...and Clears Some Cobwebs From Her Soul...

"There are moments in our lives,
there are moments in a day,
when we seem to see beyond the usual.
Such are the moments of our greatest happiness.
Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom.
If one could but recall his vision by some sort of sign.
It was in this hope that the arts were invented.
Sign-posts on the way to what may be.
Sign-posts toward greater knowledge."
- Robert Henri (The Art Spirit)

The Muse Slowly Opens Her Tired Eyes ...

"Art is the perception and depiction of the sublime, the transcendent, the beautiful, the spiritual... Art is the eye of the spirit, through which the sublime can reach down to us, and we up to it, and be transformed, transfigured in the process. Art, at its best, is the representation of your very own soul, a reminder of who and what you truly are and therefore can become."

- Ken Wilber (1949 - )

I took How Many Pictures on Vacation?

As is obvious from the post dates of my blog entries, there has (yet again!) been quite a dry-spell of late as far as my blog-posting goes. The culprit, as almost always, has nothing to do with lack of interest - if anything, my ever-patient muse and I are bubbling over with creative ideas - but lack of time, owing to "day job" pressures. So, on the heels of many more papers, study proposals, meetings and briefings that I can count (while staying nominally sane), my wife and I finally found a few days of solace in beautiful Siesta Key, Florida. In a strange (nested) synchronicity, as I was completing the book I took for our trip that dealt with the psychology and physics of synchronous events (Deciphering the Cosmic Number, by Arthur Miller), the DVD my in-laws were watching upon our return to Coral Gables (where they were kind enough to look after the kids while we were away) was Koyaanisqatsi. Koyaanisqatsi, which in the Hopi language means "crazy life, life in turmoil, life out of balance, life disintegrating, a state of life that calls for another way of living", is a remarkable film made in the early 1980s on that general theme, and scored by Philip Glass. It also perfectly describes the inner discord I currently feel: a profound lack of balance between the two worlds that define me; one of the intellect, which is filled with equations and computer code, the other of art and other aesthetic sensibilities, which has been getting the short-end of the proverbial stick these days. Seeing the hypnotic surreal-like images of the film as we stepped into my in-laws' house instantly crystallized for me the conflict that has been brewing inside of myself during the last few months, as more and more of my energy has been channeled into purely "intellectual" pursuits (sans art).

While the imbalance unfortunately persists, its complementary part has at least been nourished in a small way by our brief 4-day sojourn to the Gulf waters. To say it was a joy to walk around with my camera strapped to my neck (something I have not done for well over two months, and one of the longest such stretches in recent memory), would be a deep understatement. Which brings me to the actual point of this blog entry, whose title recounts the words I silently uttered to myself when I looked at what I downloaded from my compact flash cards after getting back home to Virginia: "I took how many pictures on vacation?" (A clue to the answer lies in the number of images that make up the "quintic" shown above.)

The interesting part is that there are two correct answers to this question, and that each is both surprising and not. Most importantly, the answers together have given me an insight into my style of picture taking, which I now realize has undergone a bit of a transformation. Allow me to explain.

On the one hand, objectively speaking, I came home with quite a few images (in the relatively brief time I had to actually wander around, and as witnessed by the total number of files on my cards), about 1000. On the other hand, the actual number of distinct images - by which I mean a set of images such that all "loosely similar" photos are counted as a "single image" - is considerably, and suggestively, smaller. By this reckoning, I came away from our trip with exactly five distinct images!

Apart from a few unimportant and eminently forgettable "just grab the shot" shots, by far the majority of the remaining ~980 shots I took on this trip are so similar to one of the five illustrative images above that what I was effectively doing - albeit unconsciously - was simultaneously working on five mini-portfolios. Which also represents a mini-transformation in the way I "do photography" nowadays.

My wife was the first to notice (a few short day-trips ago) that I spend far less time taking "indiscriminate" shots than before. That is, if strolling in a park, say, I am much less inclined to pause to take a picture of something (and even less inclined to bother setting up a tripod) than I was a few years ago. On the other hand, on those occasions where something does catch my eye, I am also much more likely to spend a considerably longer time setting up, composing, finding alternate angles, waiting for better light, and so on. Of course, nothing in the second set of activities is anything new per se (for this is the common "work space" that most photographers naturally live in). What is revealing to me is: (1) that I am doing so much less of the first kind of "snap and shoot" photography while in the company of others, including my wife (as normally, when out and about with my camera, I both desire to take pictures and not bludgeon others' patience), and (2) that my wife has noticed (even before I did) that when I pick now up my camera, it almost always presages a long local photo session, focused on a specific subject, and is rarely about "taking that one shot." Even a few carefully composed shots of the surf on a beach at Siesta Key simply will not do anymore; I need to spend a few hours taking over a 100!

What is perhaps even more revealing (to me, anyway, as I reflect on what else this says about my own ever-evolving creative process), is that I am not trying to find the proverbial "best shot" of a sequence that will serve as the "keeper" of the group. Rather I am deliberately (in hindsight;-) methodically stitching together a multilayered view of my experience of a single moment. Each image is recorded not because I think it will merely serve as an added "exemplar" of a set from which I'll eventually select a representative "best of" series. Rather, each image is taken in the belief that not only will it almost surely be a part of a "keeper" set (imperfections and all), but that - in and of itself - it represents an important element of a broader multi-image view of the interval of time during which my attention was focused on revealing something about my experience while taking this set of pictures. By way of analogy, my pictures are slowly taking on the character of words and sentences (intended to convey richer tones and meanings, and used as grammatical components of a larger, hopefully more nuanced, body of work, even if that body of work is only about a relatively short experience at one location), rather than paragraphs or completed "stories" (as before). Even more succinctly, I am finding myself taking far fewer images than ever before as intentionally isolated images, captured solely for whatever purpose a single image may serve to convey some meaning. Again, there is nothing strikingly new in this observation, as photographers do this sort of thing do all the time; at least if we examine the final body of work they produce to complete a given "project" (it is also the Lenswork "model" of focusing on themed portfolios rather than "greatest hits"). What is new - to me - is that this process has apparently now become so innate a part of my creative process, that it occurs, naturally, even within the rhythms of an otherwise routine photo-safari.

So, what better way to convey the "essence" of a wonderfully relaxing, much needed, break from work, than by a portfolio of quintics that reveal glimpses of the five - and only five ;-) photographs I took on my vacation?

Postscript #1: For those of you interested in exploring the fascinating life-long relationship between C.G. Jung and Wolfgang Pauli (one of the 20th Century's great physicists), additional references include: Pauli and Jung: A Meeting of Two Great Minds (by David Lindorff) and The Innermost Kernel (by Suzanne Gieser). Moreover, if you are in any way interested in Jung, you will surely want to find a place that has a hardcopy of a truly extraordinary (and extraordinarily expensive!) book, Jung's Red Book (I recently saw one at a local Barnes and Noble). An on-line perusal of sample pages simply cannot do justice to the magic contained therein. Jung had worked in secret on this book for decades, and it has only now been released (for the first time) after another two decades' worth of scholarship. You can read about its story in this New York Times book report. I would go so far as to say that even if Jung did nothing of value in psychology, and the Red Book were stripped of all its wondrous prose (and there is a lot of it, agruably including some of Jung's best) to include only the images Jung drew to illustrate the dreams he explores in it (so that we judge Jung's lifelong oeuvre by nothing other than the pictures in this one incredible book), Jung would go down as an artist of the highest caliber. Even if you have only a casual interest in psychology, dreams, and/or Jung, I would urge you to look at this magnificent book for its art alone!

Postscript #2: In case there is any confusion, the five images (or image series) are, respectively (from left to right in the samples above): (1) beach/sand plants and vines, (2) close-ups of my mother-in-law's knick-knacks (as viewed on her dining-room table), (3) surf abstracts, (4) cracks in the painted lines (defining lane-boundaries on small roads in Siesta Key), and (5) close-ups of patterns on paper weights and easter eggs.

Solo Show at the Hyatt Regency in Reston, VA

Part of the reason I have been remiss in updating my blog recently (apart from the usual demands of my day job) is that I've been preparing for what I am now very pleased to announce. Namely, a solo show at the Hyatt Regency in Reston, Virginia. More specifically, at the Market Street Bar & Grill that is attached to the Hyatt, at street level, at 1800 Presidents Street, Reston, VA, 20190 (if you click on the link to the Hyatt Regency, the entrance to the Bar and Grill appears in the main picture at the top of the page that pops up). There will be 24 works in all, about equally divided between my abstracts and landscapes (including a few new prints from the trip my wife and I took to Scotland last year). I also plan on bringing about 20 or so smaller prints (matted but sans frame, in a plastic slipcase) for people to look over at the reception, but that - due to lack of sufficient wall space - will not be an "official" part of the exhibit.

Sponsored by the Greater Reston Arts Center, the opening reception will be Monday, February 8, 2010, 5 - 7 pm. The exhibit will run through April 19, 2010.

For those of you in the area, and wishing to attend, the Hyatt has been kind enough to promise to provide a delicious spread of specialty appetizers, offer each guest a complimentary glass of select wine, and if - after the reception - any guests desire to stay for dinner, to take 20% off the total cost of each of their meals (provided they bring the flyer for the reception, link below)!

So, please come out to look at some photos, chat, muse, have a glass of wine, and maybe even enjoy a nice discounted meal :-) I hope to see you there!

A flyer for the reception may be downloaded here.

The Mystical Way of Photography

I have just about finished preparing a set of powerpoint slides for a presentation I was invited to give early next year by the Silver Spring Camera Club (in Maryland). My "guest appearance" is scheduled for 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm on January 7, 2010 (a thursday) at the Marvin Memorial United Methodist Church (33 University Boulevard E., Silver Spring; corner of University and Colesville Rd.).

My talk consists of a brief bio (of myself as a "work in progress" photographer), a summary of my artistic journey thus far, a few "lessons" I've learned, a sampling of old and new portfolios, and ideas on how Eastern philosophy can help aspiring artists nurture their creativity. It is in regard to this last set of musings that I'd like to devote this blog entry to.

One of my all-time favorite quotes appears in the Ching-te Ch'uan Teng lu ("Transmission of the Lamp," assembled by Tao-Yuan of the line Fa-Yen Wen (885-958):

“Before I had studied Zen for thirty years,I saw mountains as mountains,
and waters as waters…
When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge,
I came to the point where I saw
that mountains are not mountains,
and waters are not waters.
But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest.
For it's just that I see mountains once again as mountains,
and waters once again as waters.”

This sage insight describes not only life but - recursively, self-referentially - every aspect of the creative field that defines and nourishes it, including, of course, art and photography.

Now, anchored by the Buddhist quote above, consider the corresponding stages of growth of a photographer:

Stage 1: At first, the photographer sees mountains as mountains and waters as waters...

...the photographer searches for the picture. The slide shows an image I took last year when my wife and I visited Santorini, Greece. Why did I take this particular shot? What creative energies and motivations, internal and external, compelled me to point my camera in this direction at this time to record this emphemeral reality? Perhaps, being a physicist, I was drawn by the geometry, or entropic decay of the door? (In truth, the more meaningful question to ask is: "Why has the universe evolved in such a way as to have this image materialize at a certain point in time and space?", but please read on...) Of course, different photographers have different backgrounds, are motivated by different needs, and have different aesthetic temperaments and creative urges. One photographer might be attracted to light and geometry; another to history and culture; still another to textures and contrasts. But in all cases, the aspiring artist is in search of some "thing," and happy when she stumbles upon an object of interest.

While the resulting pictures are undeniably products of individual needs and aspirations, and thus necessarily reflect some part of the photographer responsible for creating them, they stand alone - at least at this early juncture (in the photographer's evolution as an artist) - as objects essentially of their own creation. They are what they are: a landscape, a portrait, a family picture, ... Some are better than others, but each is also more likely than not "yet another instance" of a picture that has been taken by countless other more or less talented photographers (though - importantly - for very different "reasons"). Trees are trees, portraits are portraits, and few, if any, of the images - as individual images - reveal much about the photographer that created them. The connection between creative energy and created "object" is not yet visible, and exists only in latent form.

Stage 2: Later, the photographer no longer sees mountains as mountains and waters as waters...

...instead, the photographer begins losing herself in her pictures, thus freeing the pictures to discover their - and her - path. (Instances of a given) tree grow into trees, of different kinds, in different light, at different times - of year and of the photographer's own inner state. The growing set of images evolves to encompass other, related aspects, of the shifting reality the photographer - partly consciously and partly unconsciously -immerses herself in. Perhaps rocks appear, perhaps water, then fog, then leaves, and - later - by an emergence of entirely new "nonphysical" categories - like abstraction, or tao; perhaps the photographer finds herself experimenting with color, or doing away with categories altogether.

Aesthetic meaning transitions from individual pictures to collections of interrelated imagery, which itself evolves - sometimes backtracking, sometimes taking lateral, seemingly "stagnant" unproductive steps - weaves in and out of itself, but also inexorably, inevitably, forges a unique path. One that is unmistakably and uniquely of the artist. Others that are allowed (even a partial) glimpse of the growing work - of the waypoints along the living path - can see past the "individual images" (that "anyone" with a requisite amount of talent and experience could also have created, but - again - for vastly different reasons) to see the first hints of a unique creative field at work. Paradoxically, the best artists are almost always the last to "see" these faint stirrings of new levels in their own work, even as they keep reaching upward. No path is the same as any other, and the path that emerges for a given artist is as much a product of the artist as it is of itself. The perceived duality between creative field and created form is much the same as all dualities; which is to say it is illusory. But the artist is not yet at the stage to see past illusion. Indeed, the artist uses the duality between self and world - exploits it! - to forge a path that others in the world see as uniquely hers.

Stage 3: Eventually (if the artist has journeyed on a sincere - and sincerely discovered - path), she once again sees mountains as mountains and waters as waters...

...and, in the end, finally discovers herself. The (unending) path defines the photographer! Not as a passive collage of "photographs taken," but as an active embodiment of the artist's spirit. The creative field awakens to a new reality in which all divisions between self, path, and creation have no meaning, save for the unending process and timeless yearning to create. There is only the creative field, journeying into the infinite depths of its own self.

The photographer finds a picture, that discovers a path, that defines the artist, that is the photographer, that finds a picture....

Now look deeper still, beyond even this "last" step; beyond the "Ouroborian" synthesis of self and process (which is an important portal to the ultimate ground of all being, but not an end...), a place where words - and even pictures - begin to fail....now, what do you see?

Note: Interested readers can download the full set of powerpoint slides of my upcoming talk (in Adobe pdf format): low-res version (4 MB), high-res version (16 MB).

Blurred Distinctions

A set of Nambe-like metallic salt and pepper shakers (featuring shiny reflecting metallic surfaces), assorted pots and pans and formal serving trays, and the backdrop and decor of my in-laws' dining room (in Coral Gables, Florida), all mysteriously conspired - during the Thanksgiving break - to teach me a lesson on the art of making blurred distinctions. I mean this both literally - as in exploring (what for me) is an unusual range of bokeh-inducing f-stops (f~2.8; compared to the range I "normally" work in: f11 ~ f16) - and metaphorically - as in the lesson the "abstract experiments" I will describe below has taught me about the blurry distinction between "photography" and (more traditional forms of) "art."

“In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.” - GAUTAMA SIDDHARTA (563-483 B.C.)

The context, and lucky trigger, for my lesson, was my (day-job-related) physical and mental exhaustion that I've accrued over the days and weeks before the Thanksgiving break - which effectively barred me from going outdoors with my camera, as I normally do when on vacation. I was simply too tired to go on any of my usual photo-safaris. But not too tired to pick up a camera, of course ;-) I took the normal mix of family photos, and photos of my in-laws' garden plants and flowers.

And then we had Thanksgiving dinner! The silverware was out, the serving trays were on display, and those precious Nambe-like salt and pepper shakers were teasing me with their compositional possibilities!

I spent the next few days playing with the macro lens I brought with me, Canon's 100/f2.8. This is the same lens I'd used previously for both my "Micro Worlds" and "Whorls" portfolios, and remains one of my favorite lenses to turn to when my muse keeps me indoors. I trained my lens on the reflections of objects in the dining room that appeared on the salt and pepper shakers as I moved them around perched atop one of my mother-in-law's metal serving trays.

What I found was both a revelation and a source of illumination on the nature of photography and art (with a smattering of insight into the nature of life itself).

"Thought is creating divisions out of itself and then saying that they are there naturally." - DAVID BOHM

First, the revelatory part... since, at f~2.8, the macro lens renders everything with an extremely narrow depth of field, the "distinction" between otherwise separate objects is either difficult to discern or is effectively invisible. Indeed, different "things" are mostly blurred into fuzzy indistinct clumps of overlapping shapes and color. And, speaking of color... precisely because of the paucity of recognizable "things" - that normally provide the backdrop of "compositional primitives" with which a photograph is aesthetically organized - color becomes as integral a component of a composition as shape and tone (this, coming from a black and white photographer - hence a revelation!).

The resulting images of reflected objects are (almost absurdly) minimalist abstractions of fuzzy fields of overlapping colors. My usual argument for preferring not to use color is that my "eye" tends to focus on shape, tone, and texture alone. Color (at least in the context of this particular aesthetic approach) is thus unnecessarily intrusive, distracting, and - often - overbearing. In my post-Thanksgiving experiments, however, with texture virtually gone, and shapes and tones reduced to their bare essentials, color reasserts itself as an important aesthetic tool. In side-by-side comparisons between the color and black & white versions (not shown here), I strongly favor the color versions.

As for the illumination part...it is often argued that the fundamental difference between traditional art (such as watercolor) and fine-art photography is that where photographers must search for (and find visual approximations of) what they wish to print as a "photograph" (and thereby use to communicate some "idea" or "feeling" as photographer-artists), traditional artists create what they see in their mind's eye (or inspired by what they see). The artist intentionally adds things in his "mind's eye" to an initially blank canvas; the photographer intentionally wanders around the world looking for something "out there" to add to an initially data-lacking CMOS sensor (or undeveloped film) that the lens can record an image on. One adds information from within; the other adds information from without.

But is that really the case? My post-Thanksgiving macro experiments reminded me that - on the deepest level - there is little if any meaningful distinction between what artists of any kind do. All artists create; that is what they do, and that is what describes how they behave. But it is the process that defines them; not the tools they use, not the methods they employ to create their finished artwork, not even the conventional "categories" that others use to label what kind of artists the world perceives them to be.

"What is needed is ... to give up altogether the notion that the world is constituted of basic objects or building blocks. Rather one has to view the world in terms of universal flux of events and processes." - DAVID BOHM

The usual art / photography distinction is blurred by what I found myself doing with my camera to "create" my images (a few of which appear in this blog). Rather than simply moving my camera left, right, up, and down on my tripod "looking for pleasing compositions" - as I normally do when doing macro photography (and which, in particular, I employed for both the "Micro Worlds" and "Whorls" portfolios), I found myself also intentionally repositioning the metal tray on which the salt and pepper shakers were standing, intentionally moving various colored objects on the table that were reflected in the shakers and tray, intentionally moving objects on the adjacent walls, and intentionally changing the room lighting.

On the one hand, none of this is out of the ordinary, and - to a degree - is something that I, and all photographers regularly do. On the other hand, there is a crucial difference: in this case, I was making all of these changes not just so that I could find a pleasing composition (that would, as if by magic, appear before me); but because I deliberately wanted to create just the right combination of objects and light for a particular composition of color, shape, and tone - that I had previsualized in my mind's eye - to appear in my viewfinder! In short, I was using a camera, but I was creating the image as though I was a traditional artist!

To be sure, I had no brushes and was not using paint; but the effect - and, more importantly, the intent - was exactly the same. To make the distinction - or lack of one - even more self-evident, consider a simple thought experiment. Suppose I create an image, such as this one...

...in the way as I've described above: I use my macro lens set to f2.8, and deliberately and willfully create a local "environment" (consisting of a particular configuration of things, light, and color) previsualizing the image that forms in my viewfinder to look as it appears in the image above. I press the shutter, and process the file as I normally do (except skip the step of converting to black and white). Call the resulting image, image-A. Now suppose that I instead start with a paint program - say ArtRage (which, BTW, is a magnificent little program that does much of what more sophisticated and expensive programs do for a fraction of the cost: check it out!) - and paint the same image. I then grab my camera, take a shot, and again process as I normally do, winding up with image-B.

Here's the obvious question: are these images different in any meaningful way? And, if not, then why? Assuming I've acquired a modicum of painting skill before opening the paint program, let's for sake of argument accept that I've managed to create a passable doppelganger for Image-A. We can safely assume that - apart from some minor cosmetic differences - Image-A is essentially equivalent to Image-B; i.e., the two images are effectively the "same." But we must ask, why are they the same? Clearly, the processes that led to the two images are very different. In one case, an image has been photographed; in the other, it was created directly in a paint program. The constant in both cases, of course, is the artist, and the previsualized image the artist had "within" before initiating the creative process that leads to the physical creation of either of the two images.

Is the "artist" a photographer or is the artist a traditional artist? And does the distinction really matter in this case? On can also argue that the deliberate "repositioning of objects" to yield specific color-forms in the camera's viewfinder is merely a "complicated label" that designates a different kind of "brush" used to apply a different kind of "paint" to a different kind of "canvas" (albeit a more involved and complex one). Whichever way one argues, though, in the end, I'm left with the conviction that - at least in this case (of post-Thanksgiving macro experimentation) - I'm both photographer and artist, and I'm neither a "photographer" nor am am I an "artist."

So what am I, really? Ahh, we've now truly come back to basics. What else, but the blurred distinctions between the sounds of one hand clapping!

"Whether you are going or staying or sitting or lying down,
the whole world is your own self.
You must find out
whether the mountains, rivers, grass, and forests
exist in your own mind or exist outside it.
Analyze the ten thousand things,
dissect them minutely,
and when you take this to the limit
you will come to the limitless,
when you search into it you come to the end of search,
where thinking goes no further and distinctions vanish.
When you smash the citadel of doubt,
then the Buddha is simply yourself."
- DAIKAKU (Zen teacher)

Video-clip from my Photo Exhibit at the American Center for Physics

The opening reception of the Worlds Within Worlds exhibit (held at the American Center for Physics, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD, 20740, on Monday, November 16, 2009) was - by all accounts - a resounding success. This is due, in no small measure, to the curator Sarah Tanguy, who not only assembled an extraordinary physics-inspired collection of art, but quite an impressive spread of delicious gourmet-quality food and drink. Thanks Sarah! I was also impressed by how many people showed up. I honestly did not know what to expect coming in, but had assumed that since the exhibit is being held inside a physics building - let's be honest, not exactly the Guggenheim ;-) - attendance would either be light or nonexistent. "Perhaps a few stray physicists who have momentarily lost their way to the library?" I predicted to my wife (being myself a physicist I can truthfully assert that "absentmindedness" is almost always a genetic trait;-) Much to my surprise (though not my wife's, who is infinitely more optimistic about such things, and is - lesson here? - almost always right!) there were between 70 and 80 people at the opening, almost all of whom - as far as I could tell - appeared to have had actually planned on being there. Indeed, many wore fancy black ties and suits, so I felt a bit of place, decked out as I was in my day-job "standard" dark slacks and sweater. After schmoozing with attendees for about an hour or so (and nibbling on samosas, some fine cuts of tenderloin, and other assorted hors d'oeuvres), Cynthia Padgett - the only other artist of the three-artist exhibit present at the reception (Julian Voss-Andreae was unfortunately unable to attend) - and I were asked to say a few words in the main reception/banquet hall. Cynthia opted for a quick Q&A session with Sarah, which worked out well, as the audience - and I - learned something about her creative process. When my turn came, I pursed my lips, cleared my throat, performed a quick mental Ralph-Kramden-like hammana-hammana-hammana stammer, walked up to the lectern...and proceeded to kick off my talk with a reference to Poincare sections and multidimensional aesthetic landscapes (true... and likely the first and last time such topics will be mentioned during a talk on photography!). My wife was kind enough to videotape the entire proceedings, including my talk. I've included a ~7 min clip - that you can see by clicking on the image at the top of this blog entry - that discusses the origins of my "Micro Worlds" portfolio (three images of which are included in the Worlds Within Worlds exhibit" - however, in interests of preserving my readers' sanity, I've left out the part on Poincare sections and multidimensional aesthetic landscapes;-). At best, the clip shows that photographers can, if pressed, actually say something half-way intelligible about their photography; at worst, it demonstrates that they should stick to photography ;-) I'll let you, kind readers - and, if you are inclined to click on the link to the video - kind viewers, judge for yourself. The exhibit runs through April 10, 2010.