Category Archives: Photography, Reflections

A Need to Know

Near Cachoiera. Bahia, Brasil.

Over the years there have been several elements that have consistently played important roles in how my life and my art have unfolded. I grew up immersed in art; my parents took me to museums and encouraged me to be creative – to use my hands by drawing, building, and photographing. Unwittingly, they also taught me to enjoy solitude. Beyond this though, throughout my university pursuit in the visual arts and to this day, I have always craved movement and change (I moved sixteen times in twenty-two years). I have also always felt strongly compelled to learn about and understand other people and cultures – so much so that as a teenager I considered anthropology as a career.

Once I settled into nesting by making my home with Steve, while continuing to dabble in art, the urge to address all of these interests led to my leaving my all-consuming day job as an archivist and setting out to travel on my own for several months. If I hadn’t done so I would not have realized that travel and photography are my true passions.

I have come to understand that both these pursuits have everything to do with the need to know. When I travel, I am completely open to discovery. I want not just to set foot in other lands but to become a part of them, however briefly. I want to see and experience that which is different about other cultures and, dispelling all assumptions, learn about what we all have in common.

Cachoeira, Bahia, Brasil.

In her New Yorker article this past July, Loneliness Belongs to the Photographer, Hanya Yanagihara wrote:

…the person with the camera is not hiding but receding. She is willfully removing herself from the slipstream of life; she is making herself into a constant witness, someone who lives to see the lives of others… the photographer moves through the world, our world, hoping for anonymity, hoping she is able to humble herself enough to see and record what the rest of us—in our noisy perambulations, in our requests to be heard—are too present to our own selves to ever see. To practice this art requires first a commitment to self-erasure…

…The annals of photography contain many extraordinary portraits, but the ones we linger on longest achieve something exceptional: they suggest that in the microsecond it takes for the shutter to blink, some communion has been found, that an unseen life has become a seen one, that attention has been paid, that an act of witness has been accomplished. They remind us how much we want to be seen, and also how infrequently we practice the skill of seeing others. But if there is a cure for the invisibility of loneliness, it is this. It is why, depending on who you are, that click of the camera’s shutter is a sound that evokes either anxiety or relief. Click: I see you. Click: I see you. Click: I see you. You are not alone.

The camera is the instrument through which I observe, discover, and learn as I travel. Although I am behind it, it connects me to others at the same time. It starts the conversation – be it through simple eye contact with the person I am photographing or, sometimes, a profound sense that the person I am photographing understands she has my complete attention and respect. It is when I travel and photograph that I can truly see.

Near Cachoeria, Bahia, Brasil.

I am attentive to my environment; I am constantly framing moments in my mind’s eye as it sweeps the landscape around me. I try to capture the feel of things with my photographs – of people, of spaces, and of objects. Although I have begun to work on photographic projects in the last year, my pictures are first and foremost about the subject in each individual image and about the impression it made on me. I work toward getting at what lies beneath the surface. Through photography I collect experiences, remember, learn, and share what I have felt and seen. To quote Yanagihara again, “The lens may distance the photographer from the rest of humanity, but with that distance comes an enhanced ability to see what is overlooked.” I would also venture to say that wandering with my camera brings this photographer closer to intimate exchanges and humanity. It is my propensity for travelling alone that, perhaps ironically, enables this.

Quilombo near Cachoeira. Bahia, Brasil.

Breathless Without You

The Nature of the Place

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Big Cypress Preserve, Florida, U.S.

In a post from August 10, 2015 I wrote,

I have never considered landscape photography something I “do” nor a genre in which I am seriously interested. Yet, as I review my images of the last few years, I notice that I have taken my fair share of landscape photographs. Apparently, not only do I like “being” in the natural world, I like taking pictures of it from time to time. Looking through Ewing’s book, and other photography books I have, it is evident that the groundwork for landscape photography is as varied as the world itself and that imagery of landscape includes all forms of the man-made. Sometimes, my photographs are devoid of human figures but they are, nonetheless, often pregnant with human presence.

The first three months of this year I was in Florida – a place I do not much care for unless I am in its natural environment. At the end of my stay, there, I had the opportunity to spend time in Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park. I have been to the Everglades multiple times and adore it but never have I visited Big Cypress. The few days were terrific and resulted in driving to various hiking spots. Perhaps because I recently inherited the book Landscape (part of The Library of World Photography series), from my father, I have been looking at more landscape photography than usual – much of it in black and white. Not coincidentally (perhaps), I could not help but feel in my heart that this part of Florida was meant to be seen in black and white and elusively; this sentiment was abstract but strong as I was engulfed in the terrain and had the opportunity to meditatively reflect on this ecosystem. Unlike many other landscape images in my repertoire, the following are pictures from an environment seemingly devoid of human touch.

Big Cypress Preserve, Florida, U.S.

Everglades National Park, Florida, U.S.

Big Cypress Preserve, Florida, U.S.

Working Music

Picture my Parents

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At the Beach

I usually photograph people who are strangers, and in places away from home. I take photographs of friends and family only from time to time. But since I photograph that which touches me – and of course friends and family do exactly this – it may be time to consider photographing the people I love, more often.

Almost four weeks ago I arrived in Florida to spend 2.5 months with my parents – specifically to help my mum take care of my dad and to help her around the house. She turns 87 tomorrow; as will my father, in six months. I have written about them in my blog before. Since we live far apart (I live in the Boston area and my parents live in Canada), every time I see them I realize how they have aged. It is strange, almost surreal, to be taking care of someone who once was your care-taker. Doing just that, this year and last, has made my admiration and love for them change and grow.

It was about ten years ago that my mum noticed small, subtle changes in my dad’s behaviour – short-term memory loss and moments of confusion. He continued to decline in slow intervals. Even though he has never been diagnosed, based on the various dementia descriptions on the Mayo Clinic and NIH sites, my sister, mum, and I have figured out that he has had multiple “mini” strokes (confirmed by his doctor) and (probably) has vascular dementia. No matter, it gave us comfort to put a name to what was/is going on with his memory. His decline is slow but steady. There are physical changes, and loss of the interests and personality he once had.

At the Pool

My mum suffers the most from this situation, although she will deny this. It is not unusual to hear that the caregiver is the one who fails in a more critical way because of stress. I have seen my mum age quickly and her friends have made note of this, too. It is all due to her hard work and great worries this past decade. Day in and day out she spends her time loving, ministering to, and monitoring my dad. This wears her down far more than she is willing to admit.

Living with them in Florida is my little way of giving my mother a breather and enabling them to escape the snow, ice, and frigid temperatures of Montreal (it is also a way to give my sister a break – she is the one who is there for them the rest of the year – and for that I am truly grateful). I drive them around and do whatever I can. Most of my time is spent with my dad. I don’t dress or shave him (he is still capable of doing both although he needs a little help at times), but I look after his mental well-being. This helps structure his life so that he does not constantly sleep or binge-eat – as is his wont. When we play scrabble, somehow his mind is fairly clear; this is the one intellectual activity that still really works for him. When we’re together, we play five, six, seven games a day.

Game of Scrabble

After three weeks of this I must say that I am exhausted each night. With this experience, I worry even more about my mum – much more than I worry about my dad who, with good and bad days, remains in good humour despite awareness of his own disconnectedness and decline (which he pokes fun at).

My mum is a fiercely independent woman. She makes sure that I (and my sister who lives in Montreal) respect her independence while we remain supportive and ready to help her manage. My mother is a strong and intelligent woman; she’s also sad, angry, nervous, and stressed. She’s angry with herself, angry with my dad, and angry with aging, to a certain extent. But she still laughs because my dad can still make her do so. She is in pretty good shape and her head is “mostly working” (as she likes to say). My father, in his simplified condition, has faced aging differently. He goes with the flow and is content to be alive. He has always embraced life and is mostly good humoured. When he is not, it is largely due to his illness and in reaction to being pushed to do something he does not want to do.

Reading

I am very aware that I am still an intruder, of sorts, in their lives, and that taking pictures of them makes me more of one. But with these photographs I hope that I am able to capture my parents and their relationship with one another.

The three of us live under the same small roof 24 hours a day. The photographs I have taken of them in the last few years are not many – partially because my mother does not want to be the center of attention. But! I realize it is critical to capture them before they are lost to me, before this chapter of our lives together ends. I am fortunate to have this period with my parents – seeing them love and care for each other or even get frustrated with one another. For me, it is all about watching their changing relationship and appreciating that as well as valuing my relationship with them.

Addendum: Out of respect to my mum (per her request), I have aborted this project.

At the Pool

On Photographing People

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Kunming, Yunnan Province, China

As some of you know, over the last year I have taken several photography workshops to help me get beyond my self-taught, working-on-my-own, vacuum. One of the (many) things I‘ve discovered while at these workshops is that some people have a fear of approaching and photographing strangers. During my travels I realised that this is certainly not one of my issues. I take complete pleasure in going up to people and striking up conversations. Some of my images are informal street photographs but many are straight “portraits,” taken after asking permission or at least having been acknowledged by the subject. The latter approach is my preferred way of working.

I believe that I reach out to strangers with humility, curiosity, and openness. I have no qualms about asking someone who captures my interest if I may photograph her. I tend to spend a little time chatting with the person as s/he becomes more comfortable with the idea of being photographed. This actually makes the interaction more congenial and collaborative which is how I like it. There are those who say no but then, of course, there are those who simply say yes and allow me to shoot away, without particularly wanting to chat.

Bahia, Brasil

My inclination when taking these portraits is to get very close to the person. I have an M43 camera and utilize the 24mm and 90 mm full frame lens equivalents. The first enables me to get close to my subjects yet shows them in the context of their surroundings. The second lens lets me get wholly closer. The 24mm lens facilitates a story (should the viewer want to read one) because it is a wide one; there is no need to step back to get the background and diminish the subject while doing so. I believe that by getting closer to the person I create a more powerful image.

Camden, Maine, U.S.

Kunming, Yunnan Province, China

As I spend time with my subjects I try my best to follow these simple rules of my own making: be honest and direct with people, and always be respectful. By doing this I am being true to myself and feel I am inching a little closer to the emotional lives of the people I photograph.