VISUAL NOTES

The bells and stones have voices but,

unless they are struck, they will not sound.

Chuang-Tzu 

One of the purposes of this blog is to bring forth the voices of ordinary things—things that are found in plain sight, but which often go unnoticed and unheard.  To that end, the camera is an invaluable tool.  By isolating something—more specifically, by eliminating the surrounding background in which the subject is usually lost—the camera can essentially strike the bell and bring forth a an experience that might have otherwise been missed.  A few examples follow, and more will be posted from time to time.   

Bow of Workboat at Rest

Oxford, Maryland

Cabinet Door
Carlisle, U.K.

Building Facade
Baltimore, Maryland

Weathered Boat Bottom
Trappe, Maryland

Traces of Christmas Lights
Easton, Maryland


The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.

Dorothea Lange

MUSINGS AT A TRAIN STATION

On an overcast Sunday morning several weeks ago, I found myself in the Carlisle, UK railway station, with two hours to spare before the arrival of the train that would take me to London.  Having just completed my walk of the Hadrian's Wall path, I was still hungry for the incomparable beauty of the English countryside.  Inside the terminal, however, everything appeared to be hard-edged, gray, and lifeless.  The details of individual features seemed to be lost in the sheer vastness of the place.

While these were my initial impressions, I abandoned them immediately because I have learned through the years that we limit our perspective when we confine ourselves to beauty that is obvious.  Whatever the circumstances, there is always another kind of beauty that is calling us.  Its a shy beauty, one that hides from plain sight, one that needs to be seduced.  This is the beauty that attracts painters and photographers.  Like snake charmers, we want to coax beauty out of the shadows, make it visible, let it speak — perhaps even sing — in its own inimitable voice.

Thus motivated, I set out to see if I could find anything of visual interest in the train terminal.  My goal was to find compositions in which something interesting was happening in the dance of light and line, color and texture, shape and shadow. Camera in hand, I simply asked the terminal to speak to me, either loudly or in whispers.

My first shot was beneath the crosswalk that towered above the tracks.  I loved the geometrical aspects of this view, the contrast between the intense colors and the neutral stone walls, and the continuity of the blues from the crosswalk's ceiling to the doors and stair rails.

After walking to the other side of the tracks, I took this shot because I loved the juxtaposition of colors and lines — the red bench in contrast with the backdrop of greens (placing complementary colors next to one another always creates intensity) and the diagonal lines of the ramp rail in contrast with the vertical and horizontal lines that otherwise dominate the composition.

This composition appealed to me for several reasons.  First, it has two situations (luggage carts and the row of columns on stairs) in which there are repetitions of form, which always help to establish unity in any composition.  Second, the intensity of the colors in the door and the stairs offers an interesting contrast with the neutral grays of the remainder of the composition.

The reflections in this window to a small cafe also caught my interest.  They seem to create a triptych, with the lower third being somewhat whimsical, the middle third revealing an mysterious interior, and the top third revealing the complex geometrical lines of the terminal roof.

Turning back toward the tracks and looking upward, I found myself entertained by the  abstract designs of the steel and glass work in the train station's roof.

I found the above composition to be interesting because it was asymmetrical but balanced, and the three primary colors screamed with intensity against the background of the neutral walls and walkway.  The question that remained, however, was whether the photo would be improved by eliminating the yellow cone and thereby simplifying the composition.  That photo is below, and I think I like it a little better.  There is something to be said, however, for finding three, intense primary colors against a neutral background.

Finally, before boarding my train, I took this little abstract (below) from the face of some kind of industrial storage locker.  I liked the texture, the dominance of the turquoise blue, and the radiance that is often exuded from things that have been in use for a long time.

That's it.  Nothing more than a few musings about photography — a passion of mine — as I remember waiting in the Carlisle railway station for my train to London.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

BEAUTY IN UNEXPECTED PLACES

           

 Everything beckons to us to perceive it,

murmurs at every turn 'Remember me!'

A day we passed, too busy to receive it

will unlock us all its treasury.

Rilke

"Everything Beckons To Us"

"Everything beckons to us to perceive it," says Rilke — EVERYTHING — and I take his counsel seriously.  In my daily journeys, I do my best to observe not only the larger forms that dominate the landscape, but also the smaller fragments that either make up or adorn these forms.  I try to look beyond the obvious, to see the overlooked and forgotten.  I try to "see beyond what is seen," for lack of a better expression, and to become intimate with everything, including the lost, the fallen, and the degraded.  Above all, I resist the temptation to ignore things that are not easily identifiable.  In my experience, true beauty seldom lends itself to names, labels, or classifications.

In this posting, I invite you see some of the things that have crossed my visual path in recent days and to reflect upon the words of various writers, photographers, and painters on the fascinating subject of "seeing."  If you suspend your natural desire to understand what has been photographed, and focus, instead, on the texture, lines, and hues of the compositions, I think you will be reminded that nature itself is our greatest artist.

Seeing, in the finest and boldest sense, means using your senses, your intellect, and your emotions.  It means encountering your subject matter with your whole being.  It means looking beyond the labels of things and discovering the remarkable world around you.

Freeman Patterson

The precision of naming takes away from the uniqueness of seeing.

Pierre Bonnard 

In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject.  The little, human detail can become a leitmotiv.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Whether he an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts.

Walker Evans

If you look at a thing 999 times, you are perfectly safe;  if you look at it for the 1000th time, you are in danger of seeing it for the first times.

C.K. Chesterton 

Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.

Camille Pissarro

If only we could pull out our brain and use only our eyes.
Picasso

Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.


Edgar Degas 

The hardest thing to see is what is in front of our eyes.


Goethe

Once you really commence to see things, then you really commence to feel things.


Edward Steichen

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

Thoreau

While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.

Dorothea Lange

Anything that excites me for any reason, I will photograph; not searching for unusual subject matter, but making the commonplace unusual.

Edward Weston 

You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.


Mark Twain

The common eye sees only the outside of things, and judges by that, but the seeing eye pierces through and reads the heart and the soul, finding there capacities which the outside didn't indicate or promise, and which the other kind couldn't detect.

Mark Twain

The bells and stones have voices but, unless they are struck, they will not sound.


Chuang-Tzu 

Notes on Photos:  (1) sailboat rudder and keel; (2) work boat transom; (3) sailboat keel and rudder; (4) work boat transom; (5) underside of a sailboat hull; (6) work boat transom; (7) underside of a sailboat hull; (8) work boat transom; (9) drainage marks below waterline on sailboat hull; (10) work boat transom; (11) barnacles and peeling paint on underside of sailboat hull; (12) underside of bow of sailboat; (13) work boat transom; (14) rusty chain found in boatyard; (15) section of painted window found in airport corridor; (16) dry-rotting industrial hose; (17) rusting bottom of metal chair; (18) patina of tarnished copper weather vane discovered on grounds of an antique store.