I remember sights and sounds, smells and voices and infinite little details that were all new. It was a bright and perfect California morning and I felt I could do anything. Beyond the excitement, though, I could vividly remember the days just before. Most clearly, I remembered the exact moment when the fear of not doing became just a hair more powerful than the fear of doing, and there was no going back. It was not a happy moment. It was a terrifying realization that I had to jump track, to start a new journey; not even knowing where it may lead but taking some comfort in the thought that it had the potential to be better than the one I was traveling. It was a feeling I had known before and will experience again, with the same terror, some years later.

How strange it is, sitting in my living room now, silently watching the sublime red glow of the rising sun creep up ancient sandstone cliffs, lighting up the delicate little branches in the bare cottonwoods along the street, in a tiny town nestled in a high valley, hundreds of miles removed from any big city, thousands of miles from the geography of my youth (much of which no longer exists). Sitting here, as I do, I am physically closer to outer space than to the nearest city, and even that one would just barely qualify by most people’s standards. And yet, I feel more at home here than I ever have.

I have to pause every so often and digest what I’ve learned, to put it into a coherent context, to see the patterns and directions, and try to determine what my life is “about” without resorting to platitudes. It’s a mode of thought that did not occur to me much in my first thirty-some years but one that I find myself pondering with increased frequency as time passes. For whatever reason I never quite mastered the skill of believing my own lies. At times I found it to be as much a handicap as anything else. Maybe I’m just a really bad liar. Still, it is this incessant need to explain myself to myself that brought me to this desert paradise, after a strange and improbable journey; and for the first time I know what I want the rest of my life to be like, and I’m done running.

Time to hit the road again next week, and lose myself once more in the vastness of the Western landscape. Days alone behind the wheel on long empty roads, some miles walking on and off the trails, reading by the light of a headlamp at night and admiring a canopy of stars to the sound of a chorus of coyotes and the soft crackle of a small campfire. This is what my life is “about,” and how could I ever have predicted it? For better or worse, I’m happy.

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? –Albert Camus

Willows and Cottonwoods (part of the Vegetative States portfolio)

~~~

Shortly before writing this second installment, I had a chance to listen to Dr. James Orbinski talk about his humanitarian work, and particularly his work in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. It was gut-wrenching and offered a vivid reminder of how privileged we are to even be able to make the time for philosophical discussions of art when so many others live without basic necessities and dignity. I used to be a proponent of art for art’s sake, but in recent years changed my mind. Art must have a purpose and serve to elevate life. This is not a condemnation of art but of the policies and shortsightedness that allow some of us the privilege of engaging in it, while denying it to others. With that in mind, I’ll complete my train of thoughts.

~~~

“Photography freed painting from a lot of tiresome chores, starting with family portraits.” –Pierre-Auguste Renoir

So, what if those claiming photography as inherently inferior to other disciplines in its artful standing, are right? What if photography really is too representational, too limited, too automated, etc. to measure up to other media in the creation of expressive work?

If someone were to approach me in my formative years and suggest that I will some day become an artist (and for some reason I believed them,) would I have chosen photography as my medium? Honestly, no. Most photographers I know started their creative journeys with no aspirations of becoming artists. Those who did become artists did so because they discovered it within them relatively late in life, and photography happened to be the tool available to them at that point. I myself am very much in that category. In fact, if I have known what I know today about art as a way of life, I would likely have signed up for Art School and focused my efforts on more widely-accepted artistic media, such as painting. Moreover, I would likely have become schooled in the dominant Modern or Postmodern philosophy and in the contemporary fashions and paradigms, and may never have bothered to question them, so long as my art was accepted as such.

Can I really blame any product of “the system” for perpetuating its prejudices? Yes, I think I can, because they are only prejudices in the sense that they are perpetuated by authority figures and taken at face value, rather than vetted through personal introspection or logical reasoning.

As evident in my previous posts on this topic and the related reader responses, despite my best attempts there may not actually be a way to apply logical reasoning for this purpose without treading into vast tracts of ill-defined terminology and personal taste. Without logical reasoning, then, any such claim, from either side, can only be considered prejudice or, if grounded in personal conviction, an opinion.

To someone socially and professionally conditioned to think in literal terms, the notion that there is no right answer can be a frustrating one. The longer I work as an artist, though, the more accommodating I become of abstractions, dualities, and paradoxes; to a point where I actually find solace in the knowledge that strict definitions are not always possible or even desirable, and that I will likely never run out of creative and intellectual challenges to occupy my mind. While my opinions may not resonate universally, I am still validated in applying them in my own work, knowing that they may be countered by equally opinionated arguments, but never by stronger ones.

Call it irony, but I’m starting to appreciate the fact that challenges often actually make for more rewarding accomplishments.

Another jarring thought came recently as I showed a fellow photographer some of my work along with obvious copies of it by other photographers. These were not common found views, but attempts to locate a specific subject I found and my exact interpretation of it. “You’re photographing the wrong things,” he said, and gave the example of the secret recipe to Coke. The reason it is secret is that it cannot be legally protected. Common ingredients are not anyone’s property.

And what are scenic wonders, golden light, and other natural elements if not ingredients in the making of photographic work? To claim ownership of a view or a tree makes no more sense than to claim ownership of Sienna Yellow, prohibiting anyone else from using it in their own work.

Is my only recourse to keep my ingredients secret? Perhaps; but that would reduce my work to a game when, for it to hold any meaning and interest, I need it to be much more than that.

The ingredients of a painting are never all there is to a work. It’s their deliberate application by a unique artist that produces the final product. Things are not as simple in photography. In many cases, the final product is the ingredients; not so much their deliberate and unique application or arrangement by a conscious mind. I can see how this will be a plausible argument to the detriment of photography. To a degree, I also agree with it. There has to be more to a work (as opposed to a photograph) in order for it to possess meaning and purpose beyond the simplistic “this is where I’ve been and this is what I’ve seen”.

More importantly, I realized that while I cannot make a valid claim to the things I photograph, I still can defend the unique way in which I interpret, compose, and present them as my own work. This also served to reinforce the purpose behind my own work: when I show an image of, say, aspen trees, my goal is not to challenge anyone to locate the exact same group of trees and make their own copy re-applying my creative choices (in fact, I find such attitudes disrespectful, both to the artist and to the subject.) Instead, I want to articulate the beauty and importance of the experiences possible in such a place and urge others to seek similar virtues and work to share and preserve them for the benefit of those who may never discover them otherwise.

The knowledge that we are so imperfect and prone to error and irrational rationalizations also leads to an inevitable conclusion: no matter what my beliefs are, there is always a chance that they may be wrong.

Self-doubt can be a powerful tool for evolving our abilities to perceive our very existence and what we should do with it. But, like all powerful tools, it also has the power to destroy and sabotage our efforts or even our desire to become better (however we choose to define the term). And a choice it is.

It’s hard, sometimes, to write about such things from the perspective of a “photographer.” Certainly, analogies can be made that may resonate with others who share a passion for photography, but the boundaries between “how to be a good photographer” and “how to be a good person” fade to almost nothing the instant one begins to think in those terms. It’s easy to define virtue and success within the tiny bubbles of aesthetics, effort, financial success, or social media celebrity. Not so easy when trying to articulate the personal and social value of one’s life choices, photographic or otherwise.

Before sharing some of my own meditations, I think it is fair to ask why so many choose, implicitly or explicitly, to avoid considering such topics altogether. I can think of two: an acknowledgement that a universal doctrine is not possible, so why re-hash well worn arguments? Or a fear of the implications of coming up short by one’s own definition of what’s “right.” The former, I suggest, is a red herring. Just because a universal truth may not exist doesn’t mean that a personal one should not be established (and continuously refined) to guide one’s life. In other words, failing to articulate one’s reasons for living as he or she does just because such articulation may not agree with the opinions of others is ultimately an excuse to avoid the responsibility of living up to one’s own convictions. Not surprisingly, perhaps, this same conclusion also applies to the latter reason. Neither is very flattering and both converge to just one reason: fear.

My most recent examination actually did have something to do with photography, though. As I was researching some of my recent blog posts about art and photography, I came across several harsh critiques and proclamations — some from very prominent thinkers — that photographs in general are not as worthy as art created by other media. Of course, my immediate reaction was anger. My instinctive response: I need to articulate to myself why these criticisms are wrong, tear them down, and expose them as utterly ridiculous. I am, after all, proud of my art and believe it is as valuable and worthy as any other. I realized, though, that doing so would also be dishonest. Before formulating a response I had to ask myself the question I did not want to consider: what if they were right? I did not believe they were. More honestly: I did not want to believe they were because the implications would be profound and unpleasant. At the same time, though, I realized that any counter-argument I make without allowing for the possibility of them being right, will not be anything more than airing my own prejudice.

“If photography is allowed to stand in for art in some of its functions it will soon supplant or corrupt it completely thanks to the natural support it will find in the stupidity of the multitude. It must return to its real task, which is to be the servant of the sciences and the arts, but the very humble servant, like printing and shorthand which have neither created nor supplanted literature.” –Charles Baudelaire

To be continued… here.

As soon as I answered, though, I realized that I actually did know. I’ll be done when I no longer feel like working on it; when the theme is no longer interesting to me, or when I feel I have learned and said all that I’m going to and find myself drawn to something else.

What threw me off was the word “project.” Projects are efforts aimed at achieving specific goals (or requirements) under a given set of constraints: time, cost, desired features, etc. A project is done when the goals are achieved or when they are no longer deemed feasible or desirable. These conditions directly translate into success or failure.

I am no stranger to projects. In my corporate career I was involved in thousands of them. For a period of time I managed a group of project managers and a portfolio often exceeding a hundred concurrent efforts. Each had well-defined goals, strict time, cost, and feature constraints, and measurable indicators of progress and probabilities of success.

My work on the Awapa (and any number of other themes), by comparison, has none of these things. I have no specific goal or outcome in mind, and, since I am not driven by anything other than my own desire, it doesn’t really need to be complete by an arbitrary date. More intriguing: at this time, I can’t even say what “complete” means.

Certainly, I can come up with goals, constraints and metrics for such efforts, and turn them into projects, but why would I want to? There is no doubt in my mind that at some point I will feel I have worked on them enough and want to shift my resources to other things, but I have no way of determining that point in advance. A forced deadline is unlikely to perfectly coincide with it, meaning that I will either have to quit before I feel ready or be forced to stick with it when I’m no longer interested.

I realized I needed a new word to describe these ongoing efforts and decided on “explorations.” An exploration is sparked by a desire to understand something, to learn about it, to spend time with it, without defining a specific outcome in advance. Like a project, I know it will often result in something useful (images, portfolios, books, ideas, personal satisfaction, etc.), but, until I know what it is, I find ample and sustained reward in merely being engaged in something that interests and fascinates me: a journey that is more important than the destination.

When I shared these thoughts with my friend, he was skeptical. “Without a deadline and goals, you may never be done,” he said. “So what?” I answered, “Why do I need to be done if it continues to give me pleasure?” “Yes,” he said,” but it’s human nature to need something to motivate you to work on it.” “I agree, ” I said, “My interest is what drives me to work on it, and when I’m no longer interested, that’s when I’ll know I’m done.”

This exchange reminded me of a separate discussion, in which I explained some of my reasons for becoming a professional artist. Though I had an interesting and well-paying corporate career, and I could work on my art for a day or two each week, I realized I could no longer turn it on and off. I could not spend my week working in “project mode,” and switch to “exploration mode” for a weekend before going back. The more passionate I became about my creative work, the more I realized it was not something that I do, but something that I am, and that I could not temporarily suspend it any more than I could suspend my breathing for a few days each week.

I still work on the occasional project — be it an essay, a book, a workshop plan, or a presentation. In these times I am reminded how random creativity can be, and how many compromises need to be made in order to complete something under a deadline. When I worked in project management, we would often throw a party to celebrate the completion of a project. The “mission accomplished” moment, we tried to convince ourselves, made up for all the frustration and the compromises. Today, though, I’m happy at the completion of a project for different reasons: being able to return to my ongoing explorations and finding joy in simply working on them.

The most important aspect to a project is to finish it. The most important aspect of an exploration is to engage in it. Productivity and accomplishment come with both. The difference is that with projects, accomplishment is conditional and dictated in advance, and may turn the effort itself into a frustrating exercise. Projects may succeed or fail. Explorations, on the other hand, are always successful, even if they result in no immediate tangible outcome.

It used to be that employment was about making ends meet, so that time and mind can be freed to engage in more meaningful personal or social pursuits. The competitive need to always earn more and beat the “other guys” gave us a corporate culture where leisure is associated with sloth rather than personal growth. Mass media enforce the stereotype by providing excuses to engage in mindless entertainment when the “real work” is done. The more successful employers even go as far as to convince their employees that their accomplishments on the job, personal growth and self-worth are one and the same. Do you believe that they are? Some do, and can maintain a happy existence within that frame of thought. But what happens if you realize that you don’t?

Explorations should not be managed like projects because meaningful living dictates different priorities than employment. Those who can successfully compartmentalize and accommodate both will thrive in both. Whether it is my own shortcoming or a more general truism, I became an artist because I realized I couldn’t reconcile them into one life.

At the core of the “found” discussion is the simple question: where does objectivity end? In other words, where is the point at which objective/found reality stops and personal interpretation, intent, aesthetic sensibilities — the artist’s own contribution — begin. Summing up my position, I contend that images pertaining to be completely objective, whether through omission of personal intent, or a deliberate attempt to duplicate the creative efforts of someone else, are of lesser artistic merit than original work representing the artist’s own creative choices.

~~~

Found subject matter is not a simple concept for creative photographers of any genre. As astutely stated by David Leland Hyde in his comment on the previous post, practically all forms of un-staged photography rely on found elements. The distinction I had in mind was not that found beauty is necessarily indicative of creative laziness, but that images relying solely on happy coincidences or already well-known compositions — where the photographer is but a passive bystander recording what is in front of them and without contributing anything other than skill — are of lesser artistic significance.

“When the artist is confronted with some awesome vista of the world, or with some fragile reminder of the infinite variety of life, or with some significant aspect of society; he must respond according to his training, experience, and intuition. (Perhaps intuition comes first!) He can see only through his eyes, and his vision can only be as effective as his spirit. “Postcard” vision results in postcards. What I call the “in-syndrome” influences many to see the world on a temporal bias (and is accepted likewise by many spectators). But sooner or later the individual will emerge, for better or for worse, influential or ineffective. (…) All the artist can do – in any medium – is what he feels he must do to make his statement and offer it to the world.” – Ansel Adams

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of writing about art is that no widely-accepted definition of the term exists. Dictionaries and encyclopedias are supposed to offer such absolute definitions, yet in the case of art, they consistently fail to do so. The Merriam-Webster dictionary provides no less than six definitions for the term (as a noun), the most relevant to this discussion is perhaps: “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects; also: works so produced.”

Creativity and imagination are qualities of humans, not of found visual elements. Without them, an image may still be aesthetically pleasing, valuable, and useful in numerous ways. Still, it does not meet even the broad dictionary definition of art.

Not being art is not a value judgment and does not imply that a work is of lesser beauty or utility; simply, that it is something other than art. Just like a novel or a short story is something other than a poem. It is not inherently better or worse, just different. For the photographer of such images to take offense at the fact that their work does not meet the definition of art is as silly as for a journalist to be offended if their investigative report does not meet the definition of poetry.

What are such works to be referred to, then? I suggest that they should be called “representational;” literally, re-presenting the scene as anyone else would likely have perceived it, independent of the photographer’s interpretation.

This distinction is all the more important as many representational photographers believe that their work is indeed elevated by the fact that it is as close to “objective reality” as a photograph can be. Some even go as far as to demand that all images that do not represent such objectivity should be explicitly labeled. I would argue that they already are labeled when the photographer refers to them as art. Simply speaking, by mere formal definition, a work can’t be both artistic and objective.

It’s enough that the photographer deliberately considered and made choices based on the aesthetics of their perspective, composition, or the visual effect of a given lens; that the resulting work is no longer documentary in the strictest sense. The test, in my opinion, is one of objectivity — whether the resulting image accurately represents an obvious impression that a random observer would have had under the same conditions. Anything other than that, I suggest, fits squarely into “conscious use of skill and creative imagination,” hence art.

Infinite Autumn (part of the Rainbow Mosaics portfolio)

Other than being superb photographers, Darwin and Sam do a lot to promote the practice of photography, offering insightful thoughts, spending a great deal of time teaching, writing and drawing attention to the works of others who inspire them. In an age of increased competition, I find this type of altruism both refreshing and admirable.

~~~

Darwin and Sam, you each found your way to photography having started down the path of different careers. Can you each say a few words about your personal history and describe the transition; what precipitated it, why photography in general and nature photography in particular?

Darwin – Many people ask me what inspired me to be a nature photographer. The easy answer is nature. Ever since I can remember I have been attracted to animals and bugs and plants. As a child I would spend hours just sitting in the forest watching all the life flitter and scuttle around me. As an adult I became a wildlife biologist with a degree in Zoology just so I could get paid to hang out with critters in nature. But the life of a working biologist is 80% office work and very little of what I loved to do – be out in nature. I soon tired of the desk and longed for more time in the field, so I took up nature photography as a hobby. My earliest influence was a book called “Photography of Natural Things” by Freeman Patterson that showed me that nature photography could be more than documentary, it could be art. After reading that book, I was hooked; nature photography became my passion.

Sam – It’s funny how early influences on your life determine lifelong interests.  One powerful interest in my childhood was my mother who encouraged me in school.  She always wanted to be a lawyer and I think I absorbed her dreams by osmosis.  I was also always very interested in art, art history and being outdoors.  Although teased for being bookish by my family, I spent a lot of time outside exploring by myself or reading about animal characters’ adventures in nature.  These two seemingly opposite things, law and nature, have defined most of my life choices.  It seems nature has won out in the end, and I think I am interested in photography because it satisfies my need to experience new places and create art while doing so.

One thing I always admired about your work is the consistency with which you come up with novel and creative ideas, and sidestep photographic clichés. How do you keep things “fresh”?

Darwin – The best way to keep things fresh is not to think about what you are doing but instead just reacting and feeling. It is self-destructive to think about being creative. You become creative by just being true to yourself and following your heart and your gut. As soon as you try to force being creative you sabotage yourself. So shoot what you love, don’t listen to what other people tell you about what and how you shoot, don’t get stuck in the trap of trying to replicate someone else’s style. Give yourself the time needed to evolve as an artist. Don’t sweat it too much and you will find your voice.

Sam – I don’t really worry about trying to keep things fresh because at this stage I am still learning so much.  Many photographers worry about being different from other shooters, but I think the true artist does not or cannot worry about such a thing; you can’t help but express your true voice.  If you feel out of touch with your artistic voice, then I can see how repetition and rote would bring a stale note to your work.  But I find that this industry is so centred around the traditional male point of view that by just stepping into it I am different.  Just think of the vocabulary surrounding photography:   we talk about ‘taking’ an image, ‘capturing’ a ‘killer shot’.  Or my favourite, “I nailed it.”  This is very aggressive language where the ‘hunter’ slays the image which is almost like a foe.  Then it’s all about strut.  Instead of engaging in a meaningful discussion about creative voice and the artistic urge, it’s show and tell time with a lot of accolades reserved for the ‘trophy’ nature or landscape shot.  I see this mentality often, in workshops, magazines and forums, and the result is often a lot of copycat-ism and repetition.

Nature photography as art seems a loaded topic, both among photographers and art connoisseurs. To what degree do you consider your work artistic. Is it an important distinction to you?

Darwin – Whether my work is artistic isn’t something I worry about at all. How people categorize my work is totally up to the viewer. Like the old saying goes, “What other people think of me is none of my business!” All I can do is be honest with myself and try and make images that are true to who I am and that represent what I was trying to say at the time.

Sam – Wow, we’re pretty different on this point, Darwin!  I do think it is an important distinction, and I give it a lot of thought.  Although part of why I photograph is to satisfy my need to make something creative (I also enjoy painting, cooking and making crafts which scratch that itch too), it is also important to me to make something good.  I have no interest in so-called ‘documentary photography’ which I really think is a load of garbage believed by people who don’t understand enough about human perception.  When you are trying to interpret the world using media, any media, that ability to interpret is the kernel or seed that leads to artistic expression.  I try to be there with my work.

Both of you spend a considerable amount of time teaching and writing about photography. Other than basic technique, what values do you seek to instill in your students that go beyond just “getting the shot”?

Darwin – The photo industry, both teachers and students, want photo instruction to be like a cookbook. Here are all the ingredients, here is the recipe; the end result is a perfectly baked pie. And that is what we get, a whole bunch of perfectly baked pies that all look and taste the same. We try to teach students to take the ingredients and make their own version of a pie, to come up with their personal recipe. In other words we train our students to be chefs rather than cooks.

Sam – I have very little patience for the ‘get the shot’ mentality.  That is why I don’t lead tours.  I can appreciate that some photographers make good money taking their clients to places where a specific kind of photo is all but guaranteed but, to be honest, I think this service downgrades photography to a trade.  It also helps foster the attitude commonly held that photography is a documentary science and not an art form.  And for the rest of us trying to eke out a living in photography, having your art reduced to something that is reproducible and banal is unhelpful.  Having said that, though, there sure are a lot of junk images out there masquerading as art!  If you can’t make it good, print it big and go black and white!  It really comes down to education, and we photographers are uniquely placed to provide this kind of information.  Instead of selling an easy grab shot, encourage your client’s own unique voice.  Instead of printing large images and telling the world you are great, seek to always better yourself as an artist.  When it comes to values, I want my students to think for themselves, not believe what I or others say.  I want them to listen to their own artistic muse and develop their unique way of seeing the world.

Darwin – I originally started off doing tours because I enjoyed sharing wonderful places with other fairly advanced shooters who were pretty comfortable with their own artistic voice.  More and more, though, the industry seems to encourage people to grab a trophy shot rather than invest in their artistic skill as a photographer. I’m finding this trend dissatisfying as an instructor and guide and that is why we’re doing more workshops:  it’s a creative and fulfilling experience for both me as an instructor and hopefully participants.

On your blogs you often highlight the work of other photographers who inspire you. I know this helped introduce me to some fantastic work I would not have seen otherwise. What drives you to do so?

I have always loved looking at other people’s images and find much inspiration in the work of others. If someone’s image really grabs me, I am sure others might also be moved by it and so it is only natural to share the gem with others.

I think the photographic community is much stronger through sharing and building positivity rather than the negativity so common on the web. And frankly, it gets tiring following a photographer who only publishes the “Hey look at me, I am so awesome” kind of blog posts. so we try to shake it up with posts that our community can learn from or be inspired by.

Tell us about your new site, oopoomoo. What was the thinking behind it and what can we expect to find there going forward?

Darwin – oopoomoo is sort of an antidote to what we saw as problems with the photo industry (and the world). The emphasis on consumption wreaks havoc not only on the development of the artist but has severe impacts on the ecosystem. We are trying to live better and softer and more artistically on this earth and oopoomoo is a chronicle of our attempts (both successes and failures). We want oopoomoo to be a community; we share these struggles and triumphs together, and we also want to be a source of great information about what truly matters in photography which is the artist and not the gear.

Sam – oopoomoo is a response to the direction photography has gone in the last five years.  It is such a scrabble with everyone telling you that you have to join this website or get on this media, or churn out this app first.   No doubt about it, running your own business is hard work.  The trouble was, we wanted to do more than just photography but there was never enough time.  So oopoomoo is our way of working our beliefs and values on how we want to live our life into our business.  It’s a grand experiment.  I think though that it is one everyone should be trying.  Instead of trading your valuable time to earn money for a few weeks holiday with family, you should be living your ideal life every day.  This isn’t pie-in-the-sky kind of stuff either.  We’ve forgotten how to do this because of division of labour and specialization of skills.  Societies used to be generally more close-knit and interconnected, and I think we need to return to this, even by using online communities (like the oopoomoo community), in order to be healthy and actively engaged in designing our ‘local’ communities.

“… try for that other world, the real world, where orphans burn orphans and nothing is more difficult to discover than a simple fact. And with that pride of the artist, you must blow against the wall of every power that exists, the small trumpet of your defiance.” (Norman Mailer)

It appears I have committed a grave sin. A chiding missive from a concerned photographer informed me that my moral standards are too high, my approach to art incompatible with the contemporary definition of the term, and my writing politically incorrect. At the risk of further offending the sender, I admit the note prompted some anger, but also great pride.

You may be wondering what it was I said that prompted such a response. In summary, it was my audacious claim that the vast majority of what is presented as (fine) art photography today is meaningless, repetitious, artificial, and safely ignorable; and that found beauty is often a crutch for the creatively lazy.

Many an artist before me contemplated their role and agency in society. Indeed, I would say that anyone worthy of the title ponders such thoughts with some regularity. Regrettably, few dare express them and live by their convictions. To eliminate from one’s work and rhetoric anything that might offend, is also to eliminate from it anything that might matter. Call it arrogance, but I have little interest in being about things that don’t matter.

In the most ignorant of perceptions, art is about the mere production of beautiful things. Beauty is the soul and the bane of art. It lures those seeking distraction from the mundane, but if it fails to convey ulterior meaning beyond mere aesthetics, the work is little more than temporary entertainment, and ultimately of no real significance.

The production of objects and interpretations are ultimately the tangible legacy of the artist, but they are not what being an artist is about. Being an artist is about living passionately and deliberately; placing curiosity and awe and honesty and meaning ahead of social conventions and material spoils. It is not about finding beauty; it is about discovering it within, creating it anew, interpreting and elevating and morphing and sharing and celebrating it in defiance of all that is corrupt and cynical and greedy and bigoted and short-sighted in the world.

Works of art, however beautiful, are but the proverbial means that should never be confused with the artist’s goal, nor separated from it.

And so we come to photography of natural things. A rewarding hobby to many, but one also fraught with cognitive dissonance. When those who practice it proclaim to seek a connection with the natural world, yet limit their involvement to short-lived and well-planned “magic” hours, beautiful images may be made; a connection is not. When a photographer adds nothing of themselves to the outward appearance of found scenes, beautiful images may be made; meaningful work is not. And when images are made that are not founded in personal conviction, original concept, meaningful interpretation, and ulterior purpose; beautiful they may be, but art they are not.

We are the fortunate ones. We live in a world where adventure is still possible, where mystery still exists, where undiscovered beauty is still there to inspire, where great rewards can still be attained for relatively small risk, where the incessant cacophony of motors and gadgets and television sets have not yet banished all silence, where livelihood can still be made by personal enterprise and not in servitude, where fellow humans still find value in the elevating force of art, and their generosity still makes an artist’s life possible. Still, this world of opportunity and freedom is not to be taken for granted. With each generation, more and more are inclined to believe that a meaningful life can be had in the limited, dumbed-down bubble of artificial existence and in disconnect with the very things that make life possible, let alone their effects on the human psyche.

My work, to the extent that it may be worthy of being considered art, is not meant to offer benign glimpses into things that happen to be beautiful in their own right. If it is to be understood as intended, it should serve as a stern warning of the wager we placed on our ability to reinvent reality; and not just in the material sense; but in all the ulterior meanings, knowledge, peace, and awe that may never again be possible by artificial means. A generic image of a pretty place will not do. Only the deliberate explorations, revelations, and stories we tell through original work stand a chance of piercing through the walls of socialized indifference built over millennia of decadence and unsustainable practices.

I want others to have what I have, to know what I know, and to feel what I feel; even if they don’t yet know why it is important. I want to call to task all those who proclaim themselves artists yet limit their work to the purposeless pursuit of trophies (let alone trophies already shot, bagged, stuffed, and mounted by others, leaving little more than hollow shells of former glory). I want photography to be worthy of its rightful place as a creative, expressive, and important form of visual art, as valid and respectable as any other. If that makes me politically incorrect, so be it.

 I am a greedy, selfish bastard. I want the fact that I existed to mean something. (Harry Chapin)

Aglow (part of The Good Badlands portfolio)

The concept has no lines or colors or other physical characteristics. It is the thing instinctively recognized by the artist, commanding their attention and suggesting ulterior meaning — an intuitive sense that there’s something here worthy of further exploration. Visualization is the process of overlaying the concept with literal characteristics. By the time composition is considered, the concept already possesses visual properties (lines, shapes, colors) to be arranged within the frame, later to be captured by the camera and turned into a tangible artifact: a print or digital file. Hence the ultimate importance of visualization: it is the linchpin that ties together the intangible idea with its literal representation — the point in time where an instinctive response becomes a vision, ultimately to be expressed in a physical, shareable artifact: the finished work.

Think of the artist as having the job of bridging two worlds: one of feelings, notions, meanings, and abstractions available only to them; and one of literal objects perceptible by physiological senses that can be shared with others. Visualization is the point of translation, where a work of art assumes shape and crosses from one world into the other, to assume an independent existence in it.

Visualization, defined as the ability to see in the “mind’s eye” the finished work before making and applying technical decisions, is also the point in the creative process where images transition from the realm of the reactive and contemplative to that of the conscious and deliberate. Simply speaking, there is no way to make the transformation from thought to object without craftsmanship and skilled application of the artist’s tools.

Understanding visualization also serves to illustrate the role of tools and equipment in the creative process. Simply put: instinct, awareness, and imagination create the concept; visualization transforms it into an image; equipment makes the image tangible.

Autumn Virga (part of the Seasons on the Awapa portfolio)