A Beautiful Mind
I could make photos without ever using a lens but I could not produce anything worthwhile without a creative state of mind. As a photographer that’s my most valuable asset, the stuff I couldn’t do without. I don’t have to worry that it could be stolen from me because it cannot be acquired by anyone. It’s all there already in timeless perfection and I am the only obstacle that will ever stand between me and my enjoyment of it.
Beautiful things are made, and appreciated, by a beautiful mind.
In its natural state the mind is absolutely beautiful and nothing but creativity itself. That’s something I can trust, because we’re all equal in this capacity. The problem is, of course, that I am unconsciously blocking the natural state of mind. The block in my awareness cannot be removed by fighting or denying it, because that would only reinforce my unawareness, which makes everything seem separate, specific, troublesome and problematic.
Letting Go
The block can only be removed by letting go.
Letting go is total, if only for a moment. It means I’m standing here empty handed, willing to acknowledge that I know nothing, and trusting that my innocence is my protection. I have experienced such a moment not before I was at the bottom of a deep mental crisis, without seeing any way out. That was my starting point, but it doesn’t have to be so dramatic, of course. I can do it at will now, if only I remember that this is what I really want.
I’m not a very good swimmer, probably because I don’t feel comfortable in water. I remember, however, my first experience of floating in water on my back. I needed to trust my natural buoyancy, relax, and commit my whole body, including my head, to the water. It couldn’t be done by keeping my head separate from the water. This willingness to trust totally and unconditionally is the state of mind needed for letting go.
Depending on my willingness the result of letting go may vary in intensity but it’s always a remarkable improvement in consciousness and clarity of vision. It can be a moment of bliss and deep inner peace, being fully awake but not dependent on whatever seems to happen in the body or the outside world.
Letting go is the secret ingredient of every creative act.
Imagination
A creative state of mind has not the slightest trace of anxiousness about it. Trust is already a sign of inner peace. Peace is the experience of an unobstructed mind, which also will give more insight and awareness. Imagination is letting this mind play freely with its images. It’s not petty me pushing buttons. I am out of the way, just observing. As far as I know, this ‘me’ person may not even exist, being just a misunderstanding.
Imagination can be given free rein by daydreaming.
Thought and experience are not the only things that sanction human values. The values that belong to daydreaming mark humanity in its depths.
(Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, page 6; see also the quotes in my article Imagination).
Images come from the mind, not from the so-called outside world, which is nothing but another image formed by the mind. Images also never leave the mind, but that’s perhaps better left for another story.
Embracing the Dream
I started doing something ‘serious’ with photography about forty years ago. I was dedicated, technically proficient, but aimless, and never got any further than scraping the surface of the art, which was symptomatic of my own emotional desert at the time. Then, in the bitterly cold early spring of 1984, I quit my job, gave up on my hopeless love life, and started on a long hiking trip – mostly through France – which wouldn’t end before late fall and the onset of winter. Traveling light I didn’t take a camera along because I thought I had lost all interest in photography. Judging now by my still vivid memories of the trip, however, I must have been making mental pictures, or at least daydreaming about them.
Some 15 years went by during which I didn’t touch a camera anymore but got heavily involved with all kinds of spiritual teaching, notably Zen meditation, Advaita Vedanta, and A Course in Miracles. Apparently I needed first to consciously land on this earth, however imaginary, before I could begin making sense of it. Anyway, the final outcome of all spiritual endeavors seems to be that by trusting our absolute reality we can freely embrace the dream we are living here. A tender embrace is totally different from clinging. It provides the loving space for art to thrive.
That’s why I’m training myself to take some quiet time, or at the very least not to rush, when I arrive at a location, even when it’s one of my favorite spots. Instead of frantically looking around for photographic subjects I’d better first practice letting go and allow beautiful mind to take over. Any images I would seek in front of the lens are already abundantly present in the mind, but without some peaceful awareness I won’t see them. All the richness of vision that I would like to put into a photograph will be provided for without my interference. Therefore it’s probably not blasphemy for a photographer to say quietly to himself: I am the camera and the light of the world.
No matter what it may sound like to others, this helps me to get real about things. I need only a reminder to snap out of the regular neurotic thought system.
[Contemporary man] is blind to the fact that, with all his rationality and efficiency, he is possessed by “powers” that are beyond his control. His gods and demons have not disappeared at all; they have merely got new names. They keep him on the run with restlessness, vague apprehensions, psychological complications, an insatiable need for pills, alcohol, tobacco, food – and, above all, a large array of neuroses.
(Jung, C.G., et al. (1964). Man and his Symbols, page 82).
Having demolished my darkroom and sold my equipment, I didn’t pick up casual snap shooting before photography had finally turned digital, fulfilling her promise already made in the early eighties. I gradually got sucked in again, still a novice in many ways, but one with forty years of experience being so.
The only thing in which I have been actually thorough has been in being thoroughly unprepared.
(Alfred Stieglitz as quoted in Geoff Dyer, The ongoing Moment)
Seeing Like a Camera
A creative state of mind cannot and doesn’t have to be learned, but what I still do need to learn as a photographer, is how to see like a camera. I need to know how the photographic system I use (hard- and software combined) can translate the constantly changing light into a still image.
The application of that knowledge has to become second nature, like catching a ball without thinking, because the making of a photograph is an intuitive process, in which the analytical mind must take a back seat, be quiet, and completely forgotten.
What then happens, is that beauty is being approached from a photographic point of view, like artists in other fields might approach it from a musical, literary, painterly, sculptural, or cinematic point of view.
Further Reading
Apart from Gaston Bachelard’s book, mentioned above, I recently have found the following books also most inspiring and helpful in this regard.
Bruce Barnbaum, The Art of Photography: An Approach to Personal Expression
John Daido Loori, The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life
George Barr, Take Your Photography to the Next Level: From Inspiration to Image
Andy Karr and Michael Wood, The Practice of Contemplative Photography: Seeing the World with Fresh Eyes
