Making the Familiar Strange

In my last post, I quoted a sentence that was in reference to Seamus Heaney's poems: "He takes the familiar and makes it strange." This sentence describes perfectly what I am trying to do in my current work. Because this is no easy thing, I have been thinking a lot about what it is, exactly, that can make the familiar into something strange or unsettling. In researching this, I came upon this blog entry by Pat Thompson, Professor of Education at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom. She writes about how de-familiarization is about "seeing things differently, and understanding them differently." The ability to convey to viewers/readers/listeners this different understanding of something familiar is key.

Musicians are challenged by this concept any time they do a cover version of a well-known song. Sometimes they produce a more-or-less faithful rendering of the original, but other times, the cover version causes the listener to hear something in the song that had been previously unknown. I can think of two examples that illustrate this perfectly.

The first is Whitney Houston's "How Will I Know". Her original was a perfect piece of pop confection that speaks to the angst of young women just starting on their journey of negotiating relationships. Her a cappella version, although not a cover version by someone else, reveals the concerns of a grown woman who has already lived a life and experienced failures in love.

The second example is Chris Cornell's cover of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean". There is a gritty, desperate aspect to Cornell's version that was absent for me in the original. I had become complacent about the song until I heard Cornell's version, which caused me to relisten to Jackson's original and rethink what i thought I knew about it. I found far more angst and anger there than I had heard initially.

In both cases, the experience as listener was revelatory, exciting and..... strange. You are familiar with the subject, but because it is being presented to you in a way that is different from the norm, you feel like you don't know it at all. It is this sensation that I am aiming for in the photographs I am creating right now.

Describing Your Work to Others

Although I believe I am a fairly articulate person, I always seem to stumble when someone asks me what my work is "about", or what kind of artist I am. I inevitably end up using far too many words to answer those questions. In the January/February 2014 issue of Intelligent Life magazine  (which is published by the Economist) author Christina Patterson describes how Nobel-prizewinning poet Seamus Heaney used words to create maximum impact. There was a sentence in that article that is the perfect description of what I attempt to do with my work:

"He takes the familiar and makes it strange."

That sums it up perfectly, particularly in regard to the project that I am currently working on. Here's an example of my most recent work-in-progress that I feel effectively does that:Now I just have to drill that sentence into my head: "I take the familiar and make it strange." and use it whenever I'm asked what kind of work I do. If only I could do that to the degree that Seamus Heaney could!

Same Object - Different Uses

If you give each of 5 different artists the exact same object to use in her/his work, you are guaranteed to get 5 different results. I've always been interested in this idea. Take for example, band-aids. I recently saw this picture by Eric Klemm, which used a lot of band-aids:

What I see in this picture is vulnerability, sadness, a fierce barrier that has been put up between the world and this child. The fact that the application of the band-aids was so deliberate and purposeful makes it the antithesis of playful. They work as a defense against some unseen threat, and imply impending injury of some kind to me.

Compare the use of the band-aids in that photo to one that I took, which is from the "Shadowing the Gene Pool" series:

In this picture, the band-aids serve quite a different purpose. Rather than being a barrier, they are used almost like tattoos, markers of power and strength. The body English of the little girl adds to that effect. They say, "Yes, I am vulnerable, but that's irrelevant."

I'm sure if I searched the Web for "children with band-aids" I would find countless pictures which would use the band-aids to express different things. That's why no photographer should ever shy away from photographing anything. It's not WHAT you photograph, it's HOW you photograph it that will make it fresh and exciting- or not.

Humor in Photography- The Tutu Project

A friend of mine sent me a link about The Tutu Project, and I instantly fell in love with these pictures. A project of the Carey Foundation, "The mission of The Tutu Project™ is to support the fund raising efforts of The Carey Foundation for women with breast cancer. We strive to bring laughter and understanding to a community that has endured far too much." Photographer Bob Carey's wife was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003. Having lost his mother to the disease, Bob needed something to distract him and started to photograph himself in various locations around the world. Working on this project has become a form of therapy for him, and I can see why.

Using lighthearted humor and the visually unexpected (an overweight, middle-aged man dressed only in a pink tutu!?!) are great tools for getting the viewer's attention and prompting them to ask questions about what they are seeing. Add to that Bob's outstanding sense of composition and you have a body of work that is eye-catching and funny/whimsical. Add to that the fact that these photographs are being created for a greater good, and you have a slam-dunk success.

Planting Seeds....

In the mid-1990's, I was invited to exhibit images from the Stargazing project in Sao Paolo, Brazil. A catalog was published that included an image from that work. Fast forward to two days ago, when I received the following message from someone in Brazil through my Facebook page, which I have edited somewhat:

"A few weeks ago, while looking for references material to start drawing the graphic design of my first EP (CD) - I'm an actor, singer, producer (former MTV latin america) and performer, born in Sao Paulo - came to my hands,  the book "Fotografia Pensante" (edited by) the valuable and genius Luiz Guimaraes Monforte!"

He goes on to say that he found my photograph in the book as he leafed through it. Then he wrote:

"The impact that this image generated in my heart was so intense, that there is more than one week can not sleep! Seriosly!"

The idea that someone couldn't sleep for a week because of an image I made was.... well, way cool!!! But what struck me most about this is that once you put your work out into the world, you never know who will see it, when they will see it, or if it will resonate in any way with those who do see it.

It reminds me of the seeds of desert wildflowers that lie dormant for decades until just the right conditions occur that cause them to finally germinate and bloom. So plant the seeds, just get your work out there, and see what happens.

Work-in-Progress- 11/11/13

Today is Veteran's Day in the United States, a day that I have paid deep attention to ever since I worked on the Tears of Stone project. At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, the Armistice was signed that ended the "war to end all wars". Or so they thought.... and hoped. Here is one last excerpt from Stone Work, the book by John Jerome that I have been quoting here recently, and which relates to my approach to my current as-yet-unrealized project. I could have written these words myself:

“I haven’t learned to let go of the need to control, direct, keep the canoe (or anything else) pointed straight: the westernized, apollonian requirement that one master things, apply more power. I keep fiddling with the throttle.

            Of course I like effort, but that is not a sufficient excuse. I like effortlessness more, or claim to. What I like most is the search for that, for the effortless way, for those little physical moments when it goes just right: epiphanies, again. What I like best about stone work is working at it slowly and carefully, figuring out how to get the stones and get them into place with never the strain of a heavy lift. I like trying to make stone work effortless, which is satisfactorily impossible, and therefore endless, task. You can put a lot of effort into finding the effortless way.” (Jerome 135-136)

PhotoEye Blog Interview

I was recently interviewed about the Seeking Perfection project for the PhotoEye blog. Here's a link to the interview. It's always a struggle to put into words the thought processes behind my work, but always a rewarding experience. This is because I find that I learn something different about my work and about my approach to making pictures when I either talk about it or write it down, than when I simply think about it. I really enjoy that sense of discovery as it helps to move me forward, even when I have long since completed a project.

Work-in-Progress- 10/27/13

I'm currently working on a project that has gone from nebulous to partially-formed in the past few months. But I am still wrestling with how to make it sing, am still in the middle of it, trying to figure it out, which means that I am frustrated by my apparent lack of progress. (Even though I know that every time I work on it, I am making progress.) I love this excerpt from John Jerome's book Stone Work, which talks about seeking a breakthrough:

“It is when I am finally stopped, when the sentence falls right, when what I’m trying to say finally comes off my tongue, when I understand what someone is saying to me, when the pieces fall together and what was muddy confusion is suddenly clear:  the eureka moment, when some conglomeration of ideas comes together for you, that otherwise, until then, you were unable to link. A connection made that you can’t explain, that just . . . furthers you, somehow.

            I used to have a wonderful quote about this moment pinned above my desk, but I lost it. Insert your own wonderful quote here. Mine was about that moment before which all is confusion and despair, and after which things suddenly become clear and there’s never going to be any confusion anymore. It doesn’t work out that way, of course, but the moment when you think it will is worth preserving. It is what I work for, I think.

            The physical epiphanies available in working with wood and metal and stone are no different from those other little instants when some flicker of truth comes in. when the information from some sense organ or other succeeds in breaking through. I always thought these moments were supposed to be intellectual, the product of pure abstract thought. But they come to us through the sense organs. It was the taste of the apple, I think, that flipped us out of Eden, into the world.” (Jerome 108-109)

Thoughts on Learning to See- #2

I worked solely in black & white until quite recently. It wasn't until I started the Seeking Perfection project that I began working in color. Until then, I didn't have a feel for it, didn't know what to do with it- I just didn't have a voice in color. I therefore find the following quote from John Jerome's book Stone Work really interesting: “By noon it has turned into an absolutely crystalline, deep-blue, clear-sky, windless February day, unimaginably clear and bright. The clarity comes, I believe, from the deepness of the blue above, its darkness…This morning the woods are wet again, and I can definitely see the pink haze. The woods are still basically gray, but you can pick up the tinge, the hue, of growth…When I come outdoors I see nothing but gray first, but the longer I look, the more color comes welling up. It’s as if my black-and-white eyes are being awakened from their winter sleep, as more color begins to appear in stuff that for the past three months I have dismissed as dead gray. This is wrong, of course, there’s always plenty of color, even in the snow... Maybe in deep winter I have, more or less despairingly, tuned it out.  Maybe true color is just another one of those other rich experiences out there that I never quite have.” (Jerome 194-195)

Thoughts on Learning to See- #1

Author John Jerome (1932-2002) wrote a book titled Stone Work, which I found thought-provoking and inspiring. The book follows Jerome as he sets about building a stone wall on his New England property, a creative process that was as rewarding and frustrating as any other. Here is a quote that speaks to me as a photographer: “I’ve never learned how to focus my attention, just as I never learned to study in school, only to read the books—the stories—that pulled my attention out of me. Actively focusing attention, coming up with enough mental energy to keep attention focused on something, was entirely too much effort. I didn’t know how to do it. I still don’t.  I want to be able to step back and let the sheer beauty of this place overwhelm me, carry me passively along, but clearly that’s all wrong, a sure way to tune out: what I have to do to see into the woods is dig into the details (as Mies van der Rohe pointed out long ago—quoting, I’m sure, someone else). To focus on detail I take notes, attempting to write down the riches of the woods, trying to convince myself that I have gotten those riches. But I haven’t, I never have. I don’t know enough, don’t see enough, don’t know how to see. Don’t know what I’ve seen, what was going on, until I get back and start writing about it, telling myself the story: debriefing myself on the experience. Every time that I see a little bit more, it tells me there are worlds and worlds to see, deeper yet.  The pleasure I get when I see a little tells me that all pleasure, all happiness, lies in seeing more. Whenever I manage to see some tiny bit, I always say to myself again, yes, that’s the way I wish I lived: seeing these things.” (Jerome 195-196)

Starting a Project- The Inner Critic

Here's an excerpt from an article by author Mark Slouka in the Sunday New York Times from August 25 that I found totally relevant to any artist. Although Slouka is talking about writers, just substitute your media/field, and I think it will speak to you, too: “If writers agree on anything—which is unlikely—it’s that nothing can damage a novel in embryo as quickly and effectively as trying to describe it before it’s ready.  Unfortunately, because we’re writers, aka bipedal nests of contradictions, avoiding the temptation to share is never as easy as simply keeping our mouths shut.

            Why? Because we’re unsure—about very nearly everything. Because in our hearts we’re only as good as our last paragraph, and if the new book isn’t going anywhere, maybe we’re no good at all. Because we’re running on faith and fumes. In the early stages, before that magic moment when the voice of the story begins to speak, we want—no, crave—validation, someone on the outside who will say, preferably with godlike authority and timbre: “It’s brilliant. You’re on the right track. Just keep going.”

            The problem, of course, is that our inner critic, the I.C., is whispering in our ear that we’re not even remotely on the right track—that we’re blundering around in the wilderness, in fact."

This article speaks to me because every time I am in the beginning phases of a new project, my experience is exactly like that. My normal confidence seems to desert me and I am filled with insecurities about the value/success/relevance of my new endeavor. Can you tell that I am embarking on not one, but a few new projects right now??!!!

Artists I Like- Myoung Ho Lee

Sometimes I ask myself why I seem to take the most complex, difficult route towards creating my work. Then I see the work of someone who has also taken a work-intensive route towards their work and I am gratified that I am not alone. Myoung Ho Lee, a Korean artist, created his "Tree" series by constructing a custom-built white panel that is set up behind a tree of his choice, and then photographs the tree and its surrounding environment. This approach requires a team of people and equipment that would stop most people in their tracks before ever getting started. His pictures confront the viewer with the reality of the tree and its environment, but because the panel separates the tree from it, we are challenged to regard the tree differently than we would if the panel weren't there. It's an outstanding example of how every single thing in the frame is important. Take away the panel, and the photograph is unremarkable. Include more or less of the surroundings, move the camera closer or further away from the tree, or choose to shoot at a different time of day- make any of those changes and the photograph would be less powerful. These pictures are a great reminder that what we include or exclude in the frame before clicking the shutter, in other words, how we edit the picture BEFORE it is taken, is critically important to the result.

Art & Science- Caleb Charland

Caleb Charland is a photographer whose images inspire awe and wonder, particularly when you realize that all of his images are multiple exposures shot on film and then printed straight. Photoshop is not used in the creation of these puppies, which makes them even more amazing. In an excerpt from an interview, he explains his process: "Silhouette With Matches (see left) was a simple process of multiple exposure. I shoot all my work with a view camera on 4x5 film. Basically, I took one exposure during the day for the background, then one at night while lighting and tossing the matches. This process left the outline of my body without the use of Photoshop."

Charland's pictures are magical, taking me back to a time when I would make science fair projects in elementary school. Most of the time, I didn't really care if the project worked out, I just wanted to play with the stuff I was using to make the project with. Most often, that "stuff" had to do with matches and flashlights and things that moved through space.

But they are also metaphorical, such as Footprints with Matches (see below). This image implies as much as it tells, and leaves this viewer thinking about how much damage mankind has left behind in its frenzy to build and develop the land. Technically brilliant, visually arresting, and wonderfully thought-provoking, Caleb Charland is a photographer to watch.

Art & Science- Niko Luoma

I've always been interested in the connection between art and science. I sometimes wonder if they aren't really one and the same, just different ways to understanding this universe we inhabit. The photographs of Niko Luoma refer to math, geometry, light (i.e. physics), and end up creating a magical universe that exists only on the photographic paper he prints on. He works with traditional analog photographic materials, making hundreds of exposures on one negative. The control he has over his materials is amazing.

He says about his work: "My material is light. The work focuses on energy rather than matter. My work is about the process as much as about the result. ...Working only with light and light sensitive materials, I am fascinated by the fact that this process leaves nothing behind- no debris, no ruin- just an exposed negative."

Here's my favorite image of his to date:

Challenging Yourself

"The challenge for me is to make the painting I don't know how to make." The above quote by painter Frank Herrmann is one that I find incredibly exciting. It's like throwing down the gauntlet in front of yourself, daring yourself to succeed or fail. It's a thought that demands that you be ok with so many of the things that cause artists anxiety:  with not having a clue as to what you are doing, that you might not know how to get to where you want to go, that you might end up with artwork that wasn't what you had initially envisioned, that you are leaping into the unknown without a parachute.

But, as Bart Simpson would say: "Cowabunga!!!!"

Why let our fears hold us back??? Trying to make what you don't know how to make - I'm going to tattoo that on my brain.

Artists I Like- Matej Peljhan

This week's horrific bombings at the Boston Marathon left many people with terrible leg injuries. It left me thinking, among other things, about how those victims will cope into the future with the loss of their limbs. So the issue of physical disabilities and challenges were already on my mind when I discovered today a series of pictures by Metej Peljhan made for a 12 year old boy named Luka who suffers from muscular dystrophy.

Luka longs to do things that are physically beyond him, so Peljhan created photographs that depict him doing those activities, things like playing basketball and breakdancing.

The beauty of these pictures lies in their simple, low-tech approach, and in their whimsicality.They are utterly honest, and therefore compelling.

They are a good example of how photographs can touch the heart, and of how a little imagination can go a long way.

To see more, to go Peljhan's website.

A Book on Wood Carving

In the March 16th issue of the Economist, I read a review of a new book by woodcarver David Esterly. The title of the book, The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Heart of Making, immediately caught my eye and the review made me want to read it. Here's the part of the review that spoke to me most: (The book) "...is a meditation- on "beauty, skill nature, feeling, tradition, sincerity", all now art-world anachronisms, he fears. But above all, it is a song to his medium, the wood itself, its grain, the way it answers to the blade, the conversation to be had with it. "Making" is the word in Mr. Esterly's title, and it is the nub of his book. He is in love with the physicality of his art, the flowing together of hand and brain, of chisel and creativity. The idea that the artist should both master and be mastered by the medium clearly fascinates him.

Lovely! Will have to read it ASAP.

The Journey- #1

"Life is a journey." How often have I thought about that sentence over the years? It came up again after reading an intriguing article about Kilian Jornet Burgada, "the most dominating endurance athlete of his generation" in last Sunday's NY Times magazine. This paragraph appeared towards the end of the article:

"What are you running after? I asked Jornet. Having beaten men, do you now want to challenge the mountains? He gently corrected me. You don't beat the mountains. You go when they permit, he said. The speed records and "firsts" aren't important except for motivation, he insisted. Then he mentioned the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Hughes Galeano, who once likened the ideal of Utopia to the horizon - goals that retreat even as we chased them. "The important thing is not to catch something," said Jornet... What matters in life is the pursuit, and everything we learn along the way. "The important thing," he said, "is moving."

What struck me about Jornet's quote was the phrase "...everything we learn along the way." With that, he emphasizes the need for reflection. For we are always learning as we move forward through our lives, but often don't take the time to look at and reflect upon what we are learning as we do so.

And reflection is such an important part of the creative process! I ask myself questions constantly as I am working on a new piece or project. Taking time to reflect allows me to see what I've done well or poorly, and allows me to learn from my failures and successes. In short, reflection and the learning that comes from it is essential to growing creatively.

Someone once said to me that a "good" teacher is one who is constantly trying to improve, who recognizes what they have already achieved, but realizes that there is so much more that they could do better and who works towards that end. That speaks perfectly to what Jornet said, "What matters in life is the pursuit, and everything we learn along the way."

Challenging the Concept of "Sameness"

German photographer Martin Schoeller's photographs of twins challenge our perceptions of "sameness". 

He states: "Questioning the principles that define the sameness and differences of identical siblings is a study of the core habits of perception—the extent to which our environment impacts our development and our expectations, our preferences, and our choices. We assemble impressions of and form mysterious attachments to universal features—hairline, forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, and chin. We take their arrangements to be unique. Identical twins dispute that assumption."

This series can be found in the book "Identical: Portraits of Twins". I love how thought-provoking this work is, and its straightforward pictorial approach to the subject.

A Comedian's Creative Process

i just read an article on comedian Jerry Seinfeld in the New York Times. The author of the piece brilliantly conveys the behind-the-scenes work that Seinfeld pours into his stand-up routines. It convinced me once again, that, regardless of one's field, all creative endeavors follow a similar path: you have to spend time, you have to practice, you have to be willing to fail, you have to be open to what the world has to offer, and be able to pay attention to details. Read it- it's worth it!