An occassion for doubt

I live near a park that is about seven kilometres long and maybe one and a half kilometres wide at its widest point. Throughout its entire length runs a tidal creek brown in colour due to its high silt content and lined with all sorts of plants and  gum trees. There are some large electricity pylons which give off an ominous static sound whenever the air becomes dry as it tends to do in winter. Throughout the park there are picnic tables, play forts, skate-boarding ramps, sports fields and bike paths. At one end of the park there is a large man-made lake which has become a bird sanctuary of sorts with its two small islands and its grassy surrounds. The birds consist mostly of a variety of ducks, black-tailed native hens, cormorants and sandpipers.

Every now and then in the summers this park becomes a small inland sea as this park is for all intents and purposes, a flood plain. From our house, after torrential rains, we can see the park turn into a long body of water. It’s quite a sight. Unfortunately this hasn’t happened for many years as it’s been a long time since we’ve had decent rain to match our sub-tropical climate. The creek will break its banks every summer but these past few years most of the park has remained uncovered by flood waters.

There is one thing about this park that few people know about. Even the locals who have lived here all their lives are unaware of the elusive residents that make this park their home. Within this extensive flood plain lives a herd of wild deers. Deers are not native to Australia so these deers were obviously introduced for a purpose long forgotten though I suspect that it may have been for hunting. I don’t know how long they have been around but I have found a reference that mentions the herd being in the vicinity over 60 years ago. In any case, in the last fifteen years of frequenting this park I have only seen these deers on two occasions, each time while out on a run just prior to dawn.

If you are wondering what is the point of all this, I am getting to it, I promise, I only ask that you indulge me a little longer.

A few months ago I was out running in the early hours of the morning. I was doing a loop around the lake when I was stopped in my tracks by the sudden appearance of a young buck a short distance from me just beyond a small clump of bushes and short trees. Standing perfectly still I watched the young buck with its beautiful antlers who in turn appeared to be looking back at me. It seemed that neither of us dared move, both of us fully captivated by the moment. I didn’t have a camera with me but that did not matter, I was happy enough to be in the presence of this beautiful beast.

After a short while I made a deliberate, unhurried move towards him but no sooner had I taken a step forward that the deer vanished. He disappeared, instantly, as if conjured away by a skilled magician. For an instance I was left wondering what had happened. How could he move so fast? I had not taken my eyes off him, not even daring to blink. For a moment my mind was filled with doubt and confusion. And then it hit me. I took a step back and instantly realised what had happened. The young buck had been nothing more than a play of shadows and light, branches and leaves. An illusion, a trick played by the mind and while I could make out the leaves I had taken to be ears and the branches which only moments ago had been majestic antlers I could no longer see the deer, I could only see what had appeared to be a deer. The illusion was broken. All I could do was laugh at the joke my mind had played with me. With a simple optical illusion I had been left doubting my own sanity, I had been given a new perspective.

This experience reminded me of the story used in Hinduism to explain the concept of Maya. In this story a farmer walks into a barn late one night and spots a snake on the floor. Scared, he runs away only to return with his son who carries a torch. Upon re-entering the barn the snake is seen to be what it really is. A length of coiled rope.

In art, photography in particular, there is much discussion about capturing the “real”, about images needing to reflect reality. People like to debate the pros and cons of altering photographs. What some people call enhancing others call self-serving deception. There are some photographers who pride themselves in rendering their world accurately and truthfully keeping tones and colours within what they deem to be a normal range. But there are other photographers who will push the saturation and contrast levels to new highs creating images that punch out and scream “look at me!”. And then there are abstracts and fantasy montages and textured images and high dynamic range (HDR) photos. The list goes on.

At various times during my journey in photography I have been on one side of the fence or the other. Now I don’t care so much. I am not a fence sitter, I just don’t see the point, in much the same way that many don’t see the point in the things I write about and that is fine with me.

What people do with their art, with their creativity will always make sense when taken in the context of their own story. Within the context of my story, photography gives me a framed window through which I can explore my world beyond arguments, beyond points of view, beyond context and into the very realm of doubt. Photography and art in general gives me an occassion for doubt. It may seem absurd and counter-intuitive but reality is somehow seen more clearly once we start to doubt our long-held beliefs and start to question those concepts that we have always accepted by default. Art in all its forms and guises gives me an opportunity to question particular beliefs often only to find that they are built on other beliefs. I have long ago concluded that assumptions and beliefs are the building blocks of my reality. I could let them be for it affords me nothing to question them but that is not in my nature.

Whether a photograph is an exact rendition of the subject matter or a manipulated interpretation matters not to me. Since, more often than not I do not know the story of the artist I can only appreciate what I see from the context of my own story. But in that context, that paradigm of an individual existence that stands apart from the artwork, doubt is raised which questions the essence of that existence that I take myself to be. The doubt is raised because sometimes as I interact with the artwork, I am, even if only for a short while, consumed by it and the separation that had been there but a moment ago between the artwork and me, has vanished without so much as a thought of bewilderment, without so much as a sense of wonder. It could be said that there is awareness but even that seems to be saying too much. It is only later once back within the context of my story that the experience is analysed and once put into words sounds much like new-agey hippy talk or at best, paradoxical Zen nonsense.

Over a lifetime the mind has built up mental abstractions that I have come to accept as my reality. Art on the other hand, with its own abstractions of that reality leaves me wondering if what I am seeing is really what I think it is. That may not make any sense within the context of your story but it makes a lot of sense from where I’m standing. The thing is that while the mind makes reality seem complicated and convoluted, art makes reality seem utterly simple. When I lose myself in art I stop trying to figure out life, the universe and everything, the mental noise is seen to be nothing at all and my own story is seen as not being anything personal.

The mind is full of mental abstractions. Some dissolve away merely by taking a step towards a clump of bushes or shining a torch upon the ground but others are more persistent. Art is a wonderful way to shake the very foundations of those beliefs. It serves no purpose but I find it fun in a new-age, hippy, one-hand-clapping kind of way.

This photo "minnippi stag fight" was taken by Misteriddles (aka Iain Clacher) who, unlike me, always had a camera with him.