Do you see chance as a key part photography? To what extent does it play a role in your own practice? How might you develop your work by embracing change or making new opportunities? What arbitrary parameters might you impose upon yourself to expand the creative possibilities of your own work?  

These are all questions asked in this week’s lessons.  In my practice and throughout most of my photographic experiences I would say chance and serendipity have played and continue to play a significant role.  I have always and still do shoot almost exclusively out of doors.  That alone introduces one of the biggest factors of chance, the light.  Is it there, what is its quality, am I in a position to use the light to its best advantage?  Yes, it is possible to preplan and to position oneself where the angle of the light is optimized, and watch the weather forecasts with the hope of getting it right, but in the end whether it all comes together is a matter of chance and beyond the control of the photographer.

When photographing wildlife, there is a great measure of chance and serendipity in play at all times.  Again planning a preparation can improve one’s chances, but in the end it is just a matter of chance whether something, anything, you might want to photograph will show up, and if it does whether it will be in a position that allows a good image to be captured.

I don’t find that I am at all fussed by these elements of chance and serendipity.  I have  always been drawn to the interactions of colour, light and patterns.  It is to an extent, a basic biological phenomenon of vision, but a talent to recognize in a timely manner the significance in any given moment.  For a photographer it is essential to be able to recognize those instances quickly and have the skill with one’s equipment to take advantage of the opportunity.  I believe this to be true whether one is doing street, sports, nature, reportage and likely other genres of which I have yet to think.

The concept of boundaries is an interesting one and deserves thought and discussion.  Art Morris, in his book The Art of Bird Photography and in instructional videos he has done, suggests when photographing birds to confine your field of intention to a 15 degree wedge in front of you with the sun directly behind to get the optimum lighting conditions for good bird photographs.  I find in areas I work frequently that set up is often difficult or impossible to achieve, and that I as a consequence endeavor to cover too broad a field of intention.  I think it might be wise to slow down, be more patient at times and accept that for the truly remarkable photograph, I might need to wait longer for the subject to come to me and the light to be right.  I think sometimes I have succumbed to the desire to get the shot, but as I have become more skilled, I need slow down to a degree and work to get the best shot possible.

I also believe I have been operating principally on the self imposed constraint influenced by so much of the wildlife photography I have seen over the years of creating portraits of birds.  This is true also because I never gave much thought until now of contextualizing my work and only sought to take good photographs as stand alone objects.  Now that I need to consider context, I am beginning to realize there may be other ways to tell a natural history story and the portraiture is only one piece.

MORRIS, A., 2003. The Art of Bird Photography. 1 edn. New York: Amphoto books.

In this week’s activity I chose to briefly explore the questions of time and motion and their relation to photography.  Still photographers images record historical events; i.e. since they are not viewed in real time as they are happening they are consequently historical records.  Physics and specifically astrophysics demonstrates most clearly the time lag in an image’s recording of events. Similarly the physics of light transmission and camera design dictate a the limits of our abilities to create the perception of stopped motion when in fact virtually every subject is actually in motion (if only at the atomic level) that is beyond our level of perception.

For the week’s forum discussion we were asked find a piece of work other than a photograph that had some kind of link to our own practice or research interests, and explain why we chose it and how it relates to our own work.  I chose the items below because the relate closely to my interests and the direction I wish to pursue in my research, while at the same time serving as a bit of inspiration and explanation of why I am part of this programme.

The following paragraphs were excepted from a 19 Dec 2017 article in the online magazine Good Nature Travel; The Official Travel Blog of Natural Habitat Adventures and the WWF written by Candice Gaukel Andrews.  In it she quotes author Terry Tempest Williams 2012 book  When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice.

http://goodnature.nathab.com/bird-years-and-the-year-of-the-bird-2018/

We are all birds

In her 2012 book When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice, author and environmental activist Terry Tempest Williams wrote, “Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.”

So while our birds still sing, I hope we will all join in the celebration of 2018 as the Year of the Bird. But, while we’re doing that, let’s remember that those tuneful voices that lift us in our darkest hours are the ones that we humans are actively working to silence once again, possibly for forever.

Here’s to finding your true places and natural habitats,

Candy

Terry Tempest Williams in the same book also wrote the following:

“To be read.  To be heard. To be seen. I want to be read.  I want to be heard.  I don’t need to be seen.  To write requires an ego, a belief that what you say matters.  Writing also requires an aching curiosity leading you to discover, uncover, what is gnawing at your bones.  Words have a weight to them.  How you chose to present them and to whom is a matter of style and choice.”

The follow is excepted from 15 Dec 2017 article, How Birds Bind Us, in the Audubon Society online magazine by Mark Jannot. http://www.audubon.org/news/how-birds-bind-us

The way the artists and the entire community in upper Harlem have come together around the murals (and have spread the word about the threats to birds) has been inspiring, but it really shouldn’t be seen as surprising. Not, at this point, to me anyway. In the nearly five years I’ve served as the editor-in-chief of Audubon, I’ve seen a zillion amazing and wide-ranging examples of people coming together and rallying around birds, from volunteers with New York City Audubon monitoring (and, when necessary, shutting down) the memorial 9/11 spotlights to save migrating birds, to people recreating habitats and even entire islands for their benefit, to using them as aids for bringing struggling veterans back from the brink.

I find great pleasure in birds; observing them, listening to them and photographing them.  Their presence reassures me that things are right in my little piece of the world at that moment in time.  Birds are present across the globe from pole to pole and everywhere in between.  Some have adapted to the harshest places on the planet while others have found a way to live in close proximity to humans in the most urbanized and industrialized places on Earth.  Yet for many humans, birds are nearly invisible.  There are 574 recognized species in the UK (RSPB) and 810 in North America (Sibley), and I would venture most people would not recognize more than a few species.

2018 is the 100th anniversary of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and 2018 has been designated by National Geographic and the Audubon Society as the Year of the Bird.  Birds are a bellwether of our environment. Thomas Lovejoy, Biologist and founder of the idea of Biodiversity said “If you take care of the birds, you take care of most of the environmental problems of the world.”  Recent legislative changes in the US have served to once again put birds at risk, and the unchecked impacts of plastic pollution and climate change caused by humans is putting additional stress on bird populations.  Audubon research indicates 314 species are endangered due to climate change alone.

The focus of my work is intertwined with biology (ornithology specifically), ecology and the environment, and could conceivably contribute to discourse on the importance of preserving biodiversity and the impacts of human actions on it.  For me this represents a closing of the circle that began with my secondary school and undergraduate work as a biologist and ornithologist. 

Mrs. Williams paragraph about writers can equally apply to photographers.  Photos also carry weight and great photographers share that same aching desire for discovery with writers.  I am in this course in large measure to find my voice as a photographer, and to find a way to have my work merit being seen and “heard”, to matter.  Birds are still singing, but I fear too many people are not listening. I hope in finding my photographers voice, I will be able to use it to get a few more people to listen.

I grew up wanting to fly and I have had the privilege (albeit with some mechanical assistance) to experience the freedom of flight; to dive, to soar, to dance among the clouds and race across the treetops.  I have been a bird and wish everyone could know that joy.

I wrote the first post after watching and reading the module presentations from notes I made, but before I had read the Talis Reading list material.  Having now finished those I find my initial notions largely reinforced and am drawn to the conclusion that it is highly unlikely there is such a thing as a true “Global Image.”  While some photographs may have broader and therefore more global appeal than others is undeniable, but to paraphrase P.T. Barnum;  you can please some of the people some of the time, but you can not please all of the people all of the time.

I have the luxury in some regards of having 64 + years of life experience, and while as 20 ungraduated student I found it difficult to form and articulate my own opinions, I find no such difficulty now.  My diverse experiences as a scientist and biologist by education, a career Naval Officer and Naval Aviator by opportunity, an Aerospace Engineer and Program Manager almost by accident, a management consultant by choice, a world ranked internationally competitive amateur golfer by determination and love of the game, and lifelong passionate photographer by avocation have taught me many lessons.

Among the most important of those lessons is that there are very few absolutes in this world, and that the proper answer to nearly every question (certainly those questions of any weight) is “it depends.”  What does this have to do with “The Global Image” and my photography practice?  It seems to me while a photographer may have had an intention in capturing an image, it is quite possible those intentions may be missed in part or entirely by the consumers of the image and people in the middle of the consumption chain can entirely distort the original intention simply by where and how the image is published and around what it is portrayed. Once images leave our hands, we as photographers have little control over how they will viewed.  And so, it seems that the idea of a global image “depends” not only on the subject and the way in which it was captured, but in who is looking at it and where it is being viewed.  So as not to put too fine a point on it I offer an example in the extreme.  A photo of the internees of the Nazi Death Camps would be viewed as evidence of a horrific injustice and time in history by most people who possess even a modest amount of humanity.  However, put that identical photo on the wall of a White Nationalist meeting house and it likely is celebrated and viewed as evidence of a great period of dominance to which they would like to return.  Thus we find ourselves at the precipice of the proverbial slippery slope when we try to make objective judgements on a topic that is largely subjective.  Beauty or ugliness is ultimately inn the eye of the beholder.

What does this do to inform my own practice?  It is of course early days and I reserve the right to change my opinion as time goes on and I continue to learn more about myself and my craft as a photographer.  Nevertheless, I believe it will require that I approach my practice as I have come to approach the other aspects of my life.  I intend to pursue my practice, as much as possible, with kindness, consideration, compassion, and honesty about and for my subjects and my surroundings, and perhaps most importantly, that the results of my work please me technically and aesthetically.  If I am able to achieve these things I will consider my work a success, and if it happens that others derive some pleasure or useful information from my work it will be a bonus.

The following questions were posed at the end of the introductory presentation:

Do you see any parallels between the historic spread of photography and the transmission of digital imagery today ?  Can you think of any problems associated with the speed at which the photograph moves?

The French government’s licensing of the Daguerre Type, which facilitated its spread around the world, is somewhat analogous to the spread of mobile phones today.  Photography has become truly ubiquitous and virtually everyone in the world is a producer and consumer of photographic images.  We are inherently a visual species and, therefore, perhaps quite inclined to accept images not created by our own eyes as credible substitutes.  The internet, television and other mobile technologies which have proliferated around the world in a seemingly ever increasing pace provide a non-stop stream of visual imagery to all corners of the planet.

So while we may be inclined as a species to “believe” what our eyes see, the facts are not all photographic images tell the truth or at least the whole truth.  A snapshot of a mere fraction of a second may have no context or can be easily taken out of proper context, and can lead to grossly misleading conclusions.  Add to the modern dilemma our ability to digitally manipulate a photographic image and one could call into question the veracity of any photograph.  Like any technology, photography carries with it a spectrum of uses and abuses.  As consumers, we are called upon to be ever more discriminating under the onslaught of constant imagery, not all of which is being produced responsibly or ethically.  It is a powerful medium and perhaps more powerful now than it has ever been because of the speed and reach that digital transmission has permitted.