Edward Weston on “Portraits in Photography”

“…to reveal the individual before his camera, to transfer the living quality of that individual to his finished print…Not to make road maps but to record the essential truth of the subject; not to show how this person looks, but to show what he is.” - Edward Weston

I searched through my albums looking for an image that would work well with this quote. The image of the Black Horse worked the best. It was a moment, I think, when I saw in to this horse, beyond the façade of being a Sable Island horse; the true wild spirit of this horse came out and showed itself on print.

One can find this hidden depth in people through looking. Sit across a small table from the person to be photographed. You have the camera in hand. Waiting. Through looking at this person, with a little chatting, you will make a connection. At some point the person stops looking at the camera, to them the camera has gone, and they will look right at you. At that point, and it may take time, the true character of that person comes through. One click of the shutter is all it takes. I tried this approach when photographing a teenager in a group home. She never really came through. And then, just as I was to leave, my friend started to comb her hair and she came out. For privacy reasons I can’t show the photograph but the story makes the point that through looking, and with patience, you will see.

 

Black horse Sable Island

 

Photography is an art of observation, Elliott Erwitt

Every second of our day we are seeing things. There is a lot of visual information entering our heads all the time and our minds keep very busy processing that information. Indeed our minds never stop processing; it is active all day and all night.

With photography however, you are only seeing when you slow or stop the mind from processing and allow the image before you speak. Its like going out for a beer with friends and one of those friends cannot stop talking. You might say something, and then a second later this friend has taken your thought and is running with it and talking all sorts of gibberish. Thankfully, perhaps unlike the friend, we can stop our minds and allow the image to speak. I think that is when we develop a connection with what we see and the photograph that we take of that image fully expresses that connection.

“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” – Elliott Erwitt

Love!

Seeing by Henri Cartier-Bresson

Photography can be about the camera and what the camera can do. But for me, the camera is there to catch what I see. The photography of Henri Cartier-Bresson is also all about seeing and he is a great inspiration to me.

“Pictures, regardless of how they are created and recreated, are intended to be looked at. This brings to the forefront not the technology of imaging, which of course is important, but rather what we might call the eyenology (seeing)”. - Henri Cartier-Bresson

Untitled

THE KARMA OF A SOUR LIME

“When someone says “sour,” it may remind you of biting into something sour like a lime. Since you already have had the experience of eating a lime and tasting how sour it is, just hearing the word sour and thinking about it, your face makes an expression as if you were eating a lime or lemon right now. Habit is formed out of memory, from that point of view. We begin to reshape our present situation according to that habitual memory and ape instinct, as we might call it.”

Chogyam Trungpa, “The Tibetan Buddhist Path” a seminar at Naropa University, Summer 1974.

So what relevance does this have for photography. Well, a lot. When we see something on our way to work, while shopping or simply brushing our teeth, during that split-second we see the raw qualities of whatever that thing is, its colour, texture, light and form, and thus its raw beauty. But after that short period, our minds arrive at the scene and label, and judge, associate and recall memories of whatever we see, ‘oh, its a can of coke’, ‘its a bus! ugly!’, ‘oh that reminds me of my..”. The beauty in our world sits peacefully in the split-second, and with practice that short period can become minutes.

 

Sable Island horses at the NSDCC

On the 16th November, 2012 the Nova Scotia Designer Christmas Craft Show comes to the Cunard Centre in Halifax. This is a great craft show showing off the best of craft work from the Maritimes and beyond.

As in the past few years, I will be there exhibiting my limited edition work of nature images from the Atlantic provinces. Much of my work will be from Sable Island. The limited edition collection is considered, by myself, to be my best work. Images must have something extra special about them to be included in the collection, and all have been captured using a contemplative approach.

Here are a few images that will be on exhibit at the show.

 

 

Seeing wild horses

I visit Sable Island often, perhaps twice a year for 8 weeks or so. It is a great place for photography but after coming here since 1997 one may think what you see gets old. There are horses, sand, sand dunes, seals, birds, sea, and so on. But when one is really looking, there are endless perceptions. When I see a horse I don’t just see a horse…

 

Art in everyday life

ART IN EVERYDAY LIFE

Every moment we might be doing the same things—brushing our teeth every day, combing our hair every day, cooking our dinner every day. But that seeming repetitiveness becomes unique every day. A kind of intimacy takes place with the daily habits that you go through and the art involved in it. That is what is called art in everyday life.

in Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche True Perception: The Path of Dharma Art, page 27.

This quote describes well the wonderful sights that are around us everyday, and that paying some attention to that reality allows one to see the beauty in our world.

 

 

Japan!

Here is the fourth series of images from my trip to Japan in July. These images were taken from the region within and around Kyoto and close to the Japanese Alps. We hiked in the Alps for four days; those images will appear next week.

A flower does not talk

Silently a flower blooms,

In silence it falls away;

Yet here now, at this moment, at this place,

The whole of the flower, the whole of the world is blooming.

This is the talk of the flower, the truth of the blossom.

The glory of eternal life is fully shining here.

Zenkei Shibayama

Light

During the past week the light has been rather magical and it has led to me standing on the spot, gasping and then grabbing my camera. As Cartier-Bresson describes below, seeing and capturing these fleeting moments is a way of life, and just another way of expressing yourself.

As far as I am concerned, taking photographs is a means of understanding which cannot be separated from other means of visual expression. It is a way of shouting, of freeing oneself, not of proving or asserting one’s own originality. It is a way of life.” - Henri Cartier-Bresson