inoneeye · December 12, 2009

"... the idea behind miksang being primarily about perceiving itself, " Phylo I absolutely agree.

I have always had a sense that your 'shooting style' was a significant part of the equation for my experience of it. Your perception. How you were alerted, approached and arrived at your subject was always nearby on my mind. Miksang, Evans, Atget, all work well for me in filling out the equation in regards to your work. Direct, precise, contemplative, graceful - mind and eye connected. This take is not a stretch for me. I see it there. I feel that the back end of your photography is left entirely in my hands. Compared to my work, or Fred's work, where I get the sense that it is not entirely left up to the viewer, despite protests to the contrary. Need I add, that of course it is out of our hands and indeed up to the viewer. But often I am targeting the image in my/your head, with equivalents.. As a whole, your photos are more pure to me on the front end (perception) and I sense it as the viewer. I am speaking primarily as the viewer and would not presume your intent.

Sometimes I choose 'purity' and sometimes I add complexity, thoughtfulness. Photography is a language and sometimes, with some, it is poetic or creative-expression. Not always easily categorized into A system A philosophy. The way you appear to combine Miksang and Equivalence (my observation) offers something different than one or the other. Elusive? I would have no surprise to hear that you went out with your camera today and found the Miksang perception residing close to the surface. Presumptuous of me? I just felt like pointing it out, it has been on my mind for awhile. And the Miksang, Equivalence elixir was an interesting thought as I revisited your work.

toddr · December 12, 2009

Fred I am somewhat ignorant of the what happens during these flashes of perception. A glimpse is a good word for it. It's sudden, and seems to be like looking into another world (actually this world but very solid and real and fresh). I do know that thinking stops and there is no conceptual organization of the image consciously. If I have one ounce of a thought of geometry, composition, etc, the connection goes stale and cold. It's an immediate unmistakable feeling. (Sort of like saying the wrong thing to your wife when you're feeling close) And on the other end, viewing the photo, I just have very little to say. I can feel something but can't really express much. My thinking is that visual processing is not well translated into words, maybe poetry. In that moment I remember a sense of huge freedom, aliveness and also gratitude. Is that just anthropomorphic arms flung wide as wipers? I don't know...certainly not a thought at the time. I think it's like an equivalent, if it stirs something in the viewer, that is all. It's up to the viewer to discover what that is. Even myself. But like you said, sometimes you can look at an image and pick apart what works logically and yes, that makes sense, it should work that way. But I find that "something else" is what makes an Equivalent photo alive when it works. A sort of non-deconstructable quality, if that makes sense. More than the sum of it's parts. And I think the best of White's photos have that. And the best of Michael Wood's miksang photos too. I think these do fall under the category of Equivalence, because they perform what White mentioned, serve as a metaphor...for what I don't know, but for something felt.

I have to agree too...miksang and equivalence start at the same point...but something does seem different the way White explains it.

toddr · December 13, 2009

John and Phylo I think you are really onto something here. And I think part of it gets back to whether this intention to form an equivalent is functioning consciously in the mind of the photographer. In miksang, you can set an intention at the beginning of a session to have such-and-such a perception, for example, to have perceptions that have the quality of a japanese haiku. You don't obsess on that, only lightly set the intention and drop it and come back to non-conceptual reality over and over. But even that is far from the kind of equivalence-intention that White is talking about. One thing that is interesting and different may be the quality and amount of time spent in connection. Once the connection is made, in miksang I feel the edges of the perception and there's usually a felt tangible boundary to the experience. Then I take the photo. Loori talks about staying in the connection, sometimes for many hours. His initial breakthrough experience he said lasted from lunch to dusk. During this ebb and flow of connection between yourself and the subject, perhaps more can happen in that exchange than in the quick miksang flash? Of course, nothing says you can't stay in that flash with miksang. But I wonder if there's a richness and depth that can convey more through that longer connection? Perhaps unconscious motives and feelings can shape the photo more deeply? Loori also talked about editing and said to remember and re-enter that space while you edit or work on your art. That seems a prime place for an equivalence-intention to take place. Not in a clumsy conscious way (oh, a dark vignette around the edges would look moody), but in the same way the photo is taken, non-conceptually almost non-thinking? (I don't know if Loori was ever aware of miksang) In miksang the focus is on reproducing the image that caused you to stop and photograph, no editing for effect. Perhaps that leaves the image open for more uses by the viewer? The process is an excellent mirror of myself I find. If I'm trying hard, I get nothing. If I'm not sufficiently present or thinking too much, I get nothing. What I do get eventually has some reflection of my degree of presence (or lack) and sometimes something else. (speaking of my personal experience only) I do have some sense that what presents to you, has a lot to do with your presence and intention. Like Luis said, "that which you seek is also seeking you". I believe that this can be more than simply stumbling on an image that catches you...that perhaps some vital intelligence is arranging both the viewer and the object to meet at this specific point in time... ...and who knows, also the viewer of the photograph at the point in time in their life that they feel a resonance? in practice of course it doesn't matter.

How much of equivalence is about "making" a photo versus "discovering" a photo? And there's nothing that says a functioning equivalent can't be formed by either is there? What do you think?

stephen_hipperson · December 13, 2009

Not had time to review some existing threads but this one caught my eye as I reviewed the work of Minor White as part of some research I did for a course at uni - so I feel some sort of attachement to the subject, you know how it is. I would pose the following

"Isn't Equivalence simply metaphor?" As such it can be crass or subtle and just as pretenious either way. I remember taking a picture of a big stick leading into a small pool of water in exploration of it - an example of something pretty crass, I admit. On the other hand, I wonder if we might sometimes take photographs with one intention only to 'discover' some other 'Equivalence' after the event when we see the print - which flies in the face of 'pre-vision'?

Norma Desmond · December 13, 2009

Probably a very significant contribution of Minor White's is that he sought and found the words. Even with my brief (so far) exposure to his work and his writings, I'm impressed by his ability to stay grounded while expressing transcendent ideas. He seems to combine a practical sense and intimate knowledge of what he's actually doing photographically with a more poetic/artistic/spiritual approach to that same thing.

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