Category: Up Close

Miksang and flow

In an eMail Alan Magayne-Roshak said of my August 24th blog post, “I love it.  It’s easy to get lost in it (in a good way). This reminds me of a David Vestal column where he quoted Picasso as saying, “I don’t seek, I find.” ( The column is at home; I hope I got it correct.) I would say this is a “miksang” photograph.”

After searching the term (beyond the wikipedia link Alan provided) I took it as a compliment; and felt surprise in finding that miksang has taken hold, as a sort of “school” of photography, around the world. Miksang: a Tibetan word meaning “good eye” based on the Dharma Art teachings of Chögyam Trungpa, in which the artist’s eye perceives in perfect harmony with a contemplative mind. This type of visual perception, when applied to the practice of photography, produces a particular sort of photograph. Miksang photographs tend to bring the observer back into the author’s original state of contemplation; behaving, in my opinion, in ways similar to haiku.

Mihály Csíkszentmihályi posited that people feel most happy while working within a similar state; which he referred to as a state of flow.

While I have no idea if these photographs qualify as miksang; I certainly felt in a state of contemplative flow as I made them; and believe they do invite the viewer’s eye/mind to return to that state.

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love marks on paper
heat becomes a memory
beach remains in notes

Leica R8/DMR, 65 mm Elmar on R bellows

Searching for the never before seen (in this way)

We look at so many photographs on the web, on the backs of our little digicams or phones and in print. Some minimal fraction of those images surprise us because the photographer has shown us a subject we’ve never seen before; or shown us a familiar subject in some unfamiliar way; or has managed to harmoniously arrange, within the square or rectangular frame, all the visual elements of photography (the rendering of light, color or mono-tonality, the composition of form, shape, line) while representing a compelling subject or event.

Photography, by its very nature, takes an infinitesimal slice out of infinite time and space; whether we expose for 1/10,000th of a second or 1/24th of a day; whether we fill the frame with a view of our own planet or the head of a beetle. Why do images made with a lens fascinate us so? Why do some of us spend decades searching for yet another two dimensional “view” of our three dimensional world?

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Leica R8/DMR, 65 mm Elmar on R Bellows

Why did I make this photograph? Because:  I really enjoy the process; the looking hard; the hands and eyes on equipment; the light; the variations; the post processing; and finally — the simple pleasure of looking at the image — that extremely thin slice — allowing my eyes to roam around it. For me this image has qualities akin to a beautiful charcoal drawing. It’s also very personal. I’ve thought about photographing this, or similar event, for years. Yesterday, when I finally attempted to capture some of those thoughts, it didn’t go at all as imagined. The photograph I had in my mind did not appear. That idea served only as a catalyst to work — to arrive at this unimagined photograph. While working I enjoyed memories of reading Edward Weston’s day books; and how he chose and worked with his pepper; finally placing it in a tin funnel to arrive at the final, iconic photograph.

Draw (still) life in — to truly see it

Dorothea Lange said, “The camera is an instrument which teaches people how to see without a camera.” Emile Zola offered, “In my view you cannot claim to have seen something until you have photographed it.” I believe that drawing also teaches people how to see [without a camera]. If you truly want to “see deeply” into the wold around you — do both — draw and photograph your life. Each process will provide a completely different “seeing” lesson. And let us not forget writing. “When you are describing, A shape, or sound, or tint; Don’t state the matter plainly, But put it in a hint; And learn to look at all things, With a sort of mental squint.” said Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll). And in her Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Annie Dillard offers, “Seeing is of course very much a matter of verbalization. Unless I call my attention to what passes before my eyes, I simply won’t see it. It is, as Ruskin says, ‘not merely unnoticed, but in the full, clear sense of the word, unseen.'”

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Leica M8, 28 mm asph summicron

Yet somethings in life move far too fast to draw or write in the moments of experience. Photography serves our drawing and writing; just as drawing and writing serves our photography. As Henri Cartier-Bresson said, late in life, after putting his camera down, “All I care about these days is painting—photography has never been more than a way into painting, a sort of instant drawing.” Draw, paint, photograph, write, sculpt, make music — in order to draw life more deeply into our consciousness — and dig more deeply into life.

Leica R8/DMR, 100 mm apo macro elmarit

Hope: “If you build it he will come.” — Shoeless Joe Jackson, Field of Dreams

sit on the porch, watch
it build, then sit, waiting too
hoping for a meal

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Leica R8/DMR, 100 mm apo macro elmarit
(yes. stopping down would have been nice. but for 1/30th @ 2.8. I like it)

Friday flowers with a different sort of twist, tilt and shift

I photographed this flowering shamrock with a Leica R8/DMR attached to the back of a Cambo Ultima view camera chassis and a 90 mm Apo-Rodagon enlarging lens mounted to the front. This photograph made full use of swings, tilts and shifts to achieve the framing and focus we see. The “look” could not have been achieved without the use of those camera movements. The flowers measure approximately 25 mm across. If you look real hard you can “feel” some of that view camera “look” even on this little sensor (or maybe I’m kidding myself).

(click image for larger view)