email from my friend Ginger with whom I share love of photography and interest in holistic medicine:
Thank you for sharing Richard’s photos and autobiographical narrative. It is courageous and inspiring at the same time. Art is and can be healing. For me the camera is still a bit of a shield…and so I’m never quite happy with what I do. A shield from being seen and conversely not seeing fully.
I gave up photography after many years of loving it, feeling the camera was an extension of my arm, taking sports and social pictures for the local paper and working in my own dark room.
When I became a police officer I had to take pictures of crime scenes. After taking photos of death, accidents and abuse for seven years, I could no longer see beauty and put the camera away. I believe that in my mind, giving up photography meant giving up on myself. I denied what the work was doing to me; I started drinking and becoming “tougher than the guys”, just to prove I, as a woman, could do the work. I socially overrode everything that was myself and became someone I didn’t like and didn’t know.
Being aware that the work was killing me, I quit the police, returned to school and got a Masters degree in social work. Even then, I never did really feel safe. I felt that, as an alcoholic, I had lost my identity. Until recovery, I was still living a life of secrecy and deception (mostly from myself). I was fortunate in that, even on remote, I was good at my work and good with people.
In my early move to New Mexico, I went to the spot that felt like home where I felt safe in my mind and heart. Then I came back to Michigan for ten years to take care of my dying mother. Back near my family, I fell in love with my nieces and nephews. They touched my heart. I purchased a camera to photograph them. I wanted to grab images that I could hold on to. I wanted to preserve those memories.
I am glad to have finally returned to New Mexico. Instead of just seeing and taking photos, I now struggle and focus more on the techniques and the need for more “how-to” knowledge. I’m enjoying the process and in the process, healing myself. Didn’t mean to get off on me….
Thanks again for sharing and exposing me to a wonderful forum.
I will go down to the Bosque and try to get some more Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese before they are all migrated back North.
Love,
Ginger
I don’t like taking photographs that are not of my choosing, and if I had to do so regularly I can well imagine I would not want to use a camera artistically. But if you live in a place you love, as Ginger in New Mexico, then every day is an invitation. The great thing about taking photos is that you can do so fairly fast if you come across a compelling scene, or you can go off with a camera all day.
I especially like the cranes photo. The first one looks like it is marching off determinedly, while the others are wondering whether to follow.
The ‘sandhill cranes’ photo is amazing. The fog (or is that dust when the cranes are settling on landing) is especially evocative. Lovely sense of motion against the static mountains. In fact you are almost compelled to paint it…
I especially like Ginger’s story as it reflects situations I faced when I was working for a large investment bank on Wall Street. The job bought in the money but inside I was unhappy for some reason… About six months ago I switched jobs (this time I made sure that I looked for a place where people have a little more time for each other rather than the perfunctory “Hello – how are you”, the fake smiles and polite snickers)… and it has worked wonders for me. It has gotten me back to painting – something that I always wanted to do but never quite found the time to do it. In retrospect I think I had the time before, but I did not have the mindset.
The black and blue – shade and sky – of the first picture are beautiful.
Ginger,
Can I play with your rock picture? I imagine myself on top of the rock face. Can I paste myself there – privately, only showing on my own computer?
Ginger, the picture of the cranes is magical. The lighting gives it an other-worldly quality.
Ginger,
The sandhill cranes are stunning — to capture them in that kind of movement and with that light is amazing. Now that I can imagine doing in silk. Actually, I’d do it twice, once digitized and computer printed on silk and secondly on dye-painted and tweaked silk. Both would be stitched, although the stitching might take away from the photo itself, so I’d have to think hard about that.
I also like the church stucco photo — something about the angle, which throws off the perspective (but it’s exactly what the camera saw) keeps it from settling into easy acceptability. The shapes, the sky, the unleafed tree skeleton — all seem to pare the world down, while at the same time refusing to dummy it down.
Thank you so much for the comments. I would like to know more about perspective comment and the church. Birgit absolutely you can play with the photos!! and thank you for encouraging me and supporting me in my photography and life.
Cranes were shot at dawn almost directly into the sun to get the “fire in the mist effect”..idea of putting on silk is facinating.Thank you thank you all for being out there and taking the time to comment
Ginger,
I was also interested in the church photo; many great photographers and painters have used these adobe buildings as subjects. I had the same reaction as June. I think the feeling of perspective distortion is partly due to the near part of the roof being actually warped (ridgeline and bottom edge not parallel) and to the way the tree shadows run over the ground which looks to be gently sloping down towards us. And it looks like you are using a pretty wide angle lens, which has a larger field of view than “normal” vision and can contribute to an impression of the world pouring in on you.
Speaking of birds, I just heard the first geese flying back through Montana yesterday. This morning I saw one standing somewhat befuddled at the edge of a frozen pond. Spring is coming…
Steve and Ginger,
Here is a bit of a side issue to earlier discussions in other posts about Representations.
Does the artist inspire an appreciatation of their lives/experiences or our (viewers) lives/experiences?
The photo of the Church reminds me of the time I went searching for a similar buttress famous in the painting by O’Keeffe. When I found it, though, it was so ordinary, a real disappointment. At first I blamed the building, and then, O’Keeffe, but now, instead I really just like how it sits there, as it is.
Blaming O’Keefe in this case is recognizing her artistic skill. To your question, I say both.
It is really helpful to see the comments!! Yes, I was using a wide angle lens and yes,
it seed sorta plain using a 55mm lens. Composition is something I struggle with so again thank you for the comments!!
“Blaming O’Keeffe in this case is recognizing her artistic skill.”
I love this because I completely agree and in some wonderfully twisted way it encapsulates my feelings as to why Art so often disappoints. It is also probably why I get such a thrill looking at people’s photo albums.
“To your question, I say both.”
I agree with this too.
It was a weak effort to suggest this: what I like about Ginger’s three images here is the range of… Glory. 1. The Heavy Backside of an Ordinary Adobe Church Partially-Partially Cropped. 2. Some HooDoos. 3. The Moment…
There is no artistic formula here, just some curiosity and observations, experiences we all have in common.