Assigning Value to Beauty

As we move about our daily lives we interact with the world around us based entirely on information provided by our senses. We evaluate, consider and retain this information on both conscious and unconcious levels. We then use it to make decisions. All of our decisions. If I feel a raindrop while I'm getting out of my car I may grab the umbrella out of my trunk. If I open a gallon of milk and smell an unpleasant odor I pour it out and buy more. While not every response is as directly reactionary all conscious decisions are based on information gathered by observing something or someone in some way. Even if we recieve complex verbal or written advice it must pass through the filter that starts with our senses and ends with our thoughts.

Consider the following: "We deal with the universe abstractly, as images and concepts created by our mind. We organize our lives around ideas, words, and other abstractions that never equate with reality. Because abstractions are about the world but not of it, they are always subject to interpretation, a process unavoidably dependent upon how our subjective mind has organized its accumulated experiences." Butler Shaffer

This idea can lead anywhere from simply reevaluating perspective to the fictionalized tale of The Matrix, where control of our senses is used to determine our perception of reality. Once this realization has occured it seems to beg the question: If everthing in our lives is based entirely on our senses why is it so many take them for granted? Sure, we use them to navigate our way through life but what about appreciation for the act of observing in and of itself? Who really stops to smell the flowers and how often? When was the last time you reveled in a warm summer rain? Where were you the last time you stopped everything just to sit back and admire the view or closed your eyes and just enjoyed the sound around you? Maybe the most important question is how much time each day have you alloted for such things? Or more succinctly, what value have you assigned them? As humans it's natural for us to identify something we value so what name do we ascribe the vivid sensations and emotions brought about by direct observation? At their best, I think of them as beauty.

Being a photographer and someone who is enamored with light, I revere visual beauty in all it's manifestations. While I spend considerable time photographing, crafting and viewing art I also travel the back way home from work more often than not. It takes less than 5 minutes longer but leads me through residential and rural areas as opposed to business and commercial zones and their ubiquitous American franchises. I know several people who travel to and from the same general areas and none of them take my route. Why? Because it takes 5 extra minutes and measures a couple of extra miles.

What is done with those extra minutes that makes the less pleasant course worth driving? People like to talk about how that time adds up and you can save hours or days by traveling the most direct route. While saving hours or days over time sounds exciting and romantic the reality is, unlike milage on an automobile, those minutes are not cumulative. They cannot be saved and added together for future use. You must live each moment as it comes and 5 minutes isn't very long... Hell, you just spent 5 minutes reading this.

Vernal Equinox

Tomorrow marks the first official day of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere as daylight finally catches up with the night. It's always a special day for me as I look forward to warmer weather. The real first day of spring, however, usually doesn't fall in line with the equinox and this year was no exception. By real I mean the first day it feels like spring and not just to me... The first day a magical something in the air besides sunlight and warmth makes itself known.

It happened last Sunday in my neck of the woods. Fishermen were wading Neshanock Creek, Amish children playing in their yards and melting snow was quickly being replaced with mud. The local Dairy Queen bustled with the young and old alike, motorcycles and bicycles competed with cars for thier share of the road and for the first time in the new year winter's frozen grip on life began to weaken. Maybe the most notable effect of that first thaw is it's mellowing of people. Passersby smile and nod, some even stop to talk. Drivers seem to be more tolerant and there is a general feeling of contentment everywhere you go.

Whatever the magic it will linger for awhile, like the snow piles and ice but won't last long, certainly won't see April through. Slowly it will be replaced by summer or thoughts of it. Nobody really notices the transition, probably won't come to mind again until the next equinox. By February it will be hard to think of anything else.

Trees

While I generally consider my subject matter to be the visual relationships created by objects, light and perspective there seem to be some things to which I'm repeatedly draw. Chief among them are trees. Photographing trees in any manner is nothing new though trees themselves are always unique and changing from season to season, year to year and place to place.

Nothing in nature more eloquently reflects the passage and spirit of life. In trees I've found the movement of lightning, the wrinkles on my palm and an engaging symbolism in thier constant struggle against gavity and toward light and water. Patience, perseverance and power are represented well in trees. I've marvled in the rugged dignity of an acient bristlecone pine, played under the cool shade of a massive oak and stood under the still and quite branches of a snow covered evergreen. Each variety has it's own traits and each specimen it's own story.

Trees' visceral growth and stoic journey through time are a continual influence on me. I suppose connecting with something so vital to our own survival is quite natural. Trees are at once givers of life through thier production of oxygen and alive themselves, actively seeking thier needs in mulitple manners and directions. I'll never tire of thier visual qualities or spiritual manifestations.

Cracked Ice and Branches

I made this exposure in February of 2005. For some reason or another it kept getting pushed back in the printing rotation until last Friday, 2 years later.

I remember that day quite well. The weather had been bitterly cold for some time and was just begining to warm up. It was a weekend, Saturday I believe, and I decided to take a ride to Shenango River Lake. There is one main bridge that crosses the lake at one of it's thinnest points and continues for some distance as a causeway. After crossing to the north you can drive back along the western side for a few hundred yards. I did this and got out when I feared my little truck would get stuck if I went any farther. I'd never been to this sliver of land between causeway and lake before and decided to explore. I packed up and walked for some time admiring the ice covered water to my right. I set up my camera once along the way but wasn't inspired to make a picture.

As I was nearing the bridge and end of the penninsula the ground became covered with large sheets of ice and frozen snow. It was creaking underfoot while I made my way along and suddenly I came upon a sweeping crack between two large plates immediately in front of me. The plate on the left had been saturated with water at some point and was considerably darker than the one beside it. I quickly set up my camera and began working with this extraordinary form. There were a couple of branches laying on the beautifully textured, snow covered ice sheets and I was having trouble eliminating them from the frame. I considered walking around the potential picture space to remove them but was afraid I would further crack the ice. Rather than risk disturbing that beautiful line I tried including them in the frame. Eventually I found a spot where I could incorporate both branches in a way that related to the rest of the image and the line of the crack seemed to take on the shape of the female form. I knew I had something and was excited enough to make a backup exposure. At almost 3 bucks a pop it was not something I normally did.

After getting lost in a shuffle of negatives and intentions I rediscovered them on Friday. I was looking to create a photograph to offer as a new Special Edition print and decided to give it a shot. After finding my base exposure I noticed a finger print in the emulsion of the first negative that showed quite noticably on the print. I nervously checked the back up negative I had made and found it was fingerprint free! I thanked the photography gods I had made a second exposure and continued printing. I worked out a base time of 10 seconds and then burned the negative for an additional 12 seconds while gradually covering the paper from bottom to top. I couldn't be happier with the results and decided to indeed offer it as my current Special Edition print.

Composition: The Subject

As most modern Americans, I've been taking pictures the majority of my life, though I began photographing seriously when I was 19. Of all the pictures made since then very few have survived my editorial process, hardly any from before my 25th year. Those early photographs simply lacked that intangible something which makes a photograph more than a photograph. There are several reasons for this: Age and experience have played a part, though at 28 I'm neither old nor experienced... My tastes have changed over time, as tastes will... I have also worked during that time to reexamine and change the way I see. As significant as all that has been the real catalyst for growth in my photography has come from the way I view subject matter. More precisely, what I view as subject matter.

Years ago my pictures were driven almost entirely by the things I was photographing. I'd take pictures of buildings and trees, people and places. The subjects needn't be bombastic, even then I was visually taken with the everyday. The resulting photographs, however, never seemed to reflect the initial excitement I felt in the field. I was close, but I hadn't arrived.

The solution seemed obvious enough, I needed to get closer, literally, so I moved in and cut out what felt extraneous. Again, the resulting pictures seemed cold and lacked the emotion I had initially felt. I waited for the best light and weather, bought different lenses, different cameras and even different media. Nothing seemed to help.

At this point I felt as though I needed a fresh start. I did the best I could to cast aside my preconceptions about what were the proper subjects, the ideal light, the best conditions and even the right equipment. I set aside my ideas about what a good picture was supposed to be and simply went out photographing. Free from dogma and formula I moved easily through my surroundings and worked when I felt compelled to do so. With no specific subject to render and no context necessary to include I was left with only myself, the camera and my environment. Working in such a manner I was able to concentrate on the relationships between shape and line, texture and tone and at last began producing photographs that seemed to capture the essence and intensity of my feelings.

But what made these photographs different? The pictures still included buildings and trees, people and places... The things in my photographs hadn't changed but my pictures had. It was then that I realised those things weren't subjects at all, only building blocks. The real subjects of my photographs were the way objects related to each other. Visual relationships themselves were the subjects and they were everywhere. Better still, they were constantly changing with the light.

My new found sensibilities brought about other realizations. While light was naturally paramount the type of light was not. After all, it's always the best light to photograph something. My routine was changing as well. Instead of pre-visualizing images and trying to fit them onto the ground glass I was using the camera to explore in a way that's not otherwise possible. I learned to set up when I felt a connection to a place and allow my instincts to guide the composition. I had finally found a way to extract from the world a moment of discovered beauty. The next step was presentation...