~§~

All things must come to an end. This is my last post. Thanks for reading and for sharing your thoughts.
Oh, and before any one reads too much into this post… I’m fine.
Just saying.

~§~

Recently, a self-proclaimed photo artist, was lamenting that art is dead and blaming art’s demise on the profusion of technology which has apparently diluted photographic art into a quagmire of hipster-filtered, low resolution snaps.

Whatever.

To mourn’s art’s passing, if it has indeed passed away, seems to me to be somewhat enigmatic or at least puzzling. Hasn’t art died a thousand deaths? With every new age, with every new, world-changing discovery hasn’t art died only to be reborn in some new form perhaps with a new message but always with the same intent… to exist for its own sake?

If Art is dead then I can only say, long live Art.

I can, albeit reluctantly, imagine a future where still photography will go the way of cave paintings and etchings. But the death of still photography as an art form would not mean the death of art. For me art has a life of its own. It creates itself and re-invents itself using some providential humans (who we end up calling artists) as its channel. All I am saying is, art forms die but art is eternal.

And life is a lot like art.

From the moment we are born we are given but one guarantee and that is that we will… one day… die. Of all the potential and possibilities that life holds for us at birth, death is one that will not be denied. I do not wish to make light of death, its arrival is always sad and all too often tragic but death or at least the promise of death holds a gift that few people appreciate before it is too late.

Art, especially photography where I am concerned, offers the same gift but death adds a sense of urgency to it. In science as in philosophy there is much talk of things that never go beyond the conceptual or theoretical but as our world view changes with new findings, as our perceptions change to see things under a different light – so much so sometimes, that we wonder how we ever saw it any other way – no “fact” is as certain as death. Well… for now at least. And death is personal, death is ours to own. When it is our time to die no one can die for us.

And so, if I am the one to die then I am the one to live.

And therein lies death’s gift. Death makes everything in life matter. Everything. Every aspect, every breath, every emotion, every feeling, every thought. I may give myself other reasons why certain things matter to me but it is the promise of death that makes all of it matter. At this point, if you happen to go along with my premise it can be tempting to go down the well worn path trodden by so many self-help gurus where you re-assess your life and get all new-age and reborn, quit your job, move to another country, go on a diet, start exercising, write a bucket list or whatever but I do not see that as necessary to make the most of the gift that’s being offered. When a gift is offered I like to give something back, in this case, I like to give life my full attention. Whatever it throws at me. What I try to do is be aware of every little thing regardless of what it is. Photography has helped in this respect. Over the years photography has made me more attentive, more cognizant and not just of the things around me but also of all the thoughts and feelings going on internally.

But here is the peculiar thing, as awareness grows something ever so subtle happens. I can only describe it as a kind of detachment, not in terms of feeling separate from it all but rather like a realization that I do not need to take any of it personally. I do not make the photograph, I am not in the photograph, I am, the photograph. Nonsense to be sure but I do not know how to express it any other way. The ego may well feel somewhat cheated by this but there is a certain sense of freedom associated with this awareness. It’s just… not… personal. Perhaps not even death it would seem.

Life, just like art, never dies of course. It is only the stories that end; the stories of us, the stories of species, the stories of cultures, the stories of civilizations, the stories of forests and cities, of worlds and stars and gods. Life, however, creates itself, invents itself with new stories unfolding eternally and always with the same intent… to exist for its own sake.

Just. Like. Art.

A designer, a guitarist, a painter and a photographer walked into a bar.

No joke.

Well… except for where I refer to myself as a photographer but apart for that small deception this is just what happened recently. Four people walked into a bar for a beer and a chat. The thing about getting together with creative types is that the conversations are never boring and one thing about the conversations with this particular trio is that they invariably turn to art. Or the creation of art. Or the pursuit of art. Or whatever related to art. This particular time the designer brought up a video he saw about a magician who created an illusion using technology — three smart phones I think it was — and talked about the art of deception. That got us going about the connection between art and deception but I won’t bore you with a long wordy post. Instead I will leave you with the words from this particular magician which the designer copied down and which says everything I would have said. He just says it much more succinctly.

“Art is the greatest deception of all. Art is the deception that creates real emotion, a lie that creates a truth and when you give yourself over to that deception it becomes magic.” – Marco Tempest

~§~

UPDATE 18/1/12: Thanks to Nathan Katica for giving me the name of the magician so that I can finally attribute it correctly.

There was this temptation to write cliches about going with the flow,
going where the wind takes us and other such platitudes but instead I settled for other drivel.

Life’s a breeze. Except when it blows.

And having said that, it’s worth considering the possibility that our sole purpose here, is simply to be witness to it.
All of it. All of life.

Including this drivel. For which I apologise.

 If a man talks in a forest and there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?

~§~

I am a bit late with this (life is still hectic for me) but there have been some interesting discussions recently pertaining to a particular question: why does a photographer take a particular photograph over another? Not, why does someone make photographs but rather, as Paul Maxim put it in a comment to his post on the subject, why do we photograph what we do? And if we choose to spend a few hours making images of birds or flowers or street scenes or whatever, and then pick one from scores of others to represent that effort, the next question is why that particular photograph? What is it about that one image that separates it from all the rest? What do we see that makes it “work”?

I first explored this subject in “A question to a muse” where I asked “Why do I make pictures when I go out even though I have no real intent to make pictures?”. On the surface these questions appear easy to answer. In my totally unscientific surveys where I ask such questions to friends and sometimes random people in the street or in parks who are in the process of photographing or drawing or painting, I find that there is rarely any hesitation in answering. I say rarely because on the odd occasion there is, well, not so much hesitation as a serene pause usually accompanied by a contemplative, far away look. An inward look maybe, though that may just be my imagination. And when they utter their answer it is simple, like in all the other cases but somehow laden with meaning.

Having said that, Paul mentions in his post that a shallow answer like “just because” is not good enough and I tend to agree. However I must admit that I also find myself with the thought that “just because” may, in reality, be a perfectly good answer. But my nature being what it is, I am still led to wonder, how exactly, would such a simple answer be satisfactory?

As I tend to see things, when these sorts of questions arise they do so out of some innate thirst to understand what makes us tick. A connatural need to perceive our own nature. Quite likely the search for self has been around since Adam first donned a fig leaf but if that is the case then that thought alone begs the question: why the hell haven’t we got an answer yet?

As far as the photography related questions are concerned I see them as subtle invitations to be introspective. As such they have the potential to create some discomfort but equally they can lead to some realisations that may help make sense of life or at the very least, my photography. But while I would not say that it is vital or important in terms of what I do with my life, I do see introspection as an activity that has the potential of deriving great benefits. Furthermore, within the realm of creating art, such questions are indeed vital because the answers pertain directly to the artwork being created. I would even speculate that perhaps, the ability to answer such questions meaningfully is what differentiates the creative from the artistic. Who knows? By the way, I am not suggesting that artistic is superior to creative. Merely that art may simply be creativity with extra meaning. In any case, as I hinted in the title of my original post on this topic, I use such questions to amuse myself. Taking them too seriously inevitably defeats their purpose.

In the West self-contemplation is often associated with meditation, sitting still with a calm and quiet mind. This is rather odd though; trying to discern’s one’s natural state by doing something that seems so… unnatural.  In Tai Chi I was taught that the most formidable enemy was mind and that it could not be defeated through force or concentrated effort and that while the mind was active, awareness could not be fully realised and form (the Tai Chi moves) could never be “pure flow”. To achieve pure flow I first needed to achieve stillness of mind which, I was told, could be achieved through confusion. In Zen such confounding is done with koans — paradoxical anecdotes or riddles that have no solution or answer. The idea is that by posing such a question the mind will immediately try to solve or answer it though logical means and accumulated knowledge. And since there is no logical answer the mind eventually gives up and quietens down at which point something often referred to as enlightenment or awakening or other such concept supposedly happens. However, all new-age, touchy-feely, mumbo-jumbo aside, what you are actually left with is awareness. Pure and simple. Paul’s question, to some extent, serves that purpose even if it’s perhaps not quite as paradoxical as the sound of one hand clapping or the colour of wind.

Over the years I found that when introspection is done from a particular perspective, such as photography, it allows for a focal point which is less intimidating than looking directly at myself. By that I mean that there is less chance of self-deception. However it is less direct and it is quite possible that the answer or the anticipated result of gaining some kind of awareness is not achieved for a long time. If at all. But what I have found is that I invariably learn something ethereal about my craft and this can sometimes lead to some small revelation about my own nature. What is interesting however is that such revelations usually emerge as feelings, for want of a better word, which are beyond the intellect and therefore beyond words. And at such times “just because” may seem like a perfectly appropriate response. And a simple answer that has come from a long inner search may be more venerable than the same answer given flippantly or carelessly.

I dare say that introspection appears to be a journey that is ineluctably leading me back to where I started, where “just because” is indeed good enough because there comes a time when the words, for all their mesmerizing qualities, just get in the way.

~§~

Once upon a time a teacher presented a young student with a question…

Teacher: What is the colour of wind?

Student: [to himself] What the hell? Wind doesn’t have a colour. Does it? What are we talking about here hot wind, cold wind, cyclonic, breezy… I mean, like, what the hell man… what kind of dumb ass question is that? How do I answer something like that? Shit! Okay, okay, let’s think about this. It’s probably a trick question. There’s got to be an answer or the old dude wouldn’t have asked it. Right? Maybe he’s lost it, I mean shit, the guy’s gotta be between 80 and dead right? Probably senile right? Damn I’m hungry. I wonder what’s for dinner.

One month later…

Teacher: Do you have an answer for me?

Student: No Sifu, not yet. [to himself] You got to be freaking joking right? Last week when I said that hot wind was red and cold wind was blue you shook your head and walked away. I mean how about a freaking clue you know, like was I close? I mean can’t you ask me something easy like… I don’t know… like what time is it? And I could answer something really deep like “Now”. But no, I got to figure out what colour the freaking wind is! Give me a break!

And so it went on for months. 

Then, many years later…

The ex-student is out walking, camera in hand. The sun is warm on his face, the air is perfectly still. He stops in his tracks for no apparent reason. He closes his eyes. He can smell rain (or is it just the promise of rain?). He turns around, opens his eyes and sees storm clouds forming in the distance. He raises his camera and catches the last of the sun’s light reflected on a pylon rising above the trees like an iron giant. Thoughts of a movie pass by. He lowers the camera. He smiles for no apparent reason. As if on cue, the air stirs around him. Mindlessly he watches the clouds roll in. There is no thought, sweet silence. Ahead of the clouds, the wind races through the trees to greet him like an old friend. “Do you remember me?” it whispers. “What’s my colour?”

And just then, in that moment, an answer comes. Timid. Silent. Wordless. Just awareness, just being. The rules of time and space fade away. The question never mattered and yet it meant everything.

It’s been a while between posts which has been unfortunate as I do enjoy writing. While it will be some time yet before things settle down for me I’m taking a rare opportunity of quietude to not only let people know I am still around but also to give myself a chance to do something different from the current hectic and tiring routine of the past weeks.

In a previous post I wrote about life throwing us curved balls every now and then. Recently it seems like I’ve had a full innings of them. Attending funerals of friends, helping out my ageing in-laws, looking after my father who recently took a curved ball himself after 82 years of good health and, among other things, having to justify the existence of my team at work, in effect putting the careers of ten people in my hands. No pressure. But such is life and at least I can still say I have nothing to complain about.

In any case all of this has meant little time for myself. Little time to reflect, no time to write (twitter doesn’t count, right?), no time to get creative. But this will pass and I’ll be able to pick up my camera again, make photos more regularly and write about all the weird and wonderful things that pop into my head.

For now I will keep it simple and write about three things which find a commonality in the one thing that we all too often take for granted. Life.

Starting with death.

I attended my first funeral when I was young. I don’t recall exactly how young I was or who’s funeral it was but I have memories of everyone dressed in black and most people crying and sobbing, some almost uncontrollably. Over the years funerals have changed to the point that now people talk about celebrating a life rather than mourning a death. People, for the most part no longer dress in black and while there is still sadness and tears there is also smiles and laughter as people eulogise about the good times and share anecdotes and memories filled with love and happiness. Funerals are reminders that life is indeed short and that death is the only guarantee we get at birth. There will be good times, there will be bad times and there is no certainty that these will be fairly distributed and despite the occasional self-serving assurance from “self-help” gurus, there is probably little that we can do about it. Except, perhaps, for appreciating the wonder of life itself and being grateful for it. Starting each day with thoughts of gratitude may well be one of the best ways to make the most of life. Life is merely a bunch of moments. Moments of joy and pain and kindness and anger and rest and toil and clarity and confusion and courage and fear and they are all precious because each moment leads, sometimes gently, sometimes joltingly into the next. And it is these sorts of moments that make up the stories we hear in eulogies at funerals.

Moving on to limbo.

There is a question which occasionally gets discussed and which came up at one of the funerals I attended: Would it be better to know from birth how long each of our lives will be? Some say yes, some no and some are not sure. It’s an amusing question. “How long” is a variable for each of us. Death is the constant. On the rare and unfortunate occasion we may get an answer to “how long?” it is invariably… too short. And yet, even without knowing exactly how long, we all know with absolute certainty that our days are numbered. And yet, inexplicably, so many lives are lived in limbo, each precious moment passing by unnoticed because the mind continues to look ahead into a future that may never come. Or maybe we find ourselves arguing some totally unimportant point with those who are most important to us when instead we could just hold their hand and reach out with our heart in a quiet moment of appreciation. At the risk of sounding like a scratched record, this is why I am so grateful for and appreciative of photography. Photography, with practice and perhaps preferably without agenda, offers me an opportunity to tune into any given moment with such clarity and purposefulness that a sense of eternity replaces the burden placed on me by the concept of time. There is little point in searching for the meaning of life if in the process I fail to see the wonder of each passing moment. As the amount of time ahead of me becomes much less than the amount of time behind me, I have come to realise that life will hold little meaning unless it is lived, pure and simple. Lived with awareness and gratitude all the way through to my eventual and inescapable destiny.

And finally, this brings me to Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain (The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain).

Recently, amid the chaotic events that have occupied my time, I did manage to find the time to watch “Amelie” with my 16 year old son after he asked if I could get him the DVD. I was surprised by his choice but equally delighted as this movie is a joy to behold. It’s quirky in a way only the French can pull off but it is so rich in meaning and so full of nuance that just like a treasured book it can be viewed many times, each time offering something new. The cinematography in this movie (shot in the gorgeously photogenic city of Paris) is so beautifully done that it is mesmerising. Audrey Tautou is completely enchanting as Amelie and the plot which at first may seem a little perplexing is in fact deceptively simple. It is a story of people and relationships, of good times and bad times, of precious little moments all strung together by what appears to be coincidences but are in reality, miraculous little happenings which, when pulled together, gives us… well… Life of course, la vie en rose, la dolce vita.

Apparently, I may be giving out the wrong idea with my posts, specially the ones about happiness. I feel that I should redress this. The best way to do that would probably be to stop posting but here I am and here I go again.

I write about happiness mostly because I see it as a concept that I have for the most part, misunderstood. I have chased it, yearned for it, coveted it for most of my life but only ever managing to grasp at a mere flicker of light in the shadows, something seen in the corner of my eye only to disappear as soon as I turn towards it. Happiness is missed as soon as I look for it.

Talking with some people recently made me aware that I may have unintentionally suggested that happiness is a goal, something to have and hold on to till the day we die and that I have somehow achieved this through photography. If that is the case than I apologise for this is not at all what I wish to convey. The joy which photography brings to me has in reality, nothing to do with photography itself but rather with a lesson brought on by the act of making photographs. The joy comes simply from seeing whatever I’m looking at for what it is. Without labels, without biases, without judgement. The point to life, if there is one, may simply be to live every moment fully even if those moments involve pain or sorrow or mourning. Photography may have brought me this understanding but I do not need photography to live its lesson. For that I just need to do what I do, what ever that may be in the moment, be it fun or boring, joyful or painful, safe or scary. The full gamut of human emotions is up for grabs. I don’t want to run away from any of them or run towards any of them but I do find it worthwhile to be aware of them, to live them fully because it is within them that the richness of life exists. After all, it is my emotions that colour my life.

Having said this I also want to add that I am not suggesting that there is anything wrong with seeking happiness. If that is what you do then just do what you do. I am only saying that it is no longer what I do. It is not my goal to be happy, it is not my goal to be aware, it is not my goal to have or not have goals. For me it is all simply life living itself. Seeing things as I do will not suit everyone or perhaps even anyone. It is certainly not as exciting as it can get for some but I am suggesting that there is something to be said in finding balance which is effectively all I’m saying. Find the right balance between aperture and shutter speed and you’ll get a sweet shot of life. Regardless of the subject matter.

If what I write makes no sense please understand that I have no real idea who I am, or what I’m doing here, or what anything means but neither does my camera and it doesn’t seem upset by that. So I take a lesson from my camera which just does what it does and in turn, as I’ve already mentioned, I just do what I do.

I cannot tell you that everything in life will be all right, but photography has taught me that where life is concerned, it is always… all light.

Occasionally I get asked what draws me to photography and I give my usual answer: it’s fun and depending on who is doing the asking I might add that it offers me a means to look inward while looking outward. This blog’s purpose, if it’s had one at all, has been in part to explore these two aspects of photography, fun and introspection (mostly the introspection part).

Self-knowledge through introspection is not particularly important to me though it may well have been once upon a time. These days I see it more as something that is useful, interesting and, well, fun. Being able to combine this with photography has simply been a bonus and I must say that the two complement each other nicely. The fun part of photography isn’t hard to explain or understand but how it helps me learn something about myself is not always apparent. Perhaps because it is not simply that photography helps me in self-understanding so much as it helps me perceive the relationship between self and life.

There is no denying that I have all too often been caught up in this little drama I call my life. It’s a compelling story to be sure even if it’s the epitome of mediocrity as far as life stories go but the reality is that for the vast majority of it my life is hardly what one would describe as dramatic. And yet all too often, I have, with the encouragement of the voices in my head, gotten myself ensnared in the perceived drama, riding the emotional roller-coaster as if it was a perfectly normal thing to do. And yet, to me, it’s always been a ride that has held a hint of insanity.

Fortunately the older I get the less often I find myself on the roller-coaster. Now it could be a coming-of-age thing or a case of I’ve-seen-it-all-before but without wanting to sound esoteric I cannot help feeling that photography, or the practice of it, has played a part in getting me off the turbulent ride.

Photography has had an undeniable impact on how I view life. A craft that depends so much on seeing — regardless of what senses you use to see — has inevitably changed my perception of the world around me. If you practice a craft long enough it seems unavoidable that some of the lessons will spill over into everyday life. Take composition for example. Composing a scene within a frame is one of the most important aspect of making a photograph (along with getting the exposure right though these days the technology takes care of that most of the time). Composition requires moving around, left, right, up, down, forward, back, seeing the theme from all angles. It needs correct alignment of the subject matter and correct framing, understanding the relationships between all the elements including empty space and whatever elements are kept outside of the frame. It needs a decision to go with or to disregard the rules of composition, knowing that the rules, the beliefs one might say, are fabrications that can be held onto or ignored. In my early days of photography I did all these things, consciously, but now there is no thinking about it. It just happens. When a photo comes my way the voices in my head hush up, thoughts stop momentarily, and there is an insight… a wordless… insight. It’s wordless because the insight comes through in the doing and the seeing not in the thinking and the talking.

When composing a photograph, there arises an awareness of the bigger picture, a realisation that what I am seeing within the frame is but a minuscule fragment of something much too large for the feeble mind to grasp and so the mind stops. In the quietness of composing a photograph I grasp, at some level, my connection to the whole and rather than being overwhelmed with a feeling of insignificance, I rest in blissful silence and emptiness, I rest in doing and seeing. No thoughts, no words.

And so I have found it useful to apply this in life. There is little (if anything) in life that falls under my control. I say this matter-of-factly and not in a defeated or submissive way. It’s just how I see it even if it appears otherwise. I can make plans full of good intentions, I can have projects, I can choose a career path, I can set goals, I can even believe that these plans, these choices, these goals, are mine and not products of biases, filters and memories brought on by life itself but there is no getting away from the fact that life can throw a curve ball at any time and often does. But that curve ball is not separate from this life I call my own. I see it as a fragment of the larger picture and with the right composition I understand how it fits in the whole. Shit happens, joy happens, whatever comes, it will pass. Like a tide. I work through it, I’m grateful for it, I might even make a photograph of it, but I don’t dwell on the thought of it.

No need for the roller-coaster ride.

I just rest in the doing and nothing is left undone.

~§~

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” – Shakespeare from Hamlet (Act 2, Scene 2)

This particular photo that I named “Street art on Church Street” was a joy to take and the street art depicted in it is fun to look at. There’s a lot going on in it and I often find myself looking at it. It was while looking at it that I recalled, albeit in a convoluted way which I won’t go into, a memory from another time.

Years ago I knew a girl who worked as an occupational therapist. Occasionally she would introduce me to some of the patients she looked after, from quadriplegics to schizophrenics. Some of these people displayed amazing strength of character and courage. Fully aware of their predicaments they would nonetheless feel at least some gratitude for being alive. Even some of the mentally ill patients managed to find joys amidst the anguish they all too often found themselves in.

I’d like to say that meeting these people had a profound effect on my life but it didn’t. At least not back then when I was too young and self-absorbed to appreciate any lessons these people’s predicaments may have held. There was one thing however, that I remember wondering about whenever I would chat to some of the more lucid mentally ill patients. Some of these people talked about the voices in their heads and how scary or controlling they were, how they would not shut up and how tiring it all was. Listening to them I couldn’t stop myself wondering where the line was between sanity and insanity. After all, I too had voices in my head telling me all sorts of thing — yes, okay, in my case they’re just thoughts, every one has them, but understand that I have always questioned what control I have over thoughts so they may as well have been “voices in my head”. And there were times when it all felt a little overwhelming. So what is it that can push us over the line into insanity? How fine a line are we talking about anyway? Is there a line at all or is it just a matter of degrees?

Of course I have no idea what was really going on with these patients and I certainly don’t want to simplify the issues they faced or imply that what I refer to as “the voices in my head” is even comparable to their mental turmoil but to this day I still think about that fine line which separates the sane and the insane. There’s a lot of crazy happening in the world today. Arguably it’s probably no more than during any other time in history but thanks to the Internet we are certainly made more aware of it. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not but I do have friends who can’t help but take it all to heart and end up finding themselves feeling depressed and hopeless which is not a good place to be in.

And this is one reason I enjoy photography today more than ever before. It offers me a refuge where I can look at the world with equanimity and tranquillity. It’s a time when the voices in my head are quiet, dormant even. The only thing going on, as it were, is this naked awareness which is always there, at least until the mind kicks in again. It’s not a case of ignoring the world and all its troubles, on the contrary, it is a way of seeing the world whole, seeing the string that binds us intimately, the good, the bad and the ugly so to speak. Seeing the patterns amidst the chaos. Understanding without judgement. The trouble is there is little I can say about it. No words I know satisfactorily expresses this thing that’s going on in those timeless moments.

But photographs and art do come close.

He had longed to go there all his life
but when he got there, he realised
there was no ‘there’ there
there was only here.
Exactly where he’d been all along.

“We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.” – H. L. Mencken