mindful photography

Apr

2012

Do What You Can

The problem with being a creative is not always the lack of ideas; the problem with being a creative is sometimes too many ideas. Ted Orland, in Art and Fear, a book he co-wrote with David Bayles, mentions that often times the problem is better identified as a lack of creative discipline regarding the ideas. We get overrun by them and they can get it the way of actually creating and completing projects.

The other day I complained to my wife that I hadn’t had enough time to go out and photograph what I wanted. Her reply was not what I expected. Nor was it what I wanted to hear, “yeah, but you’re getting better at shooting what you CAN shoot…!!”

Ouch, but true!

What she meant was I was getting better at photographing our kids and our family life. She’s right. If I keep at something, keep studying, keep applying myself, learn new techniques and ways of seeing or interpreting, the images get better – mostly because I get better as a photographer and editor. And that means something.

All of us are limited by our life situation. We like to think we are free, and we like to yearn for more freedom. But we are as free as we are and lots can be done with that. The challenge often is not necessarily to strive for greater freedom, for greater access, for more time, for more gear, for more, for more…; rather the challenge is to focus on what is possible. To dream what is possible where others might not see it.

There is a story I heard years ago about a woman in India who was revered as a meditation teacher. Early in her life she had married and her husband forbade her to practice formal meditation. She acquiesced. But still she somehow practiced. When asked much later in her life about how she managed to develop such strong meditative practices and such great inner peace without formal practice she answered, as many meditation teachers will, with a question: “what is meditation?”

Her students dutifully responded, “the practice of paying attention in this moment and this moment only.”

She then continued, “and so, when I stirred the rice, I stirred the rice; When I swept the floor I swept the floor; and when I ate, I ate.”

She did what she could with what she had, and she perfected her practice.

What can you do in this moment, in this situation, to practice photography despite your situation? What can you do without changing anything externally, but rather turning your attention to what you CAN do. Can you focus there? (Pun not intended.)

I can’t always photograph what I want to photograph, but I sure can photograph what is available to me. And can you guess which option will actually result in an image – perhaps even a good one?

Sep

2011

On The Hunt (on not turning your photographic subject into prey)

I can’t help but keep noticing the language we photographers like use when describing photographing: shoot, shot, capture, get, take. Sounds a little violent, doesn’t it? With this crowd I feel a bit like a hunter.

I think it comes from a mindset that the world is out there and I need to go get it, take it, capture it, shoot it. It is a predatory mindset. I understand it and I know it is part of the nature of photography. I also think we need to be careful. Predatory mindsets are singularly focused and tend to dehumanize and devalue its prey (whether human, animal, vegetable, or other). Predatory mindsets tend to decrease the respect felt for the object. In photography, as in hunting, the value the subject becomes decreased to only the value that the photographer gives it, not its inherent value, or the value to itself. I know this is not what most photographers intend, but it happens. A lot.

Eli Reinholdsten’s recent post about photographing alone together reminded me of this dilemma. Have you ever been out on a photographic excursion (notice I resisted the urge to write “out on a shoot…” 😉 with other photographers and you find someone interesting to photograph. You ask them if you can and they agree. Then suddenly 5 people are shooting over your shoulder like paparazzi. They are of course paying you a compliment on your sharp eye that discovered such a wonderful subject, and they are trying to get “their” shot at the expense of you and your subject’s agreement. I know I’ve been guilty of this as much as I’ve had it happen to me.

The result often is a startled subject and less than optimal photographs. In that moment of frenzied ~~shooti~~… er, photographing, the subject has been reduced down to an object, the person and their contract with the original photographer has not been respected, and the original photographer’s effort and intent has been passed over. In that moment the quarry was hunted without so much as an afterthought.

I wonder if we could, collectively, begin to speak (and think) of photography in a more collaborative way? Less shooting, taking, and capturing, and more making, co-creating, representing. What if we looked upon photography as a gift to the subject rather than to ourselves and the world.

To get an idea of this put yourself in front of the camera. Notice how you feel. Notice how you are treated, interacted with, respected (or not.) It can be a very subtle thing, but it will infuse the photograph with your soul, or not. That will depend how safe you feel in front of the photographer’s lens. And that depends to what degree you feel like prey.