My landscape photography has grown out of activities I would engage in anyway. I’ve always loved hiking, be it in the mountains, the woods, the desert — anywhere. These days I usually have my camera along. Sometimes I’ll be in an area I suspect might be interesting photographically, but usually I’m just in a place I want to explore. Either way, I don’t feel cheated if I take no pictures at all, and I’ve never had a bad time. But I have found a difference between productive and unproductive outings. The key predictor is whether I’m alone.
There’s a difference in mindset. If I’m with someone else, my attention is divided. Furthermore, the pieces of it don’t add up. Looking half the time is less than half as good as looking all the time. And to the extent I’m engaged with someone else, every photographic possibility is an interruption, and has to be weighed for social acceptability. It doesn’t help that I deliberately slow down to make photographs; I need to immerse myself in the environment as I select my subject. This is the most intense stage of the process of discovery that Karl talked about yesterday. There are also earlier and later stages, but this is the crux; everything depends on what happens here.
I do have a secret weapon, which is most effective during the long days of summer. Unlike many — fortunately including my family — I love to wake up early. I can drive to a location, hike in, photograph, hike out, and return home before breakfast. That makes it sound fast, but it’s not. The picture above was taken one such morning when I spent about two hours around the site. It was one of the most peaceful and productive times I’ve had.
Ideally there would be enough time for everything, but it will never be so. I am learning to compromise. The key seems to be in arranging for that alone time without the need to re-set schedules or destinations, even without communication. Companions should not be surprised if I disappear unexpectedly for an hour or more. I believe it can be done!
Do you find the same need to be alone when you’re making art? What concessions to sociability, what accomodations have you developed? Are you that amazing creature that can do it all at once?
A very telling line that you have going there: “And to the extent I’m engaged with someone else, every photographic possibility is an interruption, and has to be weighed for social acceptability”. For me you could substitute the word photographic in the above sentence with painting and it would fit me to a T. I paint alone and usually let nothing disturb me when I start. This is usually after 10pm when the rest of the family is asleep and I find the time to think, reflect and ruminate over my subject. I cannot really paint with anyone else in the room (not too sure how all those others at painting workshops and painting clubs get anything productive done – I am not just one of them).
I spend about 2 hours every other night in our basement with minimal interruptions and usually get a good amount done. My wife has learned not to disturb me too much at this time but every once in a while those phones call manages to cut the reverie.
I love the different textures and brightnesses of the rock surfaces. At what speed did you image the water?
In science, using digital equipment, we talk about imaging and images, rather than about photographing and photos. Is that considered an affectation with respect to Art?
Birgit,
The shutter speed was probably about 1/2 second, though I don’t have the information available here. Like you, I found the rock fascinating, with the water adding an important element. At the speed it was falling, anything longer than probably 1/4 second would have blurred it like this.
I use photograph to refer to any image captured by a camera, so the terms are interchangeable for my work. I tend to use image if I’m considering it in the same way as, say, a painting, without reference to how it was created.
Even separate from the time spent actually producing work, I find alone time to be very important. I try to get small doses of it each day, whether it’s eating lunch alone at a restaurant with a book, or just walking around on my own. In nature is nice, but for me the key is the absence of the need for social interaction. The best, though, if I have a few days, is heading up to Big Sur with a tent. I love interacting with people, but I also need to balance it with time alone.
My wife is a writer, which is great, because we both understand the need for alone time to work, and just to think (or not think).
Like you Steve, my alone time is detrimental to my photography. There’s a level of concentration that I can only achieve when alone, undisturbed…and not having to answer questions like “why are you taking a picture of that rock?” is so important!
I have three kids, ages 11, 9 and 4, so ‘alone time’ is extremely rare for me. I’ve found that my most productive times are after 10pm when the house is quiet. That is when I can peacefully process images, or write, or map ideas. And I’ll also wake before dawn to go out and shoot, and be home before breakfast. Occasionally I am able to leave my kids with my mother, or home if my husband isn’t working, to go out to shoot, but not nearly as much as I’d like.
Sleep is often sacrificed, but the need for that alone, quiet time is paramount.
Imagine,
there are people that live alone.
All that solitude!
I need alone time outside of the studio as well, but it is hard to come by and feels so decadent (like, I should be in the studio). But I sometimes find when I show up to the studio I am so fried that nothing is happening. I give it the ole college try and when I start ruining things I stop myself and do something else alone. the next studio session often goes better.
Steve,
I have made some of my favorite photos in the company of others, but these are pictures about people. When taking pictures of people in public, a companion who pretends to play the role of “foreground interest” can be a good way to avoid seeming conspicuously like an annoying photographer. But when the subject is not people, a companion can be absolutely maddening, I agree.
Steve,
It would have been interesting to put this photo among a group of pictures by different photographers — as you did with the bare limbs. I have a feeling I could pick this one out as yours. It has a characteristic Durbin blend of abstraction and detail, with strong components that play a structural role at the compositional as much as at the physical (real world) level. You have a way of breaking reality into elements that become mysterious. I do not exactly understand why the rocks in the middle should be dark — is it shadow, or because they are wet? These middle set of rocks almost seem to come in front of the lighter ones on the left, but this cannot be so, right?
Chantal,
Waking before dawn to shoot, how lovely. You make me feel very lazy!
I spend about 2 hours every other night in our basement with minimal interruptions and usually get a good amount done.
Sunil,
A consistent system is wonderful. Okay, I’ll stay up until midnight and then wake up before dawn. Sleep, what a waste of time!
David,
Now that I read your words on “alone time” I realize there is a strong sense of solitude in your work. Am I being influenced by the context of Steve’s post, or do you think you depict the feeling of being alone? I’ll continue with this on the interview post . . .
…do you think you depict the feeling of being alone?
No, not at all. I spend a lot of time around other people. I find it’s important to have some alone time to balance it out.
Karl, you have a genius eye! You’ve described some key elements of my “style” in similar terms to the way I think of it myself. Mainly, this shows there is some consistency of style. I have found it much easier to work this way in these more intimate settings. Applying it on a larger landscape scale is a real challenge that I’m still working up to.
Regarding the rocks, the dark ones in the middle are wet, and also less well lit because they are facing more toward us than the light rocks on the left (though none of them are in direct sun). That’s an interesting illusion that the dark rocks could appear closer. I hadn’t noticed it before, but I can see it. Not sure if it’s good or bad.
Waterfalls are a very common theme, but I don’t think I’ve seen any too similar to this. They are probably out there, so let me know if you see one, anybody.
Waterfalls are a very common theme
Steve,
This didn’t even occur to me, which I think is a good sign. This waterfall is not a stale repition, it is a refreshing new image.
The ultimate challenge: could accomplish the same with a sunset?
Steve
Sorry for the absence, have been er….in solitude, painting. I go off sometimes, you know how it is.
So in answer to your question, I disappear into my meditation hut – it’s not a man and cave thing, it’s my detched garage that is my studio. As you know from my art, I surrender to a meditative mind with music, and I do this in isolation, only to emerge as one does in readiness after a meditation. No-one enters the zone, when I’m in it. Any interuption totally jolts me, so my quiet part of the world helps.
When I’m not working, my studio is closed, yet my mind or portable workplace, is still visualising in between sessions – what I call the non-formal meditation time – practicing what I do whilst I go about the rest of my daily rountine (the non-painting bit)! So, in a sense I always have a sense of solitude in one part of my mind even when not actually painting. My thoughts and work develop in isolation.
My photography is a totally diferent matter, and in many instances my wife is there with me, and suggesting opportunities or subject matter for art photography. In this case it’s an asset to integrate the social aspect and have fun in the process. I try and transform everywhere we go into time to do my photography, should suitable material arise.
So for me I need to be alone for my painting, but for my photography I prefer not to be alone.
Mark,
That’s interesting about the difference in approach between your two art forms. Maybe that solitary time painting is enough to satisfy the need many people have expressed.
I was talking to a potter the other day and learned about quite a different style of working. Because he requires long firings (five days or so) in wood-fired kilns, he gets together with several other potters doing similar work when they are at that stage. They then set up the kiln together and keep it going in a very collaborative way. How the kiln is handled influences, of course, all of their work. It sounds like they have a great time.
Yes for me the social interaction is helpful in contributing to what I do during solitary time (painting art) and vice versa; in that my solitary inward reflections and outward artistic process keep me balanced. I’d not be in good mental shape if I had too much of either.
The idea of potters collaboratively doing their firing does sound fun though. Maybe I should get some artists together all painting to the same music….
When I paint, I fall into a zone that’s hard to penetrate. It doesn’t matter whose around or what’s being said (aside from “Your hair is on fire), I am inside the work. This is true in pleine aire work, too, I find. I am often approached by people, but I have a kind of automatic response system that allows me to look polite, but keeps me from actually interacting or interrupting myself.
When I’m stitching, however, I am acutely aware of everything and everybody. Not much of a zone there — it’s mostly process. The zone work is done prior to the execution.
And I’m lucky to have a partner who understands the glazed look in the eye I turn to him. He generally disappears when he sees that I’m not hearing (except when my hair is on fire).
I do need some solitude on a daily basis. And I often get it in the painting studio, which is outside the house. But my need for solitude is different from my immersion in the various artistic processes that I pursue.
To have your hair on fire once is a misfortune, but to have it recur smacks of carelessness.
When you are burning silk and you have long strewbly hair, it’s hard to tell the difference in the smells. Luckily, I don’t have to burn silk more than once every couple months.
I feel the same way about playing and writing my own music on guitar. I view it as I am expressing myself to the world with my own voice in my playing. I try to write music that is exactly what I would want to listen to. And when I am alone I can really harness that peaceful quiet around me and fill it with the noise of how I see and perceive the world around me.