March 04th, 2014

Recently I came across a phrase I think is applicable to what a photographer does.  In a comment about  Shunryu Suzuki's "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind," Steve Silverman suggests that that book provides "profound and subtle insights . . . dancing gracefully on the edge of the unsayable."  (Italics added.)  I like that last phrase a lot;  I think much  photography  "dances on the edge of the unshowable."  12 some years ago when I started working in photography, like many newcomers I suppose, I thought a photograph shows us just what is there.  One photography class shook that belief out of me; working in a wet lab, I came to realize just how far removed a photograph is from whatever is just there.   It is after all a pattern of tones on a two dimensional surface.  I once came across a statement supposedly made by Picasso:  a woman looked at one of his paintings and said "it's a tree."  He said, "no, madame, that's a tree"  (pointing to one), "this is a pattern of colors on canvas."  That may not be an exact quote, but it gets the idea across.