Wednesday, November 6, 2002

Photos

Coney Island Boardwalk, late 60's

Mexico

Magic Water

4:06:45 PM    

Photographic Journey

For the last few weeks I have been exploring a new, and yet familiar direction. Perhaps I have had 'writers block, but really I just think that my energy has been flowing along different lines. I have noticed this before, when my creative energy has been pent-up for a long time, it often emerges in unforseen ways with a powerful and undeniable force.

One of my first spiritual/creative awakenings occurred when I was in high school. Somehow I had gotten started in photography as a hobby, using an Olympus Pen S, a small half-frame camera with a sharp lens. I had a little darkroom in my basement where I developed and printed my black and white film. That was interesting for a while, until I dropped my camera one day on the stone stairway of my high school. The shutter jammed, and I took it to the professional camera repair store in Manhattan where all the pros took their big rigs to be fixed. Of course it would have cost more to repair than to replace, and I wound up upgrading to a single lens reflex - a Miranda Sensorex. And my world just opened up.

Something had clicked, as being able to look through the lens enabled me to see for the first time. Everything became a potential picture, - the shadows of fire escapes in alleys, the reflections of store windows along Fifth Ave. My artists eye had been awakened, and I remember sun-drenched afternoons walking down Manhattan, swept along on a river of color and light, an infinite world waiting to be discovered by a gawky, skinny kid with his new camera. Angles, lines, images, faces, sun reflecting off the water in star points, night shadows, - for the first time the world began to speak to me in a comprehensible fashion. I have a few images from those days, I will scan some in and post them today and tomorrow.

I followed this muse all the way through college, to the extent of occasionaly locking myself in the school darkroom at night, printing solarizations and other images. When I entered a yoga Ashram after graduation, everything fell by the wayside, as intense physical working and meditating consumed my life.

It wasnt until many years later, while living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, that the urge to photograph came up again. Perhaps it was the famous New Mexico light. I bought a larger camera, a Pentax 6x7, and once again created some worthy images, this time in color. But instead of bringing me closer to the world, I had felt that it inserted a veil between me and my experience. My level of interior integration was not complete enough. I wasnt able to simultaneously experience the world directly, and be looking for pictures. So I sold off my equipment and gave it up again.

And now it has returned, however this time I perceive that rather than the art of photography being a filter between the larger world and I, it will act as a portal. Having spent so much time in my inner worlds, I am emerging a little wiser, a lot humbler, and looking forward to creating some meaningful images again.

Side note: What really is making this possible is the ongoing evolution of digital photography, as now it is at a point where it is roughly equivalent to film photography, meaning a darkroom is no longer needed. And you can see the images instantly on the LCD screen. The digital revolution is underway.

2:44:12 PM