The Way Through Camera Work

THE WAY THROUGH CAMERA WORK

To Alfred Stieglitz "camera work” stood for an almost universal philosophy of picture making which treated photography as another medium in the service of artists. Yet, somehow, by common consent, "Camera Work” has remained for half a century only the name of the monumental Quarterly that Stieglitz published between 1902 and 1917. Perhaps this deference by impassioned photographers everywhere marks a universal inability to realize that Stieglitz gave us not only a philosophy of staggering proportions but a name for our most spiritual and poetic use of photography.

Whether we understand Stieglitz and his Equivalents or not, almost two generations have passed, the world has changed face at least three times, the influences of East and West cross with lightning speed, and camera work is perpetually found in a different light. Hence this issue of aperture sets forth a mid-century, contemporary, highly condensed view of a philosophy whose sole tenet is: Make with the visual moment.

Chi

IN ALL OF CAMERA WORK THE ONLY FRESHNESS IS SPIRIT AND SPIRIT IS THE ONLY QUALITY IN ART THAT FOREVER ELUDES IMITATION.

Alfred Stieglitz

Regular readers may recall a 1957 article by the Editor and Walter Chappell in which methods were suggested for experiencing a few classes of photographs. Regret was expressed because no method could be offered for the class of photographs which we, after Stieglitz, called "Equivalents.” (An Equivalent, in case the reader has forgotten, is a photograph that functions as a work of art because while it communicates it also evokes mental images—provided, of course, that the viewer is willing to take the time to bring his background to bear on the photograph and thereby complete the picture in his mind.)

In our trying to develop a method for experiencing Equivalents, a philosophy of Camera Work evolved. In this developed context the Equivalent is the name for a visual poem—in any medium. And in this philosophy contemplation is the door to perception. Contemplation both at the time of gazing at the photograph and at the time of seeing what is ripe in the world to photograph.

Obviously a magazine article, no matter how compact, is not an act of seeing. As Gibran’s Prophet said, "And what is word knowledge but the shadow of wordless knowledge.” Likewise what can publication be but a shadow of Camera Work in actual practice? Be this as it may, if people are asked to jump off the deep end, someone has to build a dock out to deep water. And to carry the analogy further, only those who jump off will know what wetness means unto the fear of death.

The planks in the dock to which these pages may be compared include two methods of contemplation of visual images (two because people are not all alike) ; a comparison between the Way through Camera Work and the oriental Tao (Way) of Painting; and steps of a sort that lead from the contemplation of photographic equivalents to the contemplative rapport with things at the event of exposure.

The penultimate attainment of a Way through Camera Work (and earned this vital state always is) is a state of NO distinction between seeing photographs and seeing objects to be photographed. Object, seeing man, and photograph are to be one.

The contemplative does not have to listen nor does he have to go forth to conquer. His experience is a lettingit-happen and nevertheless an achievement. The forces of the universe flow into him through the focus of the picture and awaken in him unconscious forces which enable him to master men and the universe. Perhaps one might express it in a general form as follows—inactivity attracts the secret forces of nature, Silence is power. When Chinese and Japanese contemplate their landscape paintings, they do not want to experience nature (even in an idealized form as, for instance, painted by Poussin): neither do they intend to explore space in all its dimensions: but they contemplate paintings in order to come close to the center of being. There are many examples of such a mystic fusion with art and God in European history too. One should not shrug them off as religious frenzy. There is a contemplation of works of art above the realm of nature and beyond the realm of the teachable.

The initiate does not contemplate in order to investigate the composition of the work of art, nor in order to enjoy himself. Contemplation is not a busy probing with the eyes but an immovable being-in-it (Darinsein); neither is it a wallowing in excitation, but a quiescence beyond it. This miracle happens when everything is at rest, or, to express it differently, it occurs in a rhythm which can not be intentionally accelerated or consciously slowed down by the percipient.

The decisive factor is not that the one who concentrates on contemplation forgets completely the world around him and also destroys his ego, but that in his withdrawal things happen like those reported by Eugen Herrigel in ZEN IN THE ART OF ARCHERY, namely, that a person in this state of abstraction can dispatch an arrow and direct it into the center of a target which is at some distance. Just as one may hit the target without consciously thinking of aim and target, one may experience the ultimate meaning of a picture without directing one's attention toward any specific feature. This kind of contemplation of works of art is not a mute and dull staring, but truly a process of life, which occurs on a level not otherwise attained. At this point the philosophy of art becomes a doctrine of ultimate things.

Max Dessoir CONTEMPLATION OF WORKS OF ART

Maude: What was THAT!!? Cat: Sometimes I see people out there.

In the process of viewing, the reality of a photograph is expanded by the viewer into something far beyond its physical existence as a flat sheet of paper covered on one side with a variety of greys. Mental adjustments to such a slim reality have allowed two dimensions to stand for three, picture size to stand for life size, and grey to stand for color. Most important of all, the isolated moment is accepted in the place of a living relationship. When the photograph of an object becomes identified with the object itself, the gap between the two realities is closed.

Terry Lindquist

A METHOD MORE PASSIVE THAN ACTIVE

Contemplation, then, in the most general sense is a power which we may—and often must—apply to the perception, not only of Divine Reality, but of anything. It is a mental attitude under which all things give up to us the secret of their life. All artists are of necessity in some measure contemplative. In so far as they surrender themselves without selfish preoccupation, they see Creation from the point of view of God. “Innocence of eye" is little else than this: and only by its means can they see truly those things which they desire to show the world. I invite those to whom these statements seem a compound of cheap psychology and cheaper metaphysics to clear their minds and submit this matter to an experimental test. If they will be patient and honest—and unless they belong to that minority which is temperamentally incapable of the simplest contemplative act—they will emerge from the experiment possessed of a little new knowledge as to the nature of the relation between the human mind and the outer world.

All that is asked is that we shall look for a little time, in a special and undivided manner, at some simple, concrete, and external thing. This object of our contemplation may be almost anything we please: a picture, a statue, a tree, a distant hillside, a growing plant, running water, little living things. We need not, with Kant, go to the starry heavens. “A little thing the quantity of a hazel nuf’ will do for us, as it did for Lady Julian long ago. Remember it is a practical experiment on which we are set: not an opportunity of pretty and pantheistic meditation.

Look, then, at this thing which you have chosen. Wilfully yet tranquilly refuse the messages which countless other aspects of the world are sending,and so concentrate your whole attention on this one act of loving sight that all other objects are excluded from your conscious field. Do not think, but as it were pour out your personality towards it: let your soul be your eyes. Almost at once, this new method of perception will reveal unsuspected qualities in the external world. First you will perceive about you a strange and deepening quietness; a slowing down of our feverish mental time. Next you will become aware of a heightened significance, an intensified existence in the thing at which you look.

[In observing photographs one of the early clues that something is happening is an increased sense of space around objects in the photographic illusion of depth.]

As you, with all your consciousness, lean out towards it, an answering current will meet yours. It seems as though the barrier between its life and your own, between subject and object, had melted away. You are merged with it, in an act of true communion: and you know the secret of its being, deeply and unforgettably, yet in a way which you can never hope to express.

Seen thus a thistle has celestial qualities: a speckled hen a touch of the sublime . . . Life has spoken to life, but not to the surface intelligence. That surface-intelligence knows only that the message was true and beautiful: no more.

I do not suggest that this simple experiment is in any sense to be equated with the transcendental contemplation of the mystic. Yet it exercises on a small scale, and in regard to visible Nature, the same

Try for yourself to contemplate this photograph in the more-passive-than-active manner decribed by Evelyn Underhill. From the facts imagine the atmosphere. From the atmosphere let the sense of presence crystallize.

natural faculties which are taken up and used [by the mystic]. Though it is one thing to see truthfully for an instant the flower in the crannied wall, and another to be lifted up to the appreciation of “eternal Truth, true Love and loved Eternity,’’ yet both according to their measure are functions of the inward eye, operating in the “suspension of the mind.’’

Evelyn Underhill MYSTICISM

A METHOD MORE ACTIVE THAN PASSIVE

PROJECTION

Projection of human qualities during contemplation is an active lead into experiencing pictures. Its only danger lies in stopping short of the projection of spirit.

If faces are easy to find in machinery, other parts of human anatomy are not far behind. See how the word “soldiers” spotlights one image among many possible associations. Then see if you can forget this idea of the military. (Not being able to catch the visual suggestion of soldiers may indicate a person who is temperamentally incapable of contemplation.)

EMPATHY

Empathy — “feeling into" is an active way of responding to pictures with the muscles, bones and flesh. The energy directed to the picture by projection comes back by empathy. One listens and hears the picture speak. The danger lies in cutting active empathy off before spirit has been heard.

As we suggest “fingers” and you feel fingers, or suggest a crowd of people and you feel people, the gates of contemplation loosen.

From faces and anatomy the next step is to see personality. If we project some kind of a person into the above photograph, what kind of a person looks back at us? If he or she stepped into the room which of our friends or relatives would it be? Or which of our favorite cats.

The method of contemplation suggested by Evelyn Underhill and alluded to by Dessoir will be recognized as sufficiently descriptive by practiced persons. For those of us who are ripe for introduction to contemplation more steps will be helpful. What follows looks like a way of "making” perception occur rather than a "letting it happen”. Nevertheless “making” here is only a way towards “letting”. In this more active than passive method the terms projection, empathy, and associations are used with psychological implications.

The step beyond the projection of personality is the projection of spirit —and the receiving of spirit during the more active-than-passive method of contemplating pictures.

In this picture, according to the depth psychologist, the surface mind will concern itself with the furniture and the depth mind with the missing spoke and stains on the wall.

Photographs for contemplation depend on the projection of human qualities, both at the time photographs are made and when they are viewed in leisure. We accept or reject the resulting perception only so far as we have faith in ourselves.

During contemplation a man depends on empathy for the current to come from the picture to himself. We accept or reject the resulting rapport depending on how much faith we have in ourselves.

Student: Is it honest to project human qualities into photographs?

Tutor: What other qualities can a human project?

Student: But why project, why not let the photograph speak for itself?

Tutor: Who has words but human beings? Would God be so cruel to speak to Joan of Arc in Arabic?

One might have thought that the Oriental's identification of the life of man with the life of nature [in art] would have produced falsities of apprehension,that human attributes would have been read into non-human existences. But no, it is European art that has done this.

Laurence Binyon THE FLIGHT OF THE DRAGON

Western art passed from a sense of the human Self first grasped as object, and in the sacred exemplar of Christ's divine Self, to a sense of the human Self finally grasped as subject, or in the creative subjectivity of man himself, man the artist or the poet.

Jacques Maritain CREATIVE INTUITION IN ART AND POETRY

As members of Western culture we can not deny our orientation to self and self projection. So we must continue our progression from seeing faces, the human or animal anatomy, then personally and finally project something of the spirit within us. So far as spirit is the same whether inside or outside the ultimate result is the same.

Sign in a dark window:

LET MADAME BLANQUE READ YOUR PHOTOGRAPHS

Blobs for Rorschach tests and photographs for contemplation have a mirror action in common. Through the former a professional seeks a glimpse of a patient’s psychological life; through the Equivalent a man may get a glimpse of the life of his own spirit.

Let associations rise like a flock of birds from a field. What do various parts of the photograph remind you of—visually. What does the picture as a whole suggest, again visually.

In a lively play of associations one may be quickly led far from what is obviously part of picture content. But no harm, part of the experience of a photograph is sorting out all the associations a given picture arouses in us to find the one which is the most pertinent to picture and ourselves.

Dreams and photographs have something in common, those photographs that yield to contemplation at least have a quality about them that tempt one to set associations going.

What you find will be your own. The experience can not be compared to addition because that implies one right answer and many wrong ones. Instead the experience should be compared to an equation one factor of which is the viewer's depth mind. When so treated there are as many right answers as persons who contemplate the picture; and only one wrong answer—no experience.

THE USE OF ASSOCIATIONS

The usefulness of a water pitcher dwelt in the emptiness where the water might be put.

In leaving something unsaid the beholder is given a chance to complete the idea and thus a great masterpiece irresistibly rivets your attention until you seem to become actually a part of it. A vacuum is there for you to enter and fill up to the full measure of your esthetic emotion.

Okakura Kakuzo THE BOOK OF TEA

Such static depth perceptions are the visions of dreams, day-dreams, of the mystic orison in which the mystic may remain for indefinite periods.

Anton Ehrenzweig

Come at this photograph as if it were your own dream. First follow the associations of each part to your own terminals—then let the associations arise from each relationship of parts: finally from the picture as a whole. Feel free to do so because the maker freely offers it for such a purpose.

Many persons have “read" this photograph and a collation of their associations may be found on page 86.

A PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF CONTEMPLATION

Even if the shapes around us are really chaotic the brain will still project some order into them. From a jumble of dots the eye (or more correctly the brain) will pick out a few which fall into some pattern which would be interpreted as a human or animal shape. When gazing into the drifting clouds or into the embers of a dying fire or at a piece of wrinkled bark, we will easily project such form phantasies into them. If the form material already possesses some order the brain will project even better order into it. In a row of otherwise perfect circles we will all too easily overlook the little gaps and bumps,indeed we have to make a definite effort if we want to discover these flaws.

The overlooking of little gaps and bumps in otherwise coherent and simple shapes corresponds to important functions within the general gestalt tendency [of the surface mind] towards a pregnant, coherent, and simple pattern.

Poetry produces form material already fitted into supreme gestalt. Art shows another aspect of good gestalt ... a “good" gestalt is in its pregnant and harmonious appearance always an aesthetically pleasing gestalt and all improvements by the gestalt process on the form material also enhance the aesthetic effect. Modern art which is lacking in pregnant gestalt generally also lacks a pleasing aesthetic impression. . . . Modern art dispenses with the surface gestalt and lays bare the automatic creations of our depth mind.

This evolution is part of a general trend in our culture which values little the surface mind and looks for deeper insight beyond the limits of our rationality. The same development occurred in the philosophy of Henri Bergson. You might call it mysticism: but you will see that Bergson by his attitude could overcome the usual limitations of our surface mind which dismisses the visions of our depth mind as chaotic. Bergson takes his stand in the depth mind and reverses the usual evaluation. What Bergson calls metaphysical intuition is a gestalt-free vision, capable of superimposed perception. Let us hear his own masterful description of surface and depth vision:

When I direct my attention inward to contemplate my own self . . . I perceive at first, as a crust solidified on the surface, all the perceptions which come to it from the material world. These perceptions are clear, distinct, juxtaposed or juxtaposable one with another; they tend to group themselves into objects . . . But if I draw myself in from the periphery towards the center . . . I find an altogether different thing. There is beneath these sharply cut crystals and this frozen surface, a continuous flux which is not comparable to any flux I have ever seen. There is a succession of states each of which announces that which follows and contains that which precedes it. In reality no one begins or ends, but all extend into each other.

Bergson recognizes that juxtaposition is essential for surface perception, but not for depth perception. To achieve intuition he gives a practical recipe; he recommends one to visualize at the same time a diversity of objects in superimposition . . . Bergson recognizes that gestalt-free perception cannot be described in terms of surface perception and cleverly gives the recipe by which the reader can achieve first-hand experience himself.

Anton Ehrenzweig THE PSYCHOANALYSIS OF ARTISTIC VISION AND HEARING

But if painting and sculpture do not communicate they induce an attitude of communion and contemplation. They offer to many an equivalent of what is regarded as port of religious life: a sincere and humble submission to a spiritual object, an experience which is not given automatically, but requires preparation and purity of spirit.

Meyer Schapiro THE LIBERATING QUALITY OF AVANT-GARDE ART

In either a passive or active “method” mental preparation must precede any achievement of receptiveness. If one treats the preliminary operations as a mild form of ritual, the normal obstructions to the state of readiness melt away. Set aside a half hour or so when outside interruptions are least likely to occur, perhaps early in the morning or at the end of the day. Choose a photograph about which one feels more is hidden than as yet understood. Handle the picture with extraordinary care; take time to place it free of distracting backgrounds; without seriously looking at it place the photograph in good light. Select a chair in which one can sit erect yet be comfortable; place the chair on the axis of the photograph. Be seated with the body and shoulders square to the picture; let the eyes look just above or below the picture. Let the body relax without slumping. Then when both body and mind have quieted somewhat let the eyes engage the photograph. Then remain the willing captive of the picture much as one does in a darkened movie theatre.

Actively scan the picture, become acquainted with each object, every detail, each and every nuance of relations between objects and the space they inhabit. With the surface mind analyze what is usually called composition; with the emotional side feel the relation of the composition to the picture content. Or, stated another way, project oneself into the various objects and then into the subtle abstract qualities of the design. After projection is established and while maintaining projection, feel, without moving a single muscle, what it would be like to stand as the tree in the picture, break like the wave at its foot—in short actively empathize.

By projection one sends out a current to the photograph, by empathy one feels a current returning from the picture. Hold both currents steady: and by some miracle energy is magnified and communion is established.

All this activity is on the surface, consciously performed so that the depth mind can carry on its inarticulate operations unobserved. At this point, by an act of deliberation, imagine in one image everything found in the picture and found in yourself. (As communion is established this may happen automatically.) Superimpose the facts of the photograph on the relationships, superimpose both on the design, superimpose all three on your empathetic reactions, and all four on your sympathetic emotions. Something happens: a man contemplating his ground glass will see the image right side up—Mozart said that he could hear all four movements of a symphony at once.

As Bergson pointed out, superimposition is a deliberate way of practicing intuition, and contemplation of a photograph is at least a way of feeling a tension sprung bridge between the surface and the depth mind. Associations begin to run, what parts of the picture remind you of begin to build up, later the picture as a whole suggests at another level.

Something else happens: there seems to be an interruption of consciousness followed by a flame burst of understanding. According to depth psychologists the eruption of the depth mind into the surface mind seems to be a mere absence of mind because the inarticulate structure of the depth mind cannot be grasped by the articulate surface mind. Metaphors must be resorted to if this aspect of contemplation of photograph is to be spanned. Emily Dickinson wrote, "Pain has an element of Blank.” The "gap” as William James called it, is something like the moment of finding a gate in a soaring fence between the turmoil of the surface mind and the tumult of a deeper world.

Sometimes one leaves off contemplation, when the excitement has subsided, with a sense of peace and a certainty that the ultimate experience of the photograph has been met. But without words to describe it. In that single burning all the varied associations were reduced to ashes except the one that fitted the significance of the picture to the significance of yourself. Or to use another metaphor, the moment of recognition may be compared to a magnet suddenly appearing in a jumble of associations which instantly separates the one iron chip from the pile of wooden shavings. Later, in recollection, as Milton said, words can be fitted, if one feels that the effort to be an experience in rapport with being.

Whether more passive or more active the result of the contemplation of photographs is to be experience.

Photographs for contemplation may well hang on walls in easy reach of everyday glances for weeks or months before they are set up as targets for intense concentration. During this time the unconscious engages the photograph in its own way—"safe from conscious observation”. And the little accidents, the various things that can not be left out of a photograph, or can only be poorly suppressed, is a rich feast for the depth mind.

ch’i: vapor, breath, air, manner, influence, weather Ch’i: Breath of Heaven, Spirit, Vital Force

THE WAY THROUGH CAMERA WORK

If linkages and similarities and identicalities exist between camera work and certain periods of Oriental art, notably Taoist painting in China and Sumiye in Japan, they can only be conceptual, otherwise we would seem to advocate imitation instead of emulation. (We might suggest “working in the manner of ... ” but never imitation.) Such concepts as anonymity, calligraphy, moment, articulation are points of correspondence. When we speak of correspondence we make not the faintest suggestion that a photograph ought to resemble Sumiye paintings, or for that matter look like hand-art of any period or country. Actually there is no point to point correspondences, instead identicalities resemble an intangible to an intangible echo.

THE TAO (WAY) OF PAINTING

The word Ta o has a pyramid of meanings: it stands for the materials and means of a medium; it symbolizes something.fcioth moving and unmoving, for example a Throughway which lies on the ground and so stands still, yet leads spmewhere and so has movement. The word also means much as did St. Catherine of Siena, “All the way to heaven is Heaven, for He said: I am the Way."

The fusion of the rhythm of the spirit with the movement of living things. Hsieh Ho’s First Canon of Painting

The First Conon of painting, Ch'i-yun-cheng-tung, is a terse statement of the idea that Ch’i (the Breath of Heaven, the Spirit) stirs all nature to life and sustains the eternal processes of movement and change; and that if a work has ch’i it inevitably reflects a vitality of spirit that is the essence of life itself. Man's spiritual resources are regarded as a direct manifestation of this creative power of Heaven in himself. Through developing them, a painter not only nourishes that part of Heaven in himself, but, possessing it, is capable of revealing it in his conduct and activity. In his painting hé Sä'h draw on these spiritual resources to express the same force in every other natural thing that he depicts; for the iubjêct of his compositions have always been predominantly from nature.

Mai-Mai Sze THE TAO OF PAINTING

Or we may say that the brush by itself executes the work quite outside the artist, who just lets it move on without his conscious efforts. If any logic or reflection comes between brush and paper, the whole effect is spoiled. In this way Sumiye is produced.

D. T. Suzuki ZEN BUDDHISM

To show the moment to itself Is to liberate the moment.

Alfred Stieglitz

In my work the final form of presentation is seen on the ground glass, the finished print previsioned complete in every detail of texture, movement, proportion, before exposure. The shutter's release automatically and ffnally fixes my conception. The first fresh emotion is captured complete and for all time at the very moment it is seen and felt. Feeling and recording are simultaneous . . .

Edward Weston MY CAMERA ON POINT LOBOS

Artists (fine ones) don't copy nature, and when they do record quite literally the presentation is such as to arouse connotations quite apart from the subject matter.

No use to exactly copy a butterflybetter see it floating in summer sky: but to find a dead pelican, photograph a few inches of its wing so that white quills dart from black barbs like rays of light cutting a night sky—this is not copying nature, but using her with imaginative intent, to a definite end.

Edward Weston MY CAMERA ON POINT LOBOS

It is said that Aristotle did not mean that art imitates the aspect of nature but the workings of nature.

Laurence Binyon THE FLIGHT OF THE DRAGON

THE MOMENT OF REVELATION

If, in painting, spirit is present for the length of a brush stroke, in camera work it reveals itself at the moment of exposure.

Of all the means of expression, photography is the only one that fixes forever the precise and transitory instant.

Henri Cartier-Bresson THE DECISIVE MOMENT

Cartier-Bresson is over-optimistic with "forever," forgetful of Sumiye painting with “only” but some of his photographs show that "precise” is another word for spirit.

ONCE IT HAS SELECTED A PHOTOGRAPHER SPIRIT ALWAYS STANDS STILL LONG ENOUGH TO BE RECORDED.

Spirit and Moment are never imitated but perpetually discovered.

ACCIDENT AND SOUL

The muscles are conscious of drawing a line, making a dot, but behind them is an unconsciousness: by this unconsciousness nature writes out her own destiny.

D. T. Suzuki ZEN BUDDHISM

The creative artist does not want to copy his surroundings, on the one hand, or to make us see through his eyes, on the other. He is a specialist who shows us as if in a mirror something we have not realized for ourselves: the state of our own soul.

Sigfried Gidion SPACE, TIME AND ARCHITECTURE

But the landscape in the long Chinese tradition which we have been considering merges the local in the cosmic, and mirrors rather a “state of the soul."

Laurence Binyon THE FLIGHT OF THE DRAGON

Art is the outward manifestation of inner growth.

Edward Weston (from conversations)

Since photographs for contemplation are always completed in the mind of the viewer, Weston’s statement which seems at first glance to refer only to the photographer also refers to any viewer. The latter has only to remember pictures which have been important to him at various times in his life, or how the meaning of some pictures have changed for him as his own innerness grew.

A truly depth-psychological analysis of art form must, by a determined effort, reverse the usual approach and look out for the seemingly accidental and insignificant detail in which the unconscious creative process of art can unfold itself safe from conscious observation. Such analysis will turn away from the consciously “composed" structure of painting and watch for the apparently accidental scribbles hidden in the articulate forms of artistic “handwriting

Anton Ehrenzweig PSYCHOANALYSIS OF ARTISTIC VISION AND HEARING

Camera work eliminates the “handwriting” or calligraphy characteristic of the hand arts. Hence in camera work the accidental thru which (according to the depth psychologist) the depth mind expresses itself comes, not from any calligraphy, but from those parts of the photograph which the photographer can not leave out. Camera work offers the accidents of existence for the accidents of calligraphy: the depth mind is hardly aware of the difference; and soul expresss itself with one as well as the other.

Both were surprised at the photograph: the photographer, staring into the subject’s face, did not see the moment of revelation; the man felt no such expression at the time of exposure. And both were unable to remember the event. Neither trusted the accident. Neither had the awareness to render thanks to Spirit for the gift.

People photographed when the atmosphere of their sou! reflects the state of mind of the photographer yields a kind of mutual self portraiture.

What may be the deepest meanings of the images shown are not always easily recognizable at first glance. They emerge with increasing clarity only as we experience them. They take on living reality to the degree that we are able to penetrate the masks that hide us from ourselves.

Dorothy Norman HEROIC ENCOUNTER

ARTICULATION

Among those who make photographs for contemplation a progressive and visual articulation of an Idea is regularly undertaken. Though any such person caught in the grip of an Idea is happier to describe the experience in reverse—the Idea undertakes them. Pirandello’s title of a play, Six CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR, rings true to their encounter.

Since the depth mind is wordless we have no word for anything it strives to express; and since the surface mind can not function without a word, "Idea" with a capital "I” will have to do. Temporarily, then, there is nothing intellectual about the notion of Idea. When an Idea makes its presence known to a person, that individual feels somewhat haunted. Visual minded persons are haunted by visual pressures which at the nascent state of Idea have no visible existence. Nothing in the mind can drive this formless (gestalt-free) Idea into form and good, articulate, visible gestalt. Or stated differently, a visual rhythm is still to receive its visibility.

Thus haunted, those who use camera work as a medium step out into the storehouse and rubbish heap of the visual world to find. In a specially prepared receptive state of mind, akin, if not identical to the state achieved at the beginning of seriously contemplating a photograph, he looks at the world which crosses his path. He makes no attempt to project himself into what he sees, or exercise an empathy, but remains in a receptive state to catch the echoes of the Idea. He listens for what will fill up the unfilled visual rhythm. His surface mind actively superimposes every visual impression in an effort to make the eruption of the Idea as easy as possible.

With great luck the first echo caught is a brilliant manifestation of the Idea. Usually there is a gradual emergence, the Idea is slowly sketched out, one photograph at a time, each of which fills a part of the rhythm or distorts the whole. As the photographer contemplates these "sketches” he begins to see the shape of the Idea. Then, one photograph somehow, is understood to fit, if not exactly, then sufficiently to release the man from his minor obsession. Once a “good gestalt" is achieved he is free to go on to other Ideas.

In the five photographs on pages 69-71 the viewer can observe the growing manifestation of an idea from its first sketch to the “realized" photograph. And so follow the maker’s footsteps picture by picture. While development is rarely made available in this form to a public, the viewer who has only the ultimate photograph to contemplate is not denied this journey. Let’s note the correspondences: the viewer's first impression may be likened to the Idea; his succeeding associations resemble the progression of individual photographs; his ultimate experience is the same as the realized photograph. With a profound photograph the viewer may take as many weeks or months to travel from first impression to consummated experience as it took the photographer from sketch to "realized" photograph. And the viewer may experience the same sensation of being haunted and later released. Five photographs by Paul Caponigro illustrate what is meant by the struggle for visual articulation of an Idea from its gestalt-free origin to a gestalt-pregnant photograph. Or in other words from a "sketch" photograph to a "realized" photograph.

But Ideas, with a capital "I", come from outside as well as inside. Impressions, events, pressures, circumstances reach the depth mind from the surface mind by the usual channels, and at all times. In addition, however, according to Jacques Maritain there seems to be an independent source of Ideas originating within the depth mind. This simultaneous exterior and interior source he calls "poetic intuition.”

Five photographs by Paul Caponigro to illustrate what is meant by the struggle for visual articulation of an Idea from its gestalt-free origin to a gestalt-pregant or “realized’’ photograph.

Note the similarity between the light colored form in the first picture and the black form outlined by dots in the second. This same “form" is seen in the three pictures following.

Any act of creativeness in the human mind involves a temporary (cyclical) paralysis of the surface function and a longer or shorter reactivation of the more archaic and less differentiated functions [of the depth mind). The form processes conceived on this low undifferentiated level are then—wholly or partly—rearticulated (“translated") into more differentiated structures which the surface mind can grasp. The artist wrestles with his inarticulate inspiring vision in order to mould it into more articulate forms.

Anton Ehrenzweig

I firmly believe that the consciousness of the difference between these levels and abstractions, i. e., the silent and verbal levels, is the key and perhaps the first step for the solution of human problems . . . There is a tremendous difference between “thinking” in verbal terms and “contemplating” inwardly silent, on non-verbal levels, and then searching for the proper structure of language to fit the supposedly discovered structure of the silent process that modern science tries to find. If we think verbally, we act as biased observers and project onto the silent levels the structure of language we use, and so remain in our rut of old orientations, making keen, unbiased observations and creative work well-nigh impossible.

Alfred Korsybski MANHOOD OF HUMANITY

If older generations located the soul in various parts of the body how can modern man help but locate it in the subconscious, preconscious, or depth mind? (These names are but a few in the swarm around the scientist as he pushes the boundaries of man’s ultimate ignorance ever further into space.)

Consciousness must not be over estimated, as so much occurs in our being unawares. Still, to direct awareness remains a paramount task of the designer.

Richard Neutra SURVIVAL THROUGH DESIGN

ANONYMITY

. . . all his efforts in the long process of his development of the self, should be directed by the concept of the Tao and so be ritual acts sanctifying the painting that he produces. Then the tactility of brushwork is evidence less of the personal touch than the power of the Tao. The anonymity of the ritual act is, in effect, oneness with the Tao. And painting is not self-expression but an expression of the harmony of Tao.

Mai-Mai Sze THE TAO OF PAINTING

I am no longer trying to “express myself,” to impose my own personality on nature, but without prejudice, without falsification, to become identified with nature, sublimating things seen into things known—their very essence —so that what I record is not an interpretation, my idea of what nature should be, but a revelation—an absolute, impersonal recognition of the significance of facts.

Edward Weston MY CAMERA ON POINT LOBOS

What is more anonymous than the handwriting on walls and faces, rocks, clouds and eyes? And who can interpret the messages of chance without bowing?

While we are grasping for the correspondences between Sumiye painting and camera work we must not forget the differences. Francis Picabia pointed to them at the time of the Armory Show in 1912. "Henceforth painting and photography must go their own way.”

Camera work, because less prepared for human consumption may always seem less rich than examples of the hand arts. However, because of the built-in restrictions of the human instrument, we may never experience all that a photograph reveals of spirit.

Paintings for contemplation and photographs for contemplation consistently offer something different—and there seems no way at the moment of clearly distinguishing what is different. The following comparison is offered for what it is worth. Mai-Mai Sze says this, "Brushwork is thus the direct expression of the mind in action. Its function is to make visible the invisible.” The function of camera work, when treated as a treasure, is to invoke the invisible with the visible.

Because we always forget, as Mr. Lindquist pointed out, not to substitute a photograph for the original, we can paraphrase an old Zen saying across the next few pages thus:

AT THE BEGINNING OF A PHOTOGRAPHER'S LIFE A PHOTOGRAPH OF A TREE IS A TREE, A PHOTOGRAPH OF A MOUNTAIN IS A MOUNTAIN, A PHOTOGRAPH OF A PEPPER IS A PEPPER. BUT AS . . .

A dot in a Sumiye sketch does not represent a hawk, nor does a curved line symbolize Mount Fuji. The dot is the bird and the line is the mountain.

D. T. Suzuki ZEN BUDDHISM

A special contribution of Zen to Eastern thought was its recognition of the mundane as of equal importance with the spiritual. It held that in the great relation of things there was no distinction of small and great.

Okakura Kakuzo THE BOOK OF TEA

What is Not mundane in photography? In the deluge of photographs the rare has become common, the spectacular a roar of clichés.

. . . BUT AS HE BEGINS TO BE AWARE OF A WAY OF CAMERA WORK, OF EQUIVALENTS, OF PHOTOGRAPHS FOR CONTEMPLATION, A PHOTOGRAPH OF A TREE IS NO LONGER A TREE BUT WHAT-ELSE-IT-IS; A PHOTOGRAPH OF A ROCK IS NO LONGER A ROCK BUT AN EXPRESSION OF HIS SOUL. THEN STILL LATER . . .

What a photographer learns of contemplation itself while mentally contemplating images of his own making, as was said, is to be applied to the search-and-find period of making Equivalents. Sustaining an atmosphere of search which is both active and inactive, both blank and aware, receptive rather than imposing, is the largest part of a photographer's creative activity. In such a condition a picture looking for a photographer may find him.

As the depth psychologist might say: if photographing in a blank and active mind is a way of tapping the subconscious, contemplation is a way of putting something into the subconscious worth tapping.

“Stilling the heart” expresses beautifully the quietness necessary for creative results, an inner quietness related to the silence of the Tao and its processes. Taoist writing describes it as similar to the stillness of deep waters reflecting the Tao on their smooth, mirrorlike surface,they also equate stillness with the clarity of the heart-mind rid of egotism.... And just as Ch’i of the Tao permeates the whole universe, so the ch’i can fill the stillness of the undistracted heart-mind and hence the whole being. The practice of meditation and of exercises in deep and controlled breathing have as their end the stilling of the heart.

Mai-Mai Sze THE TAO OF PAINTING

On the one hand, as we have seen apropos of Oriental art, when art only intent on Things succeeds in revealing Things and their hidden meanings, it does also reveal obscurely, despite itself, the creative subjectivity of the artist. While endeavoring to catch and manifest what matters most in Things and the secret significance on which they live, the poetic perception which animates art does involve at the same time a disclosure and manifestation, unintentional as it may be, of the human Self. On the other hand, when art primarily intent on the artist's Self succeeds in revealing creative subjectivity, it does also reveal obscurely Things and their hidden aspects and meanings—and with greater power of penetration indeed, I mean into the depth of this Corporeal Being itself and this Nature that our hands touch. While endeavoring to disclose and manifest the artist's Self, the poetic perception which animates art catches and manifests at the same time what matters most in Things, the transparent reality and secret significances on which they live.

What does this mean? What is the philosophical impact of this factual conclusion? Our descriptive and inducting inquiry suggests that at the root of the creative act there must be a quite particular intellectual process, without parallel in logical reason, through which Things and Self are grasped together by means of experience of knowledge which has no conceptual expression and is expressed only in the artist's work. Are we to think—but how can this be possible—that in such an experience, creative in nature, Things are grasped by the Self and the Self is grasped in Things, and subjectivity becomes a means of catching obscurely the inner side of Things? Are we confronted at this point with that poetic knowledge of poetic intuition which is the very subject matter we shall try to elucidate in our further discussions?

Jacques Maritain CREATIVE INTUITION IN ART AND POETRY

The pursuit of things for what-else-they-are sooner or later leads to making copies of paintings that were never painted.

When this happens the essential link of camera work to visual appearances is snapped. And, in effect, one proclaims with non-verbal pictures that "photography is art" or that "photography is spirit”.

And the time has come to remember that Alfred Korzybski said, "Whatever you say a thing is, it is not.”

. . . THEN AFTER DUE GROWTH HAS COME TO PASS ONCE AGAIN A PHOTOGRAPH OF A TREE IS A TREE, A PHOTOGRAPH OF A SPURTING WAVE IS A WAVE AND ONE KNOWS THE TASTE OF PURE WATER.

“Do you now understand,” the Master asked me one day after a particularly good shot, “what I mean by IT shoots, IT hits?” “I'm afraid I don't understand anything more at all," I answered, “even the simplest things have got in a muddle. Is it T who drew the bow, or is it the bow that draws me into the state of highest tension? Do T hit the goal, or does the goal hit me? Is IT spiritual when seen by the eyes of the body, and corporeal when seen by the eyes of spirit—or both or neither? Bow, arrow, goal and ego all melt into one another, so that I can no longer separate them. And even the need to separate has gone. For as soon as I take the bow and shoot, everything becomes so clear and straightforward and so ridiculously simple ...”

“Now at last," the Master broke in, “the bow string has cut right through you.”

Eugen Herrigel ZEN IN THE ART OF ARCHERY

The prejudices of Western oestheticians require that beauty have at least an additional characteristic. George Santayana, for example, has defined beauty as “pleasure objectified." That is, beauty is intrinsic value which appears as if embodied in an object. Hence an object, either a dream object or a real object, is necessary to experiencing beauty. But Buddhist aestheticians, if not all Oriental aestheticians, do not require this additional characteristic. The sharp division of experience into subject and object presupposed by almost all Western thinkers appears unwarranted to most Oriental philosophers. Although Westerners tend to prefer realism and to locate both reality and intrinsic value in objects, and Easterners incline towards subjectivism and seeking both reality and intrinsic value within the self, many Oriental aestheticians conceive intrinsic value in such a way that the distinction between subject and object is not only irrelevant but even a hindrance to its enjoyment. If the term beauty is reserved for “pleasure objectified,” then another aesthetic term must be found to designate the enjoyment of self, or enjoyment in which the distinction between subject and object is irrelevant. Orientals have a name for this, namely Nirvana or Nibbana.

Archie J. Bahm BUDDHIST AESTHETICS

In illustration the photograph abdicates its existence, or tries to, in favor of a realistic illusion. While in creative photography the photograph is the end in itself. . . . This kind of photograph does not leave any desire on the part of the viewer to view the scene in front of the camera, for the photograph is the full and separate experience rather than a facsimile of nature.

Syl Labrot

The contemplative and the artist are in a position to sympathize . . . The contemplative, having for object the causa altissima from which all else depends, knows the place and value of art, and understands the artist. The artist as such cannot judge the contemplative, but he can divine his greatness. If he indeed loves Beauty, and if some moral vice does not chain his heart to dullness, going over to the side of the contemplative, he will recognize Love and Beauty.

Jacques Maritain ART ET SCHOLASTIQUE

If you call this a stick, you affirm; if you call it not a stick, you negate. Beyond affirmation and negation, what would you call it?

Tai-hui

THROUGH THE EVERYDAY LOOKING-GLASS RUNS THE WAY OF CAMERA WORK BEYOND AFFIRMATION AND NEGATION.