Filled Up (part 2): New Brunswick

About a month after my Iceland trip, we took a car trip through upstate NY and into Quebec Canada. I had been shooting fall foliage for the first week and I hate to admit I was growing bored with all the beautiful colors. So I was happy to drop my travelling companions (wife and friends) at the airport in Fredericton, NB and head off to a week-long workshop in St Martins. It was exactly this growing ennui that had driven me to the workshop: I wanted to "get in touch" with what I was trying to "say" with my photographs. I wanted to see if I could learn to avoid triviality and cliche, boredom. Is an (my) image truly worth a thousand words?

Parking my rental car outside the St Martins Country Inn, I took a deep breath and realized I was a little bit anxious as to what I should expect. Checked in, I took a short tour, found a lunch spot, then returned for a nap before taking an early-afternoon stroll through the small harbor located on the Bay of Fundy; renowned for its extreme tides, nearly every boat was aground on the mud flats! To me, it felt like a metaphor. I guess this tells you what sort of mood I was in!

About a dozen other participants had arrived by the time I'd returned to the Inn. One of our teachers, Freeman Patterson, had everyone introduce themselves and I started to realize that they, too, were searching for some of the same things I was. With a fine dinner and a few glasses of wine, the group began to bond. Good people!

Our second teacher, Andre Gallant, arrived the next morning and we received our first assignment at a nearby farm to shoot and experiment. One of the things Freeman said struck me as fresh, especially because it concerned trying to get in touch with what I was feeling at the time I pressed the shutter. He urged me to "play" by trying what is called In Camera Motion or ICM. I must say I thought it not a little odd and I was perplexed at how to begin. Without going into technical details, he coaxed me into avoiding strict adherence to a sharp, focused approach by creating motion with movement of the camera at the time of exposure; to move like I felt. Talk about breaking the rules! I confessed to Freeman that I had grown bored with shooting an endless series of autumn images, however colorful and sharp they might have been and this was at least an interesting change of pace. Little did I realize, it was just the beginning. One of my early efforts, Trees by the Side of the Road.

Trees by the Side of the Road

Nikon D850, Nikkor 80-400 zoom @ 80 mm, 1/8 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200

Note slow shutter speed 

The more I played with ICM, the more I found myself connecting differently with my subjects. Even with the conventional technique, there was something subtly different. This experimentation continued throughout the week. Each morning, we'd have a shooting assignment followed by a few hours of editing. In the late afternoon, we'd present to the group a small selection of our own shots for the day. Freeman and Andre provided excellent commentary and as the group grew closer, good questions and observations began to emerge. My fellow photographers were really, really good! Having been in the same place, seeing the same things, I was learning not only how the same subject could be seen and captured differently, but also how each photographer's subjective visual interpretation created entirely different feelings... inside me. I think this was a significant insight, but I also discovered something else, perhaps even more important. Breaking the rules could be fun! And as we learned from each other, it became creatively invigorating! I will tell you, however, it is harder than it looks, especially with respect to composition. Thank goodness "film" is cheap!

Nevertheless, discovering the freedom to experiment with what and how images are captured has opened some new horizons for me. Quantum Tree is a second example of yet another form of ICM and  somewhat symbolic of my recent fascination with physics. Perhaps more on that at another time!

Quantum Tree

Thanks to Lynn Fulton for inspiration

I guess what is important with these experiments is that Freeman and Andre opened my mind to the concept that creative play can help me get at the why of things. Having been consumed as a scientist for almost forty years with what reality is, I am finding that why things are the way they are is equally important. I'm not saying the "what" is unimportant, just that it is no substitute for the "why."

As the week went on, I found it intriguing that Freeman linked creativity and playing. Even in the absence of feeling creative or the desire for creativity, playing could free me from boredom, blocked flow, lack of vision and could lead me to discovering the "why" of what I wanted to "say" with a particular image; playing could help me find those thousand words! Many miles to go before I sleep and maybe I'm over-thinking, but I believe I am on the right path, perhaps even a road less traveled.

One last thought, actually a penultimate one: Why would playing put me in touch with the creator within? Children play, not serious photographers! We have rules about how things are supposed to be, rules that organize, dare I say filter, the universe around us into a manageable framework and therein we lose the opportunity for discovery, no more childish what if, no more why. Silly children. Whither our sense of wonder? Again, not saying structure is unimportant, but it is not the thing itself any more than your body and all its parts is you. You are much more than the sum of your parts. You are, in fact, wonder-full; all creation is.

Although it's taken me a long-winded effort to get to what I'm getting at, I think I've finally arrived, for now. Perhaps it is this sense of wonder that I seek to convey in my photographs. Freeman calls this quality a sense of ultimate concern in his thesis* for the Master of Divinity degree at Union Theological Seminary. At least I think this is what he is saying; I'll have to ask him! It is more than avoiding triviality, cliche, and insignificance; these are qualities of negativity rather than affirmations of wonder, ultimate concern if you will, and I think all else good flows from that. A bit tentative about this hypothesis, I am attending a repeat workshop this Fall to see if I can confirm my intuition. At the very least, conveying a sense of wonder provides a measure by which to judge the degree of success of a photograph.

One truly last thought: Lest you think I only played during the workshop, I have included some conventional photographs of the beautifully colored autumn scenes in Quebec and New Brunswick. Enjoy, and may you experience some sense of wonder, even something of ultimate concern.

*Still Photography as a Medium for Religious Expression, an interesting subject for a master's degree or any thesis for that matter, truly a mark of genius

Autumn Quintessence

St Martins Beach Rocks

Perfectly Placed by an Unseen Hand

Autumn