Daily Practice 257/365

Title: "Looking east, across Oak Bay"

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This was just one of those moments where I feel compelled to stop and make an image, even if water/sunrise/fog is pretty cliché. It captures the emotion that welled up when I looked to my left while cycling. And I like the historical reference to Turner's painting of a London bridge in the foggy morning.

Daily Practice 256/365

Title: "Revelations"

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I'm currently reading a book about Vitamin D, which among other things reveals that many people in North America have insufficient levels of Vitamin D, or are virtually completely deficient. There are numerous consequences to this, but one of the most striking is that these deficiencies may account for 30% of deaths from internal cancers. One of the reasons the author (Dr. Michael Holick) suspects for the plummeting levels of Vitamin D in most people is the very successful lobby by the dermatology community that any unprotected sun exposure is dangerous. Vitamin D is produced naturally in the skin by the UVB rays of the sun, and people who live closest to the equator have lower incidences of many internal cancers compared to those in more northern locations. Holick and many other researchers have calculated that many hundreds of thousands of cancer deaths per year might be prevented by ensuring sufficient vitamin D levels in people, while the increase in deaths from nonmelanoma skin cancer from getting the small amount of direct sun exposure to ensure good vitamin D levels would be no more than 3,000 per year.

  

I mention this mainly because it's a perfect example of how reductionist approaches to medical science can solve one problem but inadvertently can potentially cause a much bigger problem. And I think that a reductionist approach to photography can also be counter-productive. The most successful images do not simply emphasize form, or line, or tone - they incorporate all of these in ways that are true to the subject of the photograph. Minor White and Ruth Bernhard were famous for urging students to consider what it truly meant to be the subject - be it tree, rock - to truly connect to the history of the subject. It seems like hocus-pocus, but that deeper connection shows in the resulting work and is intuitively recognized by the viewer of the work. Focusing on one small thing, like reducing a problem in science to one element, loses the impact of what's outside that narrow focus.

Daily Practice 255/365

Title: "Crown of Thorns"

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The topic of discussion at our house this morning was organic lemons, and their propensity for rapidly going moldy while stored at room temperature. Not such a large problem if one can buy a few at a time, but it seems that the local stores don't stock bulk organic lemons, just poly-bags of them. I suggested that when we buy a bag, we juice half the lemons and freeze it for use in recipes. Elena suggested that we also freeze the rinds for a ready source of lemon zest. Two great ideas! Elena then said that it was a pity no one knew we'd come up with these marvelous ideas (are you getting the impression we aren't modest?), and I responded that an idea is great even if only the person who came up with it knows about it. Greatness does not require an appreciative audience (even if it's natural that we'd welcome the recognition).

My friend JM Golding introduced me to the essays of W.R.D. Fairbairn on the psychology of art. I  found the essays at our local university library, and was just now casually flipping the pages of his first essay, published in 1938, entitled "Prolegomena to a Psychology of Art". My eye fortuitously fell upon this passage: "Assuming that the shipwrecked Robinson Crusoe was an artist, it would be ridiculous to maintain that there was no art in the Juan Fernandez island until the arrival of the man Friday. Whereas art is unthinkable in the absence of either the artist or the work of art, there is at least no theoretical difficulty in conceiving of art in the absence of an audience."

  

This statement is most likely taken out of context of what Fairbairn is constructing (I have not read the entire article), but I like the fundamental concept the statement addresses. It speaks to the fact that art making is really a private, personal endeavor. Thet resulting art has an inherent quality that cannot be altered by the opinions or response of an audience. I think artists strongly connected to their work do not consider a positive response  a "validation" of the work. Of course it's a pleasure to get positive feedback on something you are so invested in, but seeking validation from external sources to me suggests that there is less commitment to the work and too much thought of "pleasing" an audience. I don't have Frank Gohlke's book "Thoughts on Landscape" to hand at the moment, but I recall reading an interview that was conducted in front of a group of art students. There was a discussion about the reaction of a West Coast artist who visited New York, but found the art in galleries to be less engaging because of a perceived lack of "soul" or more specifically personal commitment on the part of the artist. Apparently the students in the audience rejected this reaction of the West Coast artist, feeling that he or she failed to understand the cultural differences between east and west coasts. In particular, the students rejected the idea that art could be made for personal reasons, and that those reasons enrich the experience for both artist and viewer. Gohlke reacted very strongly against this attitude of the students. As for Fairbairn, I'm curious to read what role he attributes to the audience.

Daily Practice 254/365

Title: "Seeking Refuge"

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It wasn't an easy decision to make this photograph. I don't know how this shell came to be on top of the rock at the water's edge, but it most likely was placed there by someone. It's a composition that is too facile to create one's self by picking up shell, putting it on top of rock or placing it somewhere else to make a nice "still life" on the beach. Edward Weston made a somewhat infamous image "Shell and Rock Arrangement", where he placed a large shell within a natural rock bowl on Point Lobos to create a composition. He was severely criticized in some quarters for doing so, although he did not perceive a problem with what he had done - simply used the outdoors as a still life studio.

  

So my hesitation was borne of the concern that the photograph would look too contrived, and it would be inferred that I had "created" this arrangement. But in the end I could see some possibilities for deepening the tone of the rock and holding the creamy tones of the shell in the final image.

Daily Practice 253/365

Title: "Abandon all hope of knowledge"

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I went over to the library on campus today to get the 1983, expanded version of Helen Levitt's book of photographs, "A Way of Seeing". Levitt's lyrical photographs of New York street scenes made in the 1940s is absolutely captivating - the way children play, the random interactions of people on the streets look staged only because it is rare to see anything like this today. It's absolutely fascinating to see these images of children playing on their own, with make-shift costumes and toys, joining in games that are invented on the spot. There is such a spirit of inventiveness and imagination that is probably quite foreign to most of today's children with their organized play dates, soccer/dance/music lessons and demand for sophisticated tools of play (7 year olds with laptops?).
  

James Agee wrote a wonderful introductory essay to Levitt's work in 1946, and one of the passages really hit home with me regarding the problem artists (everyone) have with the visual assault we experience on a daily basis. In writing about the potential reasons why few photographers engaged in making street, or lyrical photographs Agee offered a few possibilities. "...it has become all but impossible, even for those who had it in the first place, to maintain intact and uncomplicated the simple liveliness of soul and of talent without which true lyrical work cannot be done. As small, quick, foolproof cameras became generally available, moreover, the camera has been used so much and so flabbily by so many people that it has acted as a sort of contraceptive on the ability to see. And more recently....the camera has been used professionally, a hundred times to one, in ways which could only condition and freeze the visual standards of a great majority of people at a relatively low grade...photographers who really have eyes, and who dare to call their eyes their own, and who do not care to modify them towards this standardized, acceptable style, have found it virtually impossible to get their work before most of those who might enjoy it..."

  

In many ways, what Agee wrote in 1946 nicely summarizes my on-going love/hate relationship with sites like Flickr. The vast majority of images one is exposed to on Flickr can truly act as a "contraceptive on the ability to see" and tend to freeze community visual standards at a "relatively low grade". However with some serious effort, Flickr does also offer those "who dare to call their eyes their own" a way to get their work before others who can appreciate and enjoy it. I have finally come to a personal way of using Flickr to get my work before a relatively small, select group of people whose work I respect, whose assessments of my own work I value and trust, and who do not simply constitute a mutual admiration society. Still, at the end of the day, I think the balance of time must be spent on doing one's work in response to the internal guide, as the surest way to avoid modifying one's eyes towards some standardized, acceptable style.

Daily Practice 252/365

Title: "Looking towards tomorrow"

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A nice antidote to the rain yesterday evening; the sky at sunset/dusk is so soothing to the soul.

Daily Practice 251/365

Title: "Low pressure descending"

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It was actually very pleasant this morning when I noticed the angles of the skylight in the kitchen. I thought of making an image, got distracted by cats and thoughts of breakfast and it was while I was sitting on the studio porch having breakfast that I remembered and came back in to make this image. As the day progressed, clouds rolled in and while I was working on this image it was pouring rain. All of which influenced how I decided to interpret the "negative", to create this image which is more reflective of how the day developed. And as I wrote that, I heard thunder which is so very unusual here.

  

In writing a couple of days ago that I was going to curtail my internet time, I was not referring to the time spent on this blog, or keeping up with the work of a few people who are special to me. Ted Orland wrote in a letter to Sally Mann back in 1974 a couple of things that resonate with what I have been feeling lately about all of this. 

  

At one point he writes "The pessimist in me, however, suspects that a great majority of people operate from a position of neither intuition or consciousness. I rather tend to Oespensky's view that most people spend their days in a state of sleep, guided along paths laid out by habit or by others. The need is to awaken from that state, recognize the surrounding chaos, and give yourself permission to create from it your own cosmology."

  

Indeed - I fear spending my days in a state of sleep, guided along paths laid out by the habit of mindlessly spending time on internet trivia. Orland went on to write: "And another thing: I used to think that developing as an artist consisted largely of things like keeping an open and probing mind, analyzing the significant elements in the landscape, reading/discussing/attending the Arts, and so on. Lately I've adopted a much simpler view: that all one really needs is Time - time to do one hell of a lot of work! And time is created not by philosophizing about it, but by the discouragingly tangible bit-by-bit pushing aside of inessential tasks and distractions."

  

In many ways, it was this idea of devoting time to making work on a daily basis that started this project of "daily practice". I don't take Orland's sentiments to mean he felt an open, probing mind or deep thinking about subject, or reading etc weren't important - far from it, and I feel that keeping this journal about my daily practice has more fully integrated those aspects of art practice into my work. But I do agree with him that being more deliberate about taking time to make more work, is the most important thing we as artists can do. In the best case scenario, we are compelled to do just that, but the reality is that we all have lives that consist of many other aspects that must be included and balanced. On that concept, Orland wrote in the same letter: "It's a delicate task - matching input with output, life with art. Yet the need is exactly that: to integrate all (emphasis his) the threads of one's existence until they become a working part of the total fabric."

  

I consider this little journal one of the positive steps to a personal awakening.