single photos ii Subtle Late Afternoon Light: The Steele House, Salisbury, NC

Trying to make something out of nothing again--my favorite pastime. Comments welcome.

--Lannie

The alchemist is at it again. Right up my alley. (speaking figuratively, of course. Actually, at the end of my alley is a noodle factory.)

Well, thank you, Jack.  It certainly is a simple picture, isn't it?  We can thank the architect for that--and the God who brought the nice light and shadows.  I confess that I do like the freshness of the shot.  I just keep walking (or, in this case, driving) until I see something, and then I snap.  I'm big on the "discovery" side of the "discovery v. creation" controversy, although I would not want to overstate the case.  That isn't an attempt to be self-effacing, just a reflection on how I think I proceed.  It's sort of like walking down the street until one spots a quarter on the sidewalk.  Yes, one is looking, but one does not quite know for what until one sees it.

 

As for being the alchemist, you are the master there.  It isn't for nothing that you have three photos of the week.  (Or is it four?)

 

By the way, do you think that people in our lives (people we have known or whom we have just met) can somehow imbue themselves in our psyches and thus come through in our photos?  I know that that sounds a bit too metaphysical, but sometimes  I swear that there must be a photographic muse, and I think that I now have one.  I'm not talking romance here.  I'm talking about how it is that persons through their own beauty and "essence" (if I may speak of such) inspire creativity and our perception of beauty.  Just thinking out loud. . .

 

Wish I hadn't clipped off the porch on the right.

 

--Lannie

interesting and absorbing!

I very much enjoyed your reflections on this picture and on photography in general. The "-do" in the Japanese martial arts such as aikido or kendo, or in other traditional arts like sado (Japanese tea ceremony) or shodo (calligraphy) means way or path. These were essentially disciplines or art forms of self discovery and self mastery. Perhaps to these we can add "shashin-do", the way of the photographer. I've always thought our pictures reveal who we are, our strengths and limitations, far more than we imagine. It's this aspect of photography that most fascinates me. I think there's a certain synchronicity between our inner state and the external reality we find and experience.

 

Your analogy of finding a quarter on the street is right on the money (if you'll excuse the pun). The important thing, I think, is the looking. If you're busy playing mental ping-pong you walk right by the quarter or the diamond ring or the subtle and always surprising beauty of the world as you pass.

 

As to your question of whether or really to what degree people have an effect on us and our photos, I'd answer with a very definite and unambiguous "that depends". It depends on what you are looking for and what you are open to. If you live in a gated community of "I" where you are only interested in reinforcing your fortress self, I'd say people of a challenging sort would be given short shrift by the guard at the gate. If you're allergic to ideas or don't welcome scrutiny of your world, you'll get just what you hope for which is the devil you know. Which can more plainly be stated as "the devil, you know" - the guy who keeps telling you that you're most definitely right.

 

But for those who are at least somewhat open to the world around them, it's a different story. Everything becomes grist for the mill if you allow it to be such. I've come to realize that we are both formed and constricted by our environment. If we allow ourselves to be surrounded by people with rigid ideas we become constricted with little room for spiritual/aesthetic growth. There is no space for change. (I think this is the source of the current gridlock in Washington. It's like two dogs fighting over the same meatless bone. There's such a jig-saw puzzle of special interest groups that there's no room to breathe let alone space for politicians to come up with new ways of looking at things.)

 

I am firmly in the camp that believes that being in the company of creative people brings out the latent creativity within ourselves. This is, of course, anecdotal but it's based on personal observation and experience over nearly 70 years. Things seek there own level. As in your example above, there's no guarantee that you'll find a quarter in the street but if you don't have your eyes open, you damn sure won't. All that is given to us are our choices. In the end, that's all consciousness means: control of what to let in and what to keep out; what road to take when we come to a crossroads. People who reflect our higher selves and aspirations affect our choices in photography and life in general. Allowing the ideas of great photographers of the past or talented artists of the present or just the views of perceptive individuals to enter and shape our consciousness seems to me a common sense approach. They are a continual source of inspiration and in some magical way help pollenate the profusion of potent yet unexpressed images/ideas each of us carries within his psyche. I know there are a lot of artists that are looking to carve out their own little individual niche in whatever art form they practice but I don't think they understand what a trap this can be. You become stuck within your own parameters, celebrated by society but in danger of falling victim to the definitions that you embrace. Better the seeker than the finder, after all, the finder may build himself a cozy house by the side of the road and go no farther.

 

OK, Lannie, that's quite enough for now. I get going and the words come streaming out; then I can't find the damn handle to turn them off. I think that's really the main reason I stay on photonet.I've had many conversations like this but, alas, those correspondents have mostly all disappeared. For all the time it takes me to organize (hah!) and put down my thoughts, in the end I think it helps clarify certain nebulous ideas. As I said, I've had these kinds of exchanges with pn members in the past and I've made a point to keep those pictures (in hidden folders) where the ideas flew fast and furious. I'm actually in the process - kind of stop and go - of collecting the pictures (mine and others) and assembling them in a Blurb book. I think it would make fascinating reading. Well, at least to me.

 

Thanks for your extended comments and for giving me the chance to unburden myself and to set free some of those winged monkeys that have been jumping around in my brain for a while now, Best regards, Jack

 

ps: Only 2 pow. I was more than a little embarrassed at the time since I've never considered myself much of a true photographer, just don't have the technical understanding or expertise. I don't expect to receive any more such "honors".

"I'm actually in the process - kind of stop and go - of collecting the pictures (mine and others) and assembling them in a Blurb book. I think it would make fascinating reading. Well, at least to me."

 

Jack, it has often occurred to me as well that there is a treasure trove of photos and comments hidden away on this site that merit compilation and publication.  They are on many different topics and themes, of course, but I would love to see what you might come up with.  I told John Peri one time that I was thinking about writing Photo.net: The Novel, but it would have to have been a pot-boiler because of all these "encounters" that one could witness on this site.  Some led to marriage, others not.  

 

Of course, Photo.net is only one community among many,  and people meet here and do what people do, whatever it is--yet, I really do respect those artists who interact with other artists or who live in communes or at least enclaves.  I don't know how much it helps their work, but I think that sometimes I am in danger of being one of those people who might stagnate because I tend to stay in the same rut, or keep myself too isolated.  It was precisely the effect of certain persons who might be deemed "muses" (inevitably women in my case) who do or have seemed to have affected my work--and sometimes to radically redefine it for a time.  Even there I am not sure.  I would like to know more about what I can only call the "socio-dynamics" of art, but that sounds perilously close to the language of social scientists.

 

It is certain that the artistic impulse is an elusive thing to pin down and try to understand, whether in painting, music, sculpture, or something else.  When I do see the work of great artists--in whatever field--I cannot help but wonder what forces might have shaped them, what persons might have inspired them, how the times might have influenced them, etc. I daresay that more than one painter or photographer has probably been inspired by a model (or even a lover who is not shown in his or her work), but by what precise mechanism I do not know.  Certainly when we are in love we find the beloved in everything that we see, but I am not really quite talking about that phenomenon--but it might be closer to something like that than I know.

 

I do know that, when I read and see the pictures of Stieglitz or Eggleston or many others, I see persons who seem to have been constantly out there vacuuming up life itself, in one way or another. It is, I think, as you say: some block out the world, others open themselves up to the world, including the influences of others.  Yet, yet, there are those who look deep within. . . .

 

In any case, it is good to read someone who has given this whole range of ideas at least as much thought as I have, and to see how we might (or might not) resonate on this or that point.

 

As for Photos of the Week, well, perhaps they mean nothing in themselves, but rest assured, Jack (to quote Simon and Garfunkel on Frank Lloyd Wright), that "when I run dry, I stop awhile and think of you"--your work, that is.  Your work has an elegant simplicity that we all could learn from studying and even imitating for a while--before we pick up and get on our own individual ways, carrying your indelible print on our psyches and sometimes on our work.

 

--Lannie