civilized ku # 102 ~ disconnected
Tuesday, September 23, 2008 at 10:12AM 
Connected isolation • click to embiggenOne key ingredient for "success" in picture making, is for the photographer, with camera in hand, to be fully in the moment.
As I have mentioned, for me, that means to stop thinking without falling asleep - to achieve and maintain a state of receptive awareness with as few distractions as possible. That is why, with the exception of commercial assignments, I don't venture out looking for picture possibilities. I don't want to paint myself into a corner with notions of what I am looking for for - rather, I want picture possibilities to find me, to surprise me, to deliver to me the unexpected.
One could say that I strive to establish connections to the world around me without the prejudice of preconception.
However, I have begun to realize that by striving to connect and then picturing that connection, I may, in fact, be establishing a disconnect of sorts at the actual moment of picture making. In a very real sense, when I am picturing, I am primarily responding to external visual stimuli in a Pavolian type response. A response that is conditioned by internal subconscious reactions to external events / stimuli.
In most cases, I am not aware of those subconscious connections until well after the fact of picturing. It's not until I have "processed" and printed a picture that I begin to see and understand at least a hint of what connected me to the referent, what caused me to respond in such a way as to make me want to make a picture of something. And it is through this process of instinctive response and eventual thoughtful discovery that I begin to make sense of the world and my relationship to it.
That said, I have also become aware that to do this with any degree of regularity requires that I adopt a very dispassionate persona during the actual act of picture making - in a very real sense, an attitude of cool distance and conscious disconnection.
The contradiction is obvious and very disconcerting to me. In my attempt to connect and integrate, I must, in real time, disconnect and distance myself from the real life that I encounter. And, in a bizarre twist, I must find my connections in the traces of the things themselves.
I do consider myself to be an observer. As Chauncey Gardener said, "I like to watch." I understand more fully now that it is through this intense "watching" that I see things that many do not and that it is with my picturing that I attempt to make visible that which is often seen but never looked into.
When you began viewing the world through a camera lens, your senses sharpen as your mind and eyes are forced to focus on people and things never before noticed or thought about. I discovered that even if I didn’t always take a picture, the simple act of carrying a camera and searching for something to photograph greatly sharpened my powers of observation and allowed me to experience much more of life. ~ Kent Reno
Reader Comments (3)
This is so very much like Zen and I don't think you realize it.
Mark,
It sounds to me at you are is a state of non-attachment rather than disconnect. It is a different state of consciousness. It is a state that puts a person in the flow of the moment and more of a witness of oneself not attached to what is happening at that moment. Usually you will hear it referencing pain and pleasure, but to me that also goes towards desires and outcomes. Expectation leads to disappointment. If you are non-attached to the outcome, you have no expectations and can not be disappointed. You are separate from the pain or pleasure of the desire of what you think you may want to see to what you really see. I suppose this is all a bit rambling sounding. I'm no Buddhist expert by any means.
Last summer my wife and I were at Saratoga for the early morning workouts. We were on the rail when this horse started to act up and threw the rider. As I stood there in "stupor world" my wife is next to me firing shot after shot until the rider gained control of the horse, she got some great images as I stood there with my camera just collecting memories.