NikonGear'23
Images => Life, the Universe & Everything Else => Topic started by: RobOK on July 23, 2016, 13:18:27
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Has anyone here practiced contemplative photography ? It seems a combination of mindfulness and photography, almost photography as meditation. I have ordered the prominent book on the topic but have not read yet.
Curious if others here have come across it?
Cheers, Rob
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Not sure i have, but there is the inner landscape thread here (http://nikongear.net/revival/index.php/topic,3131.0.html) that relates to your topic.
Also, it seems Michael Erlewine is approaching his photography in a similar way.
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For sure, I approach it this way, where the process of photographing is more important than the results, but also shape the results. I have written a number of free e-books on the topic, one of which is here:
http://spiritgrooves.net/pdf/e-books/Mahamudra%20-%20A%20Story%20Version%203.pdf
I have others. They are not for everyone.
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@HCS, I will check that threat!
@Michael, thanks for sharing, I will look at your e-books!! I hope you post some photos that go along with your approach, maybe you already have?
Rob.
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I have published many photographs, articles, and books, but here is my view:
I don't look for "spiritual" to be reflected in the finished photos of someone who meditates. It is the "process" that can be meditative. What we end up with is a reflection of our particular personality, not a rubber stamp that says we are meditators. And, there are literally scores of kinds of meditation. Why type of meditation you do would be crucial to know. Is it Tranquility Meditation? Insight Meditation? Or what?
I have run a meditation center since the 1980s and trained in Tibetan Vajrayana meditation since the 1960s, but more seriously since the 1970s. So, since we are talking about this, those are my initial thoughts.
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Here are a couple of examples that I took this morning with the Nikon D810, Cambo Actus, El Nikkor 105mm APO lens, and Zerene Stacker.
These two shots of flowers are not particularly contemplative or “meditative,” although they are the result of a more contemplative (and slow) process. The care and time put into creating them in a more contemplative state of mind certainly is reflected in the result, but it would be hard to say just how. Each of us has a different (however slightly) approach to meditation and our results will differ.
Again: what we do in the moment of creation and the entire process affects the result, IMO. But as I mentioned earlier, I don’t photograph with expectations of the result being foremost in my mind, although of course it is there. Putting myself in the magic of the moment in a creative way is something I do.
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Michael - the colour of the second photo is really stunning.
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... so is the "activity"" in the lower part.
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Meditation is all about the silence one experiences while it lasts.
It creates a longing for repetition, sometimes a longing for deepening.
Some people experience this silence in sex, some in drugs, but these do not last
Some go deeper and deeper into the same.
I am not sure if it can be anything and everything.
The creative disciplines, arts, performing or visual, music
can be counted to the ones open to meditation.
Also most of the crafts, artisian, also fishing and hunting.
I guess it is finally overcoming the illusion that there is an independent "outside".
Thank you, Michael.
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I guess it is finally overcoming the illusion that there is an independent "outside".
I agree with Frank, that meditation can be very much a way to remove duality and learn to rest in non-duality.
The OP (original poster) put the word “Contemplative” in the title and “Mindfulness” in the body of his text. Contemplation, generally, is not considered the same as mindfulness. I responded to the “Mindfullness” part of it, since that is more directly connected to various types of actual meditation I work with. Getting in a contemplative mood while out in nature is something I do too, but my mixing of photography and meditation is more deliberate than just contemplation.
The type of meditation that I mix with my photography is called Vipassana or “Insight Meditation,” and it took me some real training to learn it. Its traditional attributes include great clarity and also lucidity, which are connate, meaning that these qualities are like two sides of the same coin.
The process of looking through a clear lens at a flower or small diorama suggests a subject/object relationship, like “I’m looking through the lens at a flower,” but in actuality the beauty of the meditation technique is not just the object being looked at, but the looking itself. In other words, the “Seeing” is not so much about what is seen, as it is resting in the “seeing” itself, if that makes sense.
Here is another image taken today with the Nikon D810, El Nikkor APO 105mm, and using Zerene Stacker in post. Done on the Cambo Actus.
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Enthüllend ohne bloßzustellen ... what is this in English?
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Enthüllend ohne bloßzustellen ... what is this in English?
I'm not English, but i believe this could be translated to something like:"Revealing without exposing". Of course, others may have better translations.
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I think your translation is excellent.
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Thank you Hans. Yes. A revelation. Tired brain did not deliver words. I like that part.
Exposure is not hard enough. In German there is more of an embarrassing as connotation.
A portrait can be precise in a way that you reveal something about a person but still leave his/her dignity
do not "expose the naked vulnurable soul with your camera".
In that sense "Revelation with dignity" could be what I tried to find. Not yet there fully.
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Thank you Hans. Yes. A revelation. Tired brain did not deliver words. I like that part.
Exposure is not hard enough. In German there is more of an embarrassing as connotation.
A portrait can be precise in a way that you reveal something about a person but still leave his/her dignity
do not "expose the naked vulnurable soul with your camera".
In that sense "Revelation with dignity" could be what I tried to find. Not yet there fully.
An example is the work of Sebastiao Salgado, notably in the book Sahel. People who could have been photographed as ethnological exhibits in the worst colonial tradition are instead shown as beautiful and dignified - as in this portrait of a woman in the style of Italian Renaissance . I guess the opposite would be Dianne Arbus, whose subjects are conscripted to illustrate her emotional state.
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Salgado is one of the best contemporary artist we have.
Wim Wenders' film SALT OF THE EARTH shows what he did and how he did it to push the envelope far far beyond
what he could have achieved otherwise. This is at the expense of his wife and his children.
BUT for the sake of all others.
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Meditation is all about the silence one experiences while it lasts.
It creates a longing for repetition, sometimes a longing for deepening.
Some people experience this silence in sex, some in drugs, but these do not last
Some go deeper and deeper into the same.
I am not sure if it can be anything and everything.
The creative disciplines, arts, performing or visual, music
can be counted to the ones open to meditation.
Also most of the crafts, artisian, also fishing and hunting.
I guess it is finally overcoming the illusion that there is an independent "outside".
Thank you, Michael.
Surely that is true of any skillful task? It does not matter whether it is taking a photograph or doing surgery or playing the piano or playing tennis: if you want to be really good the mechanical process has to happen without conscious control, so that thought can go to the aesthetic or emotional or tactical aspects. Whether you conceptualise that in terms of meditation or simply in terms of endlessly repeated practice and the cerebral cortex vs the cerebellum is not important.
In several meditation traditions an additional key element is the adverse influence of desire (there is a Zen story about a young man who approaches a great sword-master and says "How long will it take me to learn the art?"; the master replies "Ten years". The young man says "I am willing to study and practice night and day". The master replies, "In that case, twenty years". The young man says "Look, you don't get it; I will do anything you ask, but I don't have time to waste". The master replies "In that case, thirty years"). Our world, in contrast, is infatuated with motivation, both as a route to achievement and as a criterion for ethical evaluation.
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Restlessness is an effective creative blockage. Keeping an open mind and investing time is the key to make a motif appear in front of your lens. Too often I try to wrestle a picture out of a scene with little success.
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Visit, revisit, waiting, light, trying, growing, patience. It's a very broad subject, I feel.
(https://nikongear.net/revival/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=3899.0;attach=16935;image)
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Restlessness is an effective creative blockage. Keeping an open mind and investing time is the key to make a motif appear in front of your lens. Too often I try to wrestle a picture out of a scene with little success.
Sure you can adjourn till "the subject appears" ... in your climate it might be you adjourn till your finger is frozen just a millimeter above your release button ****hhahaha*** --- I get you point.
A goal in mind will set you back because you cannot seize the moment.
Raising a familiy without a goal in mind .... will you ever succeed?
A lot of these norms are set for monks. ....... We are family men.
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Visit, revisit, waiting, light, trying, growing, patience. It's a very broad subject, I feel.
(https://nikongear.net/revival/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=3899.0;attach=16935;image)
I still adore this shot. Wait, smoke, shoot.
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A lot of these norms are set for monks. ....... We are family men.
There is a "slight" discrepancy between this two roles. A family man has to practise "drive by shooting", instinct composition, and "left hand editing" :)
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Hi.... I'm sorry after my OP I have been away from this thread. I am new to meditation and mindfulness practices, say the past two years. The idea of melding that outlook with photography is intriguing and also challenging. I take it that people try to be present, in the moment, as they compose images. Taking the world as it is. Many examples I see involve patterns or abstractions or plants, but less so people and animals. I don't know if this is inherent or coincidence or just by virtue of the small sample I have explored.
I am trying to work through the "act of composing" which seems like you are "working" at getting the right picture, vs. being totally free flowing.
I appreciate all the comments in this thread, I am just embarking on this topic.
Rob.
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I take it that people try to be present, in the moment, as they compose images. Taking the world as it is. Many examples I see involve patterns or abstractions or plants, but less so people and animals. I don't know if this is inherent or coincidence or just by virtue of the small sample I have explored.
I am trying to work through the "act of composing" which seems like you are "working" at getting the right picture, vs. being totally free flowing.
In Theravada Buddhist communities (Thailand and Myanmar, eg) the monks go out every day to receive alms. This is often called "begging", which is misleading, since they are not allowed to ask for anything unless in great need, only to accept what is freely offered. They must accept and eat whatever food is offered to them (in general, before noon of the day the offering is made).
It is an interesting exercise to go out with a camera in the same spirit: not "taking" or "making" photographs, but accepting whatever photographs the world offers, as it offers them.
Whether you "take" or "receive" has to do with power and authority, and it applies to our modern world as well. All medical students today are taught "history-taking", but until the later 19th century doctors did not talk about "taking" the patient's history, they talked about "receiving" it. Right there you can see the dizzying rise in social status and authority of doctors over the last 100 years. Whether you "take" photographs or "make" them, you are still the boss. If you "receive" photographs, the world is the boss.
This also links up with the idea that there is such a thing as excessive or inappropriate skill. There is a Zen story about a sword-master with three students. He called them to his study one by one, and above the door he placed a cushion so that it would fall on anyone entering as they opened the door. The first student opened the door and the cushion fell on his head. The master said "You have studied well and are now a master in your own right". The second student saw the cushion, took it down, and entered. The master said "You have learned much, but you have much yet to learn". The third student opened the door and the cushion fell, but before it hit his head he swept out his sword and cut it into quarters. The master said "You have learned nothing; leave and never return".
Much the same is said in the famous Verse 11 of the Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tse:
Thirty spokes are joined in the wheel's hub.
The hole in the middle makes it useful.
Mold clay into a bowl.
The empty space makes it useful.
Cut out doors and windows for the house.
The holes make it useful.
Therefore, the value comes from what is there,
But the use comes from what is not there.
For me, some of the appeal of film and alternative processes comes from this feeling.
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Les. Thank you for reminding me of the monks role.
My photography often suffers from too much control. Too much construction. To much rationalizing.
For jobs this is totally alright because customers receive what they expect. Good.
I have one thread here that is different. Yet I only add to it every few months because I am not a bowl as
empty as I should be ... ready for receiving photos.
annotation. In the monotheist philosopy of Yo-Ga humans are the power of seeing resting in itself. All else is non self.
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I agree with Frank, that meditation can be very much a way to remove duality and learn to rest in non-duality.
The OP (original poster) put the word “Contemplative” in the title and “Mindfulness” in the body of his text. Contemplation, generally, is not considered the same as mindfulness. I responded to the “Mindfullness” part of it, since that is more directly connected to various types of actual meditation I work with. Getting in a contemplative mood while out in nature is something I do too, but my mixing of photography and meditation is more deliberate than just contemplation.
The type of meditation that I mix with my photography is called Vipassana or “Insight Meditation,” and it took me some real training to learn it. Its traditional attributes include great clarity and also lucidity, which are connate, meaning that these qualities are like two sides of the same coin.
The process of looking through a clear lens at a flower or small diorama suggests a subject/object relationship, like “I’m looking through the lens at a flower,” but in actuality the beauty of the meditation technique is not just the object being looked at, but the looking itself. In other words, the “Seeing” is not so much about what is seen, as it is resting in the “seeing” itself, if that makes sense.
@Michael, thank you for your thoughts and insights in reply to my post, very valuable contributions. I finally noticed your signature block that you founded All Music Guide website... for many, many years that was my go to website to learn and explore artists. These days much more of my time is in photography and my music is tamely finding songs on Spotify, but All Music has a warm place in my heart and memories!! I wish there was an All Photographers Guide website to learn about lesser known, yet still amazing, photographers!
Cheers,
Rob.