The ethereal universe

As I sit by the water’s edge I see the reflection of an anchored boat distorted by ripples, ever-changing and yet never-ceasing to remain a reflection.

In this ethereal universe I cling to the hope that I know some things to be true but deep down I am certain of nothing. All is not lost however, because once upon a time as I was travelling back through time in the memories of the mind I sensed the ever-so-faint possibility that I was born of a big bang. An infinitely small particle of infinite mass expanding out into a nothingness that until then did not even exist. And I saw that within the act of its own creation lied the seed to its own oblivion. A thought worth cherishing for within it I saw two things to which my hope could cling. I saw beauty and I saw death.

I take a shot with my camera and in an instant I capture a tableau presented to me by an ethereal universe. It is not an image of a reflection, nor of ripples, not even of water.

It may seem a strange thing for hope to cling to but in-between beauty and death there is movement. Movement without change, for eternity can only ever be just what it is. But the movement is there, in the corner of my eye, delicate, gentle, otherworldly, almost non-existent for it only ever remains in the corner of my eye no matter how quickly I turn towards it. This movement, this motion, is the single constant in this ethereal universe. It is the beckoning of decay. And so I shed a tear of joy—or is it sadness? I am no longer sure if there is a difference—because I realise that beauty is born out of the evanescent nature of things.

This image I have captured, it is an abstract of movement, a fanciful idea of beauty that existed but for a fraction of a second, gone the instant the shutter shut out the light.

Beauty holds the seed of its own demise. It has to if it is to be recognised for what it is. And here I am, sitting precariously balanced between beauty and death seeking that ephemeral joy of creation. But to what point, to what purpose do I chase beauty if beauty is always doomed to die? I do not have the answer to that. I do not know the purpose behind this endeavour. Perhaps it is Life’s purpose to chase beauty while I, with my eyes and my camera, am simply the tracking device. A tracker of dying moments.

I continue to sit mesmerised by the myriad canvases forming before my eyes. I make a few more shots, each a new abstract, a single note in a symphony of movement. And as the light starts to disappear I stay on to catch every note. To the end when the light is gone and the water becomes too dark to be a canvas.

So this is it then? That is what life is all about? A journey from one dying moment to another until my own inevitable end? But all I want is to be happy. Happy ever after. Happy. Ever. After. Oh, but I am such a fool. Where have I seen that promise “happy ever after”? Fairy tales? Self-help books? What fools we are to believe that happiness could escape death’s attention. Happiness is no different to beauty, it’s existence recognised in its passing. And then I hear it, in the silence of the mind, a laugh… gentle… genuine… embracing. The ethereal universe, born of a big bang, laughing gently at the wonder of it all.

The water is now but a dark shadow. I stand and with one last look I turn my back and leave. What a day it has been. What beauty I have seen. What sadness I have felt. Ethereal bliss indeed.

Into the river of thougths

As mentioned in the previous post, one of the reasons I stopped writing was due to an idea that words hinder rather than help explain certain concepts including the idea of “seeing”. But a number of people have kindly pointed out that this idea may be flawed and I will readily admit that what I perceive as the inadequacy of words is more likely an ineptitude in my own abilities to bring forth such concepts into the right light. So it is with this understanding that I will continue to write and hope that at some point my vision will become clear enough in my own eyes that I may be able to share it in some truly meaningful way.

The idea of seeing, truly seeing things as they are, is important to me. Why? I am not sure though it is a question that would deserve its own exploration. Also I cannot say whether it was this idea that led me to photography. It may easily have been the other way round; I do not remember. Whatever the whys and hows I have a strong suspicion that once upon a time I would have seen things exactly as they are with no judgements, biases or filters. Back when words were merely sounds falling upon my ears and dissolving into silence with no more meaning than the sound of rain falling or floorboards creaking. Such a time was back when I was an infant. Seeing came before words but since then, seeing most often comes with a flood of thoughts— inherently made up of words—which rush by if I am lucky or, if I’m not so lucky, get caught up in eddies and whirls that inadvertently take my attention away from the pure act of seeing.

So why would this river of thoughts be so disruptive to the simple act of seeing? After all there are times—notably when I have a camera in hand— when this river is almost still with barely a ripple across its surface. The trouble is that even if the flow is totally stopped, there is one thing that the advent of words brought to that infant all those years ago. Words, along with their meanings, brought separation. The child stopped seeing things purely as they are and started seeing things in relation to himself. At that point the child became aware that it was him that was seeing and that he could therefore also be seen. At that point the child could no longer see just one thing, he would for evermore see a thing and its relationship to himself. And as words brought knowledge into his life and that knowledge formed into beliefs, the child became all grown up and forgot how to to simply see things just as they are.

At this point it is tempting for me to say that Art can help restore the ability to see things as the infant sees the world and I admit that I think of this as Art’s purpose (at least in part) but it is not quite so simple. The trouble is that I can only view art as I view anything else; I see the art and its relation to myself. Even more maddening I cannot help but also see my relationship to the art’s message. Not to mention the artist’s relationship to me. The easy way out of this dilemma is to say something like, it shows how all things are linked, how there is just oneness or some other new-age claptrap but it would mean little beyond some abstract understanding of some metaphysical philosophy. After all, it may even be possible for art to lead me astray if I am to confuse the artwork or the image for the real thing.

One of my favourite artists is René Magritte. Magritte was a surrealist painter who became famous for a number of thought-provoking artworks including a painting called “La trahison des images” (“The treachery of images”) which depicts a pipe with the words “Ceci n’est pas une pipe“ (“This is not a pipe”). While he was reproached for this apparent absurdity he was simply stating the obvious; the drawing of the pipe is indeed, not a pipe but merely a representation of a pipe.

A perfectly valid question to ask at this point would be: so what? And the only answer I can give at this time is: I am not sure. I am not sure why this matters or if it matters at all. But sometimes I’ll see something, something common or mundane, something I see every day but I see it in a way I have never seen it before. It lasts but a moment, right up to the point where I get swept away by the rapids that is my river of thoughts.

Will this “seeing” make me an artist? I doubt it.

Will it help me make better photos? Probably not.

Can it change my life in any way? Well… yes, it does… subtly, ever so subtly.

It brings form to my emotions. It puts meaning into insignificant actions. It sheds light on deep memories. Because after such moments, when I am back into the river of thoughts, I realise that what I am now looking at is just a label formed by knowledge, manipulated by beliefs all of which come from experiences that together make up this story I call my life. In other words, by seeing the present clearly, I start to understand the past and how it got me to where I am right now, right here.

Magritte - The Treachery of Images

Nothing left undone

 

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)

Seeing the forest for the trees

A conversation with a random photographer:

Him: So how many photos do you reckon you take on average?

Me: What do you mean? A day? A week? A year?

Him: Whatever.

Me: I probably average about one a day not including family snaps.

Him: I hear ya. I struggle too. There’s nothing to photograph around here is there?

Me: Yeah, I guess not.

What else was I going to say? Mentally, I must make dozens, if not hundreds of photographs every week, the fact I only capture a few of them with a camera is no reflection on the number of photogenic subjects out there. That’s just me.

I can’t imagine anywhere on this planet where there would be nothing to photograph. Maybe I just lack imagination but it’s a wonder to me that somone would struggle to find a subject to photograph. Maybe I’m just lucky or I’m not fully understanding this predicament but I never quite know how to respond when someone says “there’s nothing to photograph around here”. I feel like saying “Are you kidding me? Open your eyes!” but that seems unfair. I don’t know what the world looks like through someone else’s eyes. I don’t know what circumstances in their lives might have created filters which prevents them from simply seeing — as it is I’m barely aware of my own filters. And to be fair, there are times when I too, see nothing to photograph, either mentally or with a camera. In such instances though, I’m aware that the problem is with me and has nothing to do with the appearance that there is nothing to photograph. But again, that’s just me.

Maybe I could have told this guy about Juha Haataja or Thomas Hawk, just two photographers who have no problems seeing many things worthy of being photographed but somehow I think the response would be along the lines “I could take that many photos too if I lived where they lived” but I don’t know how that would make a difference.

I don’t know what makes me see photos. I’ve never thought about it and maybe that’s the trick; don’t think, just look, point and shoot. At least initially and maybe after 10,000 hours of practice, seeing a photo opportunity becomes second nature. I don’t know.

Maybe sometimes we let life get the better of us so that we can’t see the forest for the trees or the trees for the forest but in quiet moments it is possible to see each and every tree and in that moment, actually get to know the forest.

It also helps to break the rules occasionally and introduce camera shake during a long exposure. Just saying.

Keeping it simply small

Some time back I wrote some thoughts about keeping things simply simple. In that post I wrote about the FinePix X100 camera which I think has yet to be released. This particular camera though, got me interested once again in keeping abreast with developments in the manufacturing of cameras. I’m still looking forward to seeing the X100 camera up close but I’m liking what I’m seeing from other manufacturers, specifically in the micro four-thirds arena — also referred to as mirror-less interchangeable lens cameras (MILC), or electronic viewfinder interchangeable lens (EVIL). Whatever.

But before I continue on that topic, some thoughts about the X100. On my recent trip abroad I shot almost the entire time with a 24mm prime lens (equivalent to a 35mm lens on my camera). I did this to keep the weight and bulk of the camera down as we were doing 8 to 10 hour days of walking and sightseeing. Aside from my camera severely acting up due to the cold, shooting with a prime lens proved to be fun but there were times when I would see a shot and be unable to capture it because the prime was simply the wrong lens for the occasion. This didn’t worry me but it did get me thinking about the X100. This beautiful camera comes with a fixed lens (35mm equivalent) and after my experience with a prime I wonder if FujiPix are doing the right thing. I would really like to see this camera take off in popularity in order to encourage other manufacturers to start thinking outside the box but I can’t help but wonder if a fixed-prime will put some people off from buying it. Perhaps FujiPix should consider making this camera with interchangeable lenses. I guess time will tell.

Anyway, during my holiday I came to realise a few things about my photography. The first thing had to do with my camera; it’s heavy, it’s bulky and hardly inconspicuous. In other words, it’s not ideal as a travel camera. I didn’t have a choice though; it was that or nothing and I did seriously consider leaving my camera at home. The thing is when I am at home I am never out walking hours on end with my camera. It’s always short trips and the camera doesn’t feel like too much of a weight around my neck but since my return I find it to be a little cumbersome. There was a time many years ago when I would carry around a large camera bag filled with two SLR bodies, five lenses, a tripod, two flash guns and a bunch of other accessories. When I think back to those days I don’t wonder so much about how I did this but rather, why!? But the question is redundant, how or why doesn’t really matter in the end but one thing for sure is that those days are well and truly over for me and I have come to realise that I will need to downsize my camera gear if I am to continue making photographs. Hence my interest in the X100 and micro four-thirds cameras, in particular the Olympus E-PL2 of the PEN series. The E-PL2 isn’t out in Australia just yet but I have looked at the E-PL1 and there is much to like. I won’t go on about the technical details and functions of these cameras but I could see the E-PL2 becoming my next camera. It is small, discreet and simple. It offers small interchangeable lenses, manual controls and from what I read, good quality images even at higher ISOs.

The second thing I realised while on this trip wasn’t so much a realisation as much as it was a gentle reminder. I truly enjoy the act of photography. The pure joy of seeing. The blissful fun of making images. Admittedly, I didn’t make a huge number of images relative to the many opportunities that cities like London and Paris offer. I took a lot of family snaps but there weren’t so many occasions where I would totally lose myself in a moment of seeing. And that’s another thing I realised, or at least understood more profoundly about my photography. Photography for me is very much about being alone in the moment that I may totally lose myself so that I may become the whole. That probably makes no sense at all outside my own head but there you have it. Being with my family is an absolute joy in its own right and I’ll happily forgo photography to spend time with them but those special moments I’ve come to experience while out making images seem to be linked, somehow, to solitude. Something to explore a little deeper one day.

At any rate, where my photography is concerned, I want to keep it simply simple and where my camera is concerned I’m starting to think that I need to keep it simply small. I could go as small as the Olympus XZ-1 or the Panasonic LX-5 which seem like excellent cameras but right now the PEN cameras have all my attention as they seem to offer the benefits of an SLR without the bulk and weight. Of course, knowing me, I’ll probably just stick with what I have but who knows.

Wandering and wondering

Sometimes I make a photo and wonder,
maybe no one has ever photographed this before.
This was such an occasion.

I’ve been very fortunate in my life to have had many opportunities to hike and trek in some beautiful and somewhat remote parts of the world; U.S. National Parks, Nepalese mountains, Guatemalan jungles, English moors, Canadian Rockies, Pacific islands. Whenever I ended up somewhere off-trail that seemed best described as “the middle of nowhere” I would invariably wonder if perhaps I was the first person to ever set foot on the very spot I was standing on at that very moment. I still remember the first time that thought came to me; it was in Yosemite National Park, I was lost and off-track and rather than worrying about my predicament I simply wondered about that very thought. Of course it is unlikely that this is indeed the case but for a few minutes I let myself wonder about what it would have been like to be Armstrong or Amundsen or Hillary (or should that be Norgay?). I don’t mean being the first to do something but rather seeing something that no one has seen before. For me it’s about the seeing not the doing. The other senses too to be sure, but mostly the seeing.

These days my wanderings tend to be confined to urban landscapes and suburban parks or at most to well beaten tracks but the thought still arises albeit with a twist. Now I am more likely to wonder: has what I am seeing ever been photographed by anyone before? This particular image above was one such moment. It is the side glass wall of a restaurant taken from within a car parking entrance. It looked beautiful to me and simply had to be photographed and then I wondered: has anyone ever photographed it before?

It’s a useless and meaningless pondering and I don’t have a need for an answer. The thought arises purely in a sense of wonderment.

Where does the Art start?

Andy Ilachinski wrote a post titled “Yves Klein, Arbitrary Labels, and the “Meta” Art of Displaying Art” which struck a chord with me. Within his so-called “rambling blog entry” Andy asks a number of questions which have also occurred to me albeit from a slightly different angle. To explain I will need to ramble on a little myself as I have yet to fully crystallise these ideas into a clear, structured concept; unfortunately I will not do so as succinctly or eloquently as Andy.

When I’m out making images there is a thought that invariably arises either just before or just after I click the shutter. It is not the only thought that emerges but it is the most consistent. Actually it’s not a single thought as such but it’s along the lines of “where does the Art start?”. Afterall my image no matter how well taken and processed, is possible because the subject I captured existed in the first place and I had nothing to do with that. Sure, I could take credit for seeing it but within the entire process of making an image the simple act of seeing seems woefully insignificant. As far as the existence of the subject goes I had no input into it whatsoever. Not the light, not the colours or tones, not the textures, none of it. And then there’s the camera which was designed and built by others. The software, the sensor or film, I had nothing to do with any of those things. Then, later, if I decide to get it printed and framed there will be other elements that will add (positively or negatively) to the final effect of the image on its audience. So I guess what I’m experiencing while making images is a microcosm of what Andy is writing about in his post.

Where does the Art start? Where does it end? Who is the artist? Is Art a collaboration? And if it is a collaboration how is it choreographed? By whom? To paraphrase Dr. Carl Sagan, if I want to make an apple pie from scratch and by myself, don’t I need to first recreate the entire Universe?

The difficulty in answering my questions and Andy’s questions, may be because they stem from a false assumption, an erroneous thought if you will. It’s “the chicken and the egg” causality dilemma except that in this case it’s more “the artist and the Art”, which comes first? Logic, of course, tells us that the artist creates the art, having perhaps been inspired by something first but regardless of where and when the inspiration comes, it would be insanity to suggest anything other than the artist needs to exist before the Art can be created. Even the inspiration still needs an artist to perceive it, to grasp it. Right? I mean, unlike the chicken and the egg, until we had artists there was no Art. Right?

Now you are probably seeing where I’m going with this already. What if this is all wrong? What if the Art comes first? What if the Art creates the artist?

Allow me to take a step back.

It is sometimes said that Art is a pointer to some deeper truth, an expression of that which cannot be easily expressed in words. Art tends to act on a whole other level of comprehension, maybe even within a dimension that is beyond the known dimensions. Well, maybe, maybe not, but let’s just go with these notions for now, that within Art lies endless possibilities, even the answers that we, each one of us, seek. Teachings such as Taoism and Zen tell us that what we seek, truth, happiness, answers to who we are and why we’re here and for what purpose or whatever else, those answers are all right here right now. And yet for most of us we are none the wiser. We remain blind to it all.

There’s no denying, at least from my perspective, that Art can and in my case, does, reveal many insights. These insights have changed the way I perceive the world and even the way I live my life. Perhaps more to the point Art has revealed a lot about my self to me. Perhaps then, Art, in its primordial state as inspiration, seeks out and choreographs a group of people, artists, curators, camera engineers, computer programmers, canvas makers, designers, architects and so on, who then collaborate unwittingly to manifest the inspiration into a work of Art. All the time believing it is their idea, their doing and that they are working alone.

Crazy, right? Well I don’t think I’ve ever laid claim to being sane.

I imagine that the idea of Art being the creator in this equation would not be popular with many people. After all, I am suggesting that we are obsequious to Art, instead of us creating Art, we do Art’s bidding. But this is not so far fetched is it? Many artists have admitted to merely being an instrument to some greater force and since no one has ever been able to point directly to this… whatever it is, or for that matter, find out its name, all I am doing here is giving it a name and calling it simply, Art.

Tao by any other name…?

But what of Andy’s second postscript about “an example of ‘bad’ – or ‘misrepresentational’ – curatorship”? If Art is the choreographer how does it get it wrong? Let me ask this, should Art only ever express beauty, love, peace, wonder, spirituality? Art has always depicted the human condition, our environment, the esoteric, the metaphysical, the myriad aspects that make up our existence without preference or prejudice for the good or the bad as far as I can tell. So why would it not express frustration or even irony by putting itself in a box and out of touch as in “the display of one of Klein’s ‘participatory sculptures’ at the Hirshhorn exhibit”? I cannot imagine Art, as I am depicting it in this writing, having any opinion about its manifestations or for that matter about my opinions of it. Of course there is good Art and there is bad Art but such judgement calls will always be just opinions and in my experience, opinions help create illusions. For me, Art is telling me to stop cherishing my opinions and experience its gift by simply watching its impact on my thoughts, my memories and my beliefs. Art in all its various forms is itself illusionary but within the mirage lies the possibility that all the forms are of the same source.

In reality the answer to which came first, the artist or the Art, does not really matter. In the great scheme of things it is of no consequence, whichever way we answer, it will be nothing more than a belief, a concept, unprovable like any other such concept. But for now, for the sake of and in the name of Art, I will suggest that Art came first. In fact I will go as far as to say that Art always has been and always will be and it is the artist, with the collaborative efforts of so many other people, all of them unknowingly acting under its influence, who separates it from the whole so that we may see through the illusion a little more clearly.

Am I insane? Undoubtedly… but for my insanity, I blame Art.

An idea of beauty

This post is more useless than my usual fare. In this post I am exploring the idea of beauty. This exploration has happened over many years and what I present here is nothing more than a synopsis of the thought process that evolved over that period. It is useless in the sense that we all know innately what beauty is or at least what we might consider to be beautiful even if it is only on a personal level. For most people there is nothing about beauty that requires analysis. Philosophers of course would beg to differ but then again philosophers are never content with concepts that are not precisely defined. In my case, my exploration into beauty did not stem out of a desire to define it or even understand it for its own sake; I was interested in understanding the idea of beauty or more specifically, my idea of beauty so that I may have greater insight into my own nature. In any case there is probably no need to read all this but please know that whenever I visit your blog or photo stream and comment on the beauty of your work; it is not some haphazard remark. I promise you, much thought went into it.

~§~

Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy concerned with the study of the idea of beauty. The idea of beauty, not the study of beauty but the idea of it. That may be why it is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is an idea, a concept, it could be said that beauty is in the mind but how does the thought of beauty arise? Is it an attribute of the object? Kant said that beauty is objective and universal effectively saying that some objects are beautiful to all. However contemporary thoughts on aesthetics tell us that beauty is not innate, rather, it is based on interpretation. As far as my limited study into this philosophy goes though, it seems to me that it falls short of asking the question; how it the interpretation formulated?

Over the years when talking to random friends about this topic I found that the word “aesthetics” is often thought to be about colour and tones, shapes and style, arrangement and coordination. When I asked about aesthetics in terms of photography then I got words like light and composition and depth of field and contrast. When I asked about beauty the responses were much more fuzzy, less technical. The words given for aesthetics were still there but intertwined with words like delicate, soft, sharp, colourful, positive, charming, intimate, simple and so on. Once again like all of these “surveys” I carry out, my sample is too small to derive any meaningful data or draw any specific conclusions and my line of questioning is hardly what one would call scientific. But over the years it has been these off-the-cuff conversations about this topic that got me thinking a little more deeply about what aesthetics means to me and what my idea of beauty might be.

I am happy to accept that aesthetics comprises all the things mentioned above. These could be considered the material qualities of aesthetics but I feel that there is much more to aesthetics than those essentially superficial aspects. I use the word superficial not in a derogatory manner but simply to say that those aspects are perhaps the obvious ones, on the surface as it were, and that beneath them lies another level of definition that may be useful in understanding this idea of beauty.

If I was asked whether I had a favourite theme to my photography I would have to say that it is largely urban grunge. I am attracted to dirty back alleys and industrial sites, abandoned buildings and rubbish bins. I have been given nice compliments on my images and for that I am grateful and appreciative and occasionally I am told that some image has managed to render something ugly into something of beauty. That kind of comment will immediately grab my attention and lead to a bunch of questions aimed at the poor hapless viewer who invariably wishes she had kept quiet.

Understanding how to coax beauty out of ugliness is an essential part of aesthetics. This understanding goes hand-in-hand with the concept that greatness exists in the small, inconspicuous details. Beauty and ugliness, greatness and smallness can co-exist in all things because they are nothing more than concepts of the mind. I consider this a truth of sorts, one that has become apparent to me because of photography which is, if nothing else, an art of observation and it is in observing the nature of things that truths are revealed. So just as material qualities are a part of aesthetics, these ideas of truths I consider to be the spiritual qualities of aesthetics.

But there is still more to this philosophy known as aesthetics. Like all philosophies there is a need for moral precepts though this idea seems at first to be incongruous with the idea of beauty. After all, what does morality have to do with beauty? When I create a photograph many decisions are made, consciously or not. Compositional choice is one important decision that must be made. What is included, what is left out. What is necessary and what is irrelevant. I focus on the intrinsic, the inner nature of the object of my attention and I ignore its conceptual value. These decisions made before pressing the shutter button and many other decisions made in post-processing conspire to put forward my impression onto my potential audience. At some level some moral precepts are at play. The decisions I make can sway the audience to see something that contradicts the reality of what I photographed simply by selectively removing the context of the whole. And this brings me to yet another aspect of philosophy, that which is concerned with understanding reality, namely the metaphysical, yet one more aspect of aesthetics.

Beauty is conceptual. It is in the eye of the beholder. It is a thought that arises in the mind built upon memories and biases. Like all thoughts, beauty evolves out of nothingness and devolves back into nothingness. Beauty, like everything else, is transient in nature and changes continuously. If I am to take a flower for an example I may deem the tightly closed bud as beautiful and as the flower blooms I will continue to see it as beautiful but for different reasons. Then as the flower wilts and dies, again I see beauty that had not existed before. Eventually all traces of the flower disappear and the beauty it once had has long since been relegated to memories. Ironically, my ability to see or recognise beauty in the first place was borne out of memories and knowledge that I have accumulated over the duration of what I call my life. Prior to memories and knowledge, back when I was a child, I would have been equally enchanted by a flower as by a piece of dung. And this brings me to the last aspect of aesthetics that I need to include if I am to understand my relationship to beauty. The state of mind.

In prior posts I have written about art appreciation. When it comes to beauty there is also a need for an appreciation of sorts but in much broader terms. In the apparent chaos of life there is an underflow of cosmic order. It is an appreciation for this cosmic order that allows beauty to be seen, sometimes in the most unlikely places. Focusing on chaos makes it difficult to see beauty and for me, looking beyond chaos requires a special state of mind. I need to accept the inevitable. I am not talking about acquiring a fatalistic outlook but simply accepting that much if not all of life’s twists and turns are not only beyond my control but are also part of a bigger picture, all of it synchronised to perfection like a divinely choreographed, celestial dance. Seeing and responding to life in much the same way as I imagine, a child does. Accepting the inevitable helps me appreciate the cosmic order which in turn reveals beauty that was always there for the seeing in such quantities that it no longer needs to be labelled or, for that matter, relegated to memory. Just as for the child, beauty’s enchantment lies at every twist and turn of life.

A tree’s nature

It refused to conform to the rigidity of its environment. As a tree it would follow its own nature.

Be still

In the tumult of rush hour only the post had the wisdom to just stand still.