civilized ku # 2610 ~ Beauty / Form

Dead get well flowers ~ Rist Camp / Newcomb, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenI have been re-reading some of my books - or at least parts of them - about the medium and its apparatus. I have been doing so in order to re-discover and, in a sense, re-affirm some of the conclusions I have come to regarding my picture making / pictures and about pictures made by others which I appreciate and enjoy.

A few months ago, I stated that one particular conclusion I had firmly embraced was was idea that most of my picture making was driven by and toward making more real / permanent a variety of fleeting moments as encountered in everyday life. In a sense, like Tyrell Corporation's replicants who were designed and produced to be - as the company motto states - "More human than human", I realize that I just might be attempting to make those everyday encounters "more real than real".

That written and in any event, what I have been reading about most recently is the idea of beauty. Specifically, I have re-read Robert Adams' essay, Beauty in Photography found in the book of the same name. That essay (and the book itself) is one of the best collections of essays (all by Adams) I have ever read on the subject of picture making and the resulting pictures. An excerpt:

... the proper goal of art is, as I now believe, Beauty, the Beauty ... of Form .... a synonym for the coherence and structure underlying life ... Why is Form beautiful ? Because, I think, it helps us meet our worst fear, the suspicion that life may be chaos and that therefore our suffering is without meaning .... Most of the pictures* suggest embarrassing strain: odd angles, extreme lens, and eccentric darkroom techniques** reveal a struggle to substitute shock and technology for sight. How many photographers of importance, after all, have relied on long telephoto lenses? Instead their work is marked by an economy of means, an apparently everyday relationship with their subject matter .... Why do most great pictures look uncontrived? .... The answer is, I think, that the deception is necessary if the goal of art is to be reached: only pictures which look as if they have been easily made can convincingly suggest that Beauty is commonplace.

Ultimately, setting aside the technical and technique characteristics of my pictures, those words are why I consider both my pictures and the referents they illustrate - as well as many pictures made by others - to be beautiful. Or, as James Dicky asked:

What is Heaven, anyway, but the power of dwelling among objects and actions of consequence?

And as Adams suggested:

"Objects of consequence" cannot be created by man alone, nor can "actions of consequence" happen in a void: they can only be found within a framework that is larger than we are, an encompassing totality invulnerable to our worst behavior and most corrosive anxieties.

Beauty, indeed.

*According to Adams, "as found in mass-circulation photography magazines". Although, in today's hyper-connected world, he probably would have also included and online photography forums.
**Once again, in today's world add- extreme Photoshop / digital processing techniques.