This week, I received my very first DSLR camera. I have been waiting for quite awhile to buy a camera as my last one died two years ago, just before school started. At its core, photography is a simple process, but I wanted some time think a little more deeply about the camera and photography in general.
Disclaimer: I don't want to portray a glorified image of 'the artist' or of photography. Sometimes photography is just fun, and it is very wonderful just like that. But there's more to photography than simply pressing a button, and I want to acknowledge it as the art form that it truly is, regardless of whether or not I live up to being a good artist.
Initially, photography makes me think of slowing down. It takes time to see and to learn how to see. I am just now in my first photo class and am loving every minute of it. But I'm also grateful for the past four or so years that I have had learning photography outside of the classroom.
Photography gives the chance, that moment of grace, to stop, breathe, consider the world around you. More than simple consideration, the camera invites the photographer to see the world more clearly and go from mere thought to an opening of eyes. Of course, that clarity can go many ways - contemporary photographers in particular seem drawn to seeing the cynicism of this world rather than its beauty, to find the ugly, the pain, the tragedy because it is undeniably there. But that clarity can also be used towards finding the corners and shadows of light that fall between branches and in-between doors. It can help our eyes see the shadow of the image of God that is in every face around us. To see the beauty that is in every way as deep and real as the pain and tragedy around us.
Somedays, it helps to think of photography as a gentle insistence on beauty.
Photography has been means of grace in my daily life. It helps me see the beauty in the mundane rituals of life, in sweeping my house floors and doing my bed. And the more I learn this art and learn to love it, the more I realize what beautiful grace this is.
Do you have a creed or a motto that as an artist you live by?
I do. Life is short. Life goes fast. And what I really want to do with my life is to bring something new, something beautiful, and something filled with light into the world. I try to think of that every day so that I can remember why I am coming to my studio.
Excerpt from an interview with Ross Blecker, from Inside the Painter's Studio by Joe Fig
Morning Reflections
Peace -
steady,
held in the rhythm of those sleeping birds,
in the crooked crevices of trees,
in uneven reflections on the water.
Peace -
to go or stay,
as you will,
come what may.
Peace.
The school year has finally started. And although we have had long, hot days instead of the crisp, cold air of fall that one normally associates with the beginning of school, there's a newness to the air and even to the feeling of time that revitalizes me.
My professor began my first class of the year, Advanced B/W Photography, with a quote from Henri Nouwen. It was the most perfect quote. I'm starting this school year much more exhausted and sick than I have been. Nothing dreadfully serious, but still, my pain keeps on increasing, and for the first time in a awhile, my anxieties and depressive tendencies have come back. It's strange not having control over my emotions. And honestly, it scares me.
On the first day, I made the commute to school while listening to Bach's cello sonatas. I neared campus, but my anxieties were so bad, I drove around campus three times before actually entering it. I parked and prayed. Finally, I got out of the car and left towards class.
So, here's the quote. It might be strange to choose a quote about rest for the beginning of a school year that promises hours and hours of hard work. Wonderful, yes, but definitely hard. But actually, this might be the perfect starting point for this school year. Simple, beautiful, gentle. And so we begin.
"So when people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn't be read in school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange and stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language - and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers - a language powerful enough to say how it is.
It isn't a hiding place. It is a finding place."
Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
Strength demanded that seems too much is just strength enough given. (TS Eliot)
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