Two souls alas!
Are dwelling in my breast.Goethe, Faust
There is no denying: whenever we publicly show our work, we also seek recognition. For artists trying to make a living, a certain amount of recognition is even a must.
One should, however, realize that there is potential for conflict between this desire, or requirement, for recognition and the creative process.
In a recent interview, Catherine Edelman, an experienced gallerist from Chicago, took up the very question.
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Focus is an important topic in photography. The camera allows to either reduce focus, the zone of sharpness, to a pinprick or to extend it through most of a photograph. Lenses are often discussed based on the quality of the out-of-focus areas they are able to produce (the so-called “bokeh”) and reviewers can get quite lyrical about creamy or buttery bokeh. Many portrait photographers use this bokeh to highlight their subject by a steep falloff of sharpness from the subject to the background.
In contrast, the f/64 group of photographers, to which Ansel Adams belonged, chose their name from the smallest aperture a lens could produce, an aperture that would bring about no background blur, only relative sharpness throughout the picture. For them this was an expression of a radical realism in opposition to the intended softness advocated by pictorialism.
Our eyes, indeed, can’t do what most photographic lenses can do. In the center of our field of view the sharpness falloff is (with normal 20/20 vision) rather modest. Scenes seem to have always deep focus and we aren’t able to blend out the background like a lens with a large aperture could. What we, however, can do is to focus our mind. We can completely concentrate on, let’s say, a single flower and everything else seems fading away. I have from time to time recommended doing this so that we actually again perceive and observe what is outside of our mind. In addition, most serious endeavors in life need a lot of mind-focus to succeed.
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It was about 4.5 billion years ago. On a hot, and one can say sunny, day – and all days were hot back then – the young planet Gaia almost met its fate. Another planet, we now call it Theia, crashed into Gaia. Through the impact, enormous amounts of rock and gas exploded into space. There, we now believe, they coalesced into a satellite. Planet Earth and its Moon were born. If we would have been around to watch back then, all this cataclysmic events when Gaia became Earth would for us have occurred in utter and total silence. There was no atmosphere that could have transported any sound…
On Earth, however, the explosion had created large amounts of rock vapor that with time condensed into carbon dioxide mixed with hydrogen and water. The first atmosphere had appeared and that, possibly, was the moment sound came to Earth.
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“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.”
Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
At times, when I come home with a picture like this, I again realize how insufficient the division of photography into genres is. Sure, the waterfall is part of a landscape – which is not shown here. And sure, the photo shows something in nature – but is that what it is about? Of course, part of the problem lies in the rather artificial boundary we draw between nature and ourselves. We don’t call street photography wildlife art even though there usually appear a lot of animal creatures (of the species Homo sapiens and Canis familiaris) in it. In a way, I think nature photography is a genre in which “things merge into one” as Maclean writes. Let me explain.
I used to fly-fish in the rapids of the river Vantaa shown above. And it was through fly-fishing that I came to photography. I remember once sitting on a rock in the middle of a river far up in the North. The fishing was low, but I really didn’t care because the river had taken over my senses. The sounds of the river filled my ears and staring at the flows and eddies put me in a kind of visual trance. This induced a strange sensation as if the river was flowing through me. And it was good just to be there. I didn’t think of careers or things to have. I didn’t think of cars and houses, better fishing rods or gear, I didn’t think of fishing at all. I needed no purpose.
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“Spring has returned. The earth is like a child that knows poems.”
Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonetts to Orpheus, 1923
This year, winter liked us so much it didn’t want to leave. During Easter break all the lakes were still covered by ice, but to keep the mood up winter had thrown in some sunshine and blue skies.
Now, however, it is happening. Spring has finally arrived and with it this giddy feeling that all might, in the end, go well. Why is it that we so strongly associate spring with hope?
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I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.From “Invictus” by William Ernest Henly, 1875
When I took this picture I was sitting out on the cliffs in dense fog. The morning was chilly and the silence complete. The fog was isolating miniatures out of the larger landscape, like this life buoy sitting atop a sea of frozen waves of rock.
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All cultures have their persisting narratives. These can be historical events, legends and myths or all three together. Cesar’s death, the siege of Troy, the Arthur legends and the stories from scripture are such examples in the West. Together they form an important part of the cultural package that is forwarded from generation to generation. Even if we don’t always realize it, they are a part of us. Any meaningful dialog between people requires that the respective narratives are recognized and hopefully even understood.
These narratives often pop-up as recurring themes in the arts whereby they are transformed and sometimes used as commentary to current events. One such theme in East Asia is the Eight Views. In strange ways I have been stumbling over this theme from time to time and it is one that touches me. Let me explain…
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I’ll admit it right away: I am a fog-addict.
Fog is a re-shaper, a re-former, a hider and a seeker. It melts all forms in its great, grey kettle and forges them into mere ideas of themselves.
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One can read from time to time that photography nowadays is an online medium, something to be produced and consumed while staying in the digital domain. And, yes, certainly many if not most photographs today go from a phone to social media never to leave the world of bits and data. Then, there are artists who specifically produce work that needs presentation on screens, like the animated genre-busting video- /photographs of Yang Yongliang.
Still, I think, living with art has its own value. But how do you hang digital files on your wall? At least for now digital photo frames don’t quite cut the mustard. Let me explain – and welcome to Dinosaurilandia…
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Since its inception, photography has been associated with the notion of realism. We even coined a word, “photorealistic”, for it. And even though we know (or should know) better, we cling to the idea that photographs basically are “true to nature”.
Manipulation, however, has been part of the photography tool set from the beginning. Already 19th century photographers replaced unpleasant skies. Photography has also followed almost all trends in art from impressionism, to modernism and abstract art. The whole point of these styles and movements was to present a modified experience of reality. And until we have free roaming drones only guided by artificial intelligence, every camera is placed and pointed by someone. Every photograph has a point of view, which robs it of its objectivity and makes it a form of expression.
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