The Floating Image

My attention for the year has been mostly consumed by the Volunteer Department of the Portland Art Museum. And while I am still making new work it has been slowed down considerably and exhibiting work has been nonexistent.  I rather dislike apologies, giving them and hearing them, and so will not apologize now for my blog silence. This post is an admonishment to myself- get to work. I am a big believer in the Hand of Providence and that things happen as they are supposed to in their proper time and I know that this bit of a break as an artist is for a reason, whether I know what that is or not.

Like I said, I’ve been making new work and I’ve also been doing a lot of research. Lately my research has been in the realm of alchemy. I was first intrigued by the subject after reading Jung’s ‘Alchemy and Psychology’ and have become enamored with the poetry and rich imagery associated with the practice. The concept of transformation in the mind and the soul that permeates much of the writings on the subject fit in perfectly with the Riddle of the Echo project and the idea that artwork and imagery can act as a catalyst for change within the viewer. Currently I’m reading the ‘Splendor Solis‘ written in 1582 by Solomon Trismosin. The writing is not as poetic as some of the other alchemical texts but there are images associated with it that are pretty spectacular.

While conducting an interview with photographer Doug Ethridge he mentioned that he doesn’t intellectualize as he’s shooting and lets his emotions dictate his imagery. I had asked him about the “overarching themes” in his work and I found his response to be a little surprising. I was trying to get him to speak more specifically about particular storytelling or things that happened to him. Conversely he was trying to keep his image making fresh by not over thinking it and letting the photos come to him.  In retrospect I think we were saying the same thing, but not realizing it.

I firmly believe that all photography is practiced as an emotional exercise. From staid catalog shots of products to Joel Peter Witkin tableaux of amputees to Moholy-Nagy abstracts the thing that all photos have in common is the viewer’s ability to identify with the image in some way. This identification does not happen as an intellectual decision, it happens, I believe, on an unconscious and emotional level.

Take, for example, Huynh Cong Ut’s famous photograph of the young girl running naked toward the camera fleeing a naplam attack in Vietnam. The power of a photograph as a piece of art is that it affects our emotions. We feel what we imagine the subject feels which in turn sparks a myriad of personal feelings. This is why photographs are used so much for advertising and politics. They hit our brains in the same place as memories and dreams.

It’s this same emotional response that lets us as photographers know when we “got it”. It’s what Alfred Steiglitz called “Equivalents”. He experimented with the theory by photographing clouds in the sky. To paraphrase, the point of the “Equivalents” project was to make the viewer feel what the photographer felt when selecting the shot. Minor White believed that his photographs had a spiritual foundation to them for similar reasons. I would go further and suggest that it is all photographs produced that have this reciprocal, emotional element.

I believe that this is also the reason why photography will always be considered “real”, or based in reality, no matter how much it is manipulated by digital processes.

And maybe I do tend to over think things, but when I’m out hunting or brainstorming images they come to me, sometimes from out of nowhere. And when something hits me just right I grab it.