ku # 1141-43 ~ being there

Butterfly ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen
2 butterflies ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen
4 butterflies ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenFor what seems like forever, I've been festering / ruminating upon the notion of what picture making and pictures mean to me.

There is no question that the making of pictures, both on and off the job (commercial and personal), has been a central theme to my entire adult life. However, it is only over the past 15 years, as I began to disengage from photography for commerce (as my business card stated) and to start to concentrate my picturing efforts upon the personal / for art picture making arena, that I realized that picture making is a large part of who and what I am.

Exactly why that is, is still open to question and may be forever so. I suspect there is some genetic / preternatural component to the equation, wherein my visual apparatus and senses are a bit more finely tuned than they are in some others. That belief is triggered by the fact that, as far back as I can remember, I have always been acutely aware of my surroundings and, in a sense, somewhat compelled to make an image (of one sort or another) of that which I see. That has always just seemed to be the natural thing to do.

But, leaving aside the why of it, what has been on my mind is the what of it. That is to say, exactly what is it that I picture?

My referential material is all over the map. I have many focused bodies of work which vary widely in what they depict. I even came up with the phrase discursive promiscuity as a cover label for all of that visual diversity. And, while the phrase still fits, I have come to an additional conclusion which sheds a little more light on the subject of exactlywhat it is I am picturing ....

The conventional picture making wisdom, re: finding your picture making groove / vision, is to picture that about which you have a passion or focused interest. I belief that bit of advice to be valuable only if one can accurately identify one's passion(s).

For some, that passion resides in the visually obvious - some identify it as mountain ranges, waterfalls, or other specifics of the nature world. Others connect with things found in the human made world or with human beings, themselves. Suffice it to state that, the planet has features aplenty on which to focus one's passion and camera and, as a result, there are more finely focused bodies of picture making work than there are marbles in a host of guess-how-many-marbles-are-in-the-jar jars. And that's a good thing.

But, what if, as is the case with my picture making, one's focus is from here to infinity? What if the gaze of one's camera is all over the map? What if, at the end of the day and in a total body of work, there is no obvious connection amongst the various visual components thereof?

My conclusion, such as it is, was derived in the course pondering those specific as well as related questions - in one of those the-light-goes-on moments, it occurred to me that I am not picturing things, per se. In fact, what I have been doing is (as conventional wisdom dictates) pursuing my passion, which is, in its essence, the of act seeing, in and of itself.

In effect, my pictures are about the act of seeing. They are about the act of living with 2 eyes wide open (thanks for that slightly modified phrase, Mary) and paying attention to where you are - everywhere you are, not just the "hot" spots. In a very real sense, they are about the surprises, discoveries, and joys to had from the act of plain seeing.

From my perspective, all of that means that I am not all that passionate (if at all) about what I picture in the purely physical / literal sense. I mean, as an example, how passionate can one be about the crap and mess to be found in one's kitchen? Which is not to state that I don't really care about everything I picture because, in some cases, I really do care. A lot.

However, for the most part, I am rather dispassionate about the referents depicted in my pictures. But, on the other hand, I am very passionate about them inasmuch as they are part and parcel of an awareness about the world, the here and the now, in which my existence is centered. And in that world, there is no detail (short of information overload) so insignificant as to be ignored.

Comments

[Jimmi Nuffin]

"In a very real sense, they are about the surprises, discoveries, and joys to had from the act of plain seeing."

From what I know of you, I'll take that a step further.
All of your other senses are in the same mode. Taste, sound, smell… Think about it.