THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF THE MINDPublished on February 12, 2015
[Here is the first is a series of large hi-res photo albums that you are free to use or just look at. Do take a peek at these please. This one is all Cyclamen photos. Let me know if you like these.]
http://spiritgrooves.libsyn.com/small-worlds-cyclamen-macro-photogrpahy
I know, a pretty ambitious title, but it is not as far-out as it might sound. Actually, what I am going to describe is pretty-much normal for any dedicated photographer. And the concept is nothing difficult either.
We start out photographing objects in the world around us. And first-off we have to learn some basic photographic technique. Until that is learned, nothing too much happens, certainly not photographs of our own mind. As long as our technique is not transparent (almost automatic) our deep–rooted sense of subject and object, as in “I the photographer” and “that out there,” holds sway with whatever objects we decide we want to photograph.
As we develop our technique until it is no longer an obstacle, the lack of technique itself becomes an obstacle to what I am about to describe, the logical next-step in becoming a photographer.
When our photographic technique becomes more transparent and less of a hindrance, we can begin to “see” with the camera and lens, but see what? Actually, it is not so important what we see as that we see beyond our technique. Ultimately it is the “seeing” itself that is the heart of photography and photographers.
It is at this point that photography starts to become reflective, but reflective of what. Like any other mirror, once our photographic technique is transparent, we see, of course, a reflection of ourselves in the photos we take. In other words, our photos cease to be so much about the “object out there,” but begin to reflect the subject we are, in-here. We begin to see ourselves reflected in our own work. This can be entrancing.
Reflection shows us, like no other way can, that the beauty we have always seen out there, in nature or whatever, is actually in-here, part of us. Sayings like “It takes one to know one” and “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” start to make sense, as well as statements like “If you lack the faculty, you can’t see the phenomenon, but if you can see the phenomenon, then you have the faculty.” The better photographer you become, the more your photographs reflect you as you are inside.
Skilled photographers show us their view of the world; their photos show who they are. A hundred different photographers will have a hundred different views of the mind, but all those views have an identical nature and source, the mind itself.
The idea here is that what starts out as photographing objects, ends up describing not an object so much as a subject, the mind of the photographer. This is interesting to bystanders, of course, but most interesting to the photographer, whose photos have become like a mirror, reflecting his or her dreams and ambitions.