Notes on Photography (unrevised) Four

Alexis Nihon Plaza, solarium, 2013

21. The Observing Eye: What photographs reveal is what the eye (the consciousness of the photographer) finds of interest, observes, and pays attention to. This is the observed world of the photographer, it shows a consistent and cohesive vision of the world. It is the documentation of the observing eye.

22. Krishnamurti writes, “The content of consciousness is consciousness.” What is recorded in the photographs is the consciousness of the photographer. 

23. A photograph records how a specific time and place is seen by the observing eye, photographs are the record of what is observed. In my photographs, I am aiming for an elegant austerity. 

24. Krishnamurti writes, “The observer is the observed.” What you think you are observing turns out to be… yourself.

25. Whatever I photograph has a deeper, personal meaning for me; some of the most obscure photographs refer to an image or a line or phrase from one of my poems. So, “Between Chaston and Green” refers to where my father is buried; “Natalie’s hat shop on Decarie Boulevard” refers to where my mother purchased a hat to wear to my father’s funeral; and so on.

26. Artists have access to what the public knows little about but feels is important, has value, and wants: it is access to the unconscious mind. 

27. Today, many people want to be artists. They want to publish their poems, they want to exhibit their drawings and photographs, they want to be creative. They want to fill the emptiness within themselves with their artistic expression, with their poems, their music, their photographs.

28. There is more to being an artist than creativity and talent, there is hard work, being alone, and an obsessive personality.

29. Why would anyone be as obsessed about death as I have been? or as consumed with the ancestors? or have taken so many photographs in cemeteries and churches? or have written obsessively about the same subjects, book after book, diary after diary, decade after decade?

30. It is necessary to speak one’s truth. I can say this with conviction, as someone who has always taught others not to censor their words, their vision. And yet, I have censored myself, I have held back what I wanted to say, I have doubted myself, been silenced by others, not wanted to offend or cause arguments, been too concerned that others not think badly of me and so remained silent. And yet, I have been happiest when I have spoken my truth; when I have not spoken my truth it has gotten me nowhere.

31. (from) Letters of Arthur Rimbaud: May 15, 1871: 

… The first study for a man who wants to be a poet is the knowledge of himself, entire. He searches his soul, he inspects it, he tests it, he learns it. As soon as he knows it, he cultivates it: it seems simple: in very brain a natural development is accomplished; so many egoists proclaim themselves authors; others attribute their intellectual progress to themselves! But the soul has to be made monstrous, that’s the point:… Imagine a man planting and cultivating warts on his face… One must, I say, be a visionary, make oneself a visionary.