The Role of Emotion

Some weeks are busier than others. There are weeks when the calendar is full of appointments and events and what seems like an endless list of to-dos. In some ways, weeks like that can be good. It means that a lot of seeds that were planted took root. But sometimes, it means that I am so busy I am not getting out to make my photographs.

My usual approach is to wander with little to no agenda and get lost. And when I have not had the chance to do that in a while, I get frustrated and antsy. I am always thinking of my next best picture, of finding something that will challenge me and allow me to take my photography to the next level. While this is a good thing, it also means that I am hypercritical of the images I have already made. As good as those images may be or have been, I am always on the hunt to do one better. More accurately, I hope to discover a different way of seeing. I do not want to repeat what I have already done. To do this I have to rediscover the world around me in a slightly different way. It is not about what camera I use or the post-processing I do; rather, it’s a slight shift in my perception that reveals something old and familiar to me in a distinctly different way.

I was returning home when I drove past a building where Alcoholics Anonymous meetings are held (previous page). I had driven past the building countless times before. The simple wooden structure had stood out to me with its blue color, white accents, and prominent AA on the rooftop, but I had never thought of making a photograph of it. On that day, something clicked and I saw the building for the remarkable thing that it was.

However, at that particular time of day, the light was lackluster. If I made an image of the building, the resulting photograph would not reflect that revelatory feeling I had experienced in that moment. I made a mental note to return to the spot when the light was favorable, which would be easy enough since it was just a short drive from home.

A week later, I was sitting on the couch reading a book when I looked up and gazed at my backyard through the sliding glass door. It had rained that morning and the sky was overcast, but the sun had just broken through. The overgrown bougainvillea on my fence glowed brilliantly in the sunlight. The greens and magentas took on a new vibrancy. I knew that it was the perfect time to photograph the building.

I grabbed my camera and drove to the location. I knew where I needed to position myself to make the image, which was unfortunately partway into the street, and at that moment, it seemed that everyone within 30 miles had to drive past me on that patch of road. As I waited, the cloud cover returned, and I saw the luminousness that had spurred me to get out disappear.

I looked at the sky and tried to gauge in what direction the clouds were moving. It was hard to tell, but I knew I just had to give it time. My patience would eventually pay off. The sun broke through again, the traffic eased, and I walked into the street and composed and made the photograph.

It was the only photograph I made that day, but I felt a wonderful sense of exhilaration. It was not just about the image I had made; it was more about the fact that I had experienced a visual breakthrough, whereby I was able to move past my filters and judgements of what was ordinary. I was able to move beyond that to see and create an image that I would not have made before.

Feelings and the Voice

My feelings are inexorably tied to my image-making, sometimes for good and sometimes for ill. While I am often in pursuit of the moment of creative gestalt, I frequently struggle getting there because of feelings of self-doubt, insecurity, and fear.

In the past those negative feelings severely hampered my creativity. They often dissuaded me from making time to make photographs or take on new challenges. Negative feelings also led me to be unreasonably critical of my work, which admittedly is something I still contend with. Such negative feelings colored my perspective on what was really good work. My hypercritical eye did not always allow me to see that. It was as if one aspect of my emotions led me to make the photographs, while another prevented me from fully appreciating what I had accomplished.

Although people whom I respected and admired would say good things about my work, I often focused on what I thought my photographs lacked, rather than what was good about them. I began to see that the harsh critic whose voice I heard in my head was not always an accurate barometer of what I was doing with my camera. I had to learn to trust the feelings that often surrounded my picture-making, especially when I was in the zone, and not always give credence to my own unforgiving criticism.

Rather than fixate on some level of unreasonable perfection, I looked for ways to see and photograph differently. Even if the images did not fully succeed in the ways that I hoped, my measure of them was instead based on where I felt my photography was taking me. If I saw evidence that I was taking greater risks and discovering new things about how to make a photograph, I gave less weight to the voice that insisted on perfection over progress.

As a result of challenging my way of seeing, I was rewarded with photographs that reflected a growing sensibility. I saw that I did not simply produce the same images over and over again, but was discovering the world with evolving eyes. My photographs demonstrated my progress and my improvement.

This layered composition of a young woman practicing gymnastics on parallel bars is an image for which I felt I explored new territory. Along with building a composition using multiple layers, I challenged my observational skills. Besides the obvious elements of the young woman, her boyfriend, and the young boy, I had to observe the other people walking and riding down the boardwalk, the horizon line, and even the swinging gymnastics rings.

It was a situation where I added more and more to the composition and succeeded in not having the entire photograph fall apart due to the inclusion of distractions. It is a sort of additive approach that I am actively practicing, and it frequently results in a failed image, but when it succeeds it is incredibly satisfying. The joy is derived not so much from my successes, but from the fact that I am doing what I love and can see evidence of my improvements.

A Regular Practice

When I was a young photographer, I waited for inspiration. The thought was that the heavens would open up, inspiration would strike, and I would be impelled to create wonderful photographs. More often than not, inspiration did not come knocking and I settled for whatever excuse or distraction was convenient.

Then I heard a quote from the photographer and artist Chuck Close who said, “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.” The simple honesty and clarity of that statement cut me to the quick. I realized that I often allowed my feelings to create excuses for my lack of creativity. It was only going out and making an image that provided me the solution I desperately craved.

I began to have a camera with me every day. I did not relegate my creativity to the weekend or a special trip. The art of seeing and making photographs became an everyday occurrence. I could no longer end the day with the excuse that there was nothing of interest to photograph. Instead, I developed a new sensibility for observing the world. It was time to take the blinders off.

With the goal of making a good image every day, I reconsidered what was photo-worthy and what was not. I realized how many things I disregarded because of their ordinariness. I would raise the camera to my eye, but even before making a photograph I rejected its possibility and walked away. I could not continue that kind of mindset and hope to create a photograph, especially if I only had 15–20 minutes to photograph that day, which was often the case.

Much of my photography occurred during those in-between moments: leaving home to drive to work; parking my car and walking to my office; during my lunch breaks; and running errands. There were these windows of time when I was transitioning from one activity to another that were my only time to make photographs. And rather than using that time to daydream, listen to music, or browse the Internet, I used it to go and find something to photograph.

This became a daily practice that eventually transformed me as a photographer. Because I was so committed to discovering something new each day, regardless of what little time I had, I was forced to reexamine the world in a nonliteral way. This is how I came to observe the world based on light and shadow, line and shape, color, and gesture. If I just stood around waiting for something interesting to happen, the photographs rarely came. The world did not need to change—I needed to.

I had to make the time to make photographs, even if they were only captured with my smartphone. It did not matter what camera I used, it was about practicing my way of seeing. Much like a regular exercise regimen conditions the body, the daily process of seeing developed my ability to discern the extraordinary from the ordinary.

Seeing with New Eyes

I was walking to the bank to make a withdrawal and as usual I had my camera over my shoulder. I was about to ascend the handicap ramp leading to the bank’s entrance when I looked down at my feet. There on the concrete were thick blue lines leading up to blocks of yellow. I saw two distinct shadows that added weight to those shapes. As I looked at the ground, it was like I could hear the synapses in my brain firing away. There was a photograph here.

Yes, I was busy running errands, but everything could wait until I figured out how to make a good image of this scene. I raised my camera to my eye and moved around the elements, shifting back and forth trying to determine what to include and what to exclude from the frame. I saw a few people looking in my direction trying to figure out what the heck I was doing, but I ignored them and maintained my focus. I made several photographs, refining the frame until I was satisfied with what I had created.

When I pulled the image up and displayed it as shot, I was less than impressed. It did not work for me. But just as I was ready to give up, I rotated the image 180 degrees so that it appeared upside down. Suddenly, it worked for me and it took on the feel of an abstract painting. I was more than pleased that I had had my camera with me.

It is moments like this that have made the difference for me as a photographer. It is not that I wanted to make a career of photographing parking lots, but rather that I learned to become so attuned to my own process of seeing that something as ordinary as a handicap ramp provided me with the raw material for an interesting photograph. I came to learn that if I could discover the beauty in something as simple as this, I would have the skills to observe more complex and fluid scenes in an exacting and precise way.

When I was at the Grand Central Market, I saw a neon sign on the wall (next page). I knew I wanted to photograph it, but I also knew that I did not want to simply document it. There would be no challenge in that. As I moved closer to the wall, I caught the reflection of the neon sign on the surface of an empty table. The mirroring of the scene is what I needed to take my observation of the sign to another level. Thankfully, I was there early enough that there was only a single figure seated at a table situated between me and the sign. I lowered my camera so that the reflection dominated the foreground and I built the rest of the composition from there, creating a photograph that was not just about the sign, but that revealed how I saw the scene.

As I continue to photograph, it becomes clearer to me that it is not the technical knowledge that makes the difference in my photography. It is my application of that knowledge on an everyday basis that has led me to become a better photographer. Everything else is just excuses.