Vision, Courage, Persistence

Photographs in the show can be seen on my website by clicking here.

For those of you unable to attend the reception at the Spencer Eccles Health Sciences Library yesterday (Thu 9/26/13), I was asked to give a short talk about my photographic journey. The text of my remarks follows if you're interested:

Vision, Courage, Persistence

Many years ago, I became enthralled with photography. Perhaps it was the encouragement of my father. Perhaps it was transmitted to me from my mother who was an artist. Perhaps it was fascination with the work of Ansel Adams. Maybe, and more likely, it was a matrix of all of these factors and many, many others that combined to feed my fascination with photography. And so, I began to learn: First in a high school photography course where I learned the basics of darkroom chemistry. Then in my own darkroom under the stairs of our rented house with equipment that I could only beg, borrow, or steal, though my father gave me my first camera, a Mamiya 500TL SLR, and my first enlarger, a Durst M300. Funny how I remember these things from 50 or so years ago. I reached the apex of my “professional” photographic career as Sports Editor for our high school yearbook and during which time I could indulge myself with endless supplies of film, chemicals, and paper. At one point, my vision of my future, some might call it a dream, was as a professional photographer. Sadly, part of growing up is considered by many to involve the inexorable realization that our dreams, our vision, can be extraordinarily elusive. Ephemeral. Even unrealizable. The prophet Isaiah has written, "Without a vision, the people perish." Vision is essential to life.

Reality intervenes, sometimes uncomfortably. Late in high school, I got to the point where I could not go into the darkroom and avoid severe bouts of allergic unpleasantness. There was nothing to be done but to give up the darkroom and even photography as I couldn't afford to send film to a lab for development and printing. Besides this would have removed half the fun! Fortunately, I was facing the prospects of college and what to do with the rest of my life, so I spent 40 plus years developing my career in biomedical science and transplantation. My vision changed. Many times along the way, I pondered whether I had made a good decision, whether I was having an impact, whether I was performing at my best. There were many "Dark nights of the soul" along the way. But I persisted and, looking back, it was a good decision having sustained me and my family, put four kids through college (at least part-way!), paid the mortgage, and provided for retirement.

But I never forgot photography. Of course, over that time, photography changed. Film was eventually replaced almost completely by digital sensors. The darkroom evolved into a computer program, Photoshop. And the enlarger and photographic paper have been replaced by inkjet printers that can produce incredible images on paper, glass, and even metal. My dad had continued to develop his own photographic talent and I followed his growth intently over the years. I forget the reason, maybe I'd finally reached the point where my career failed to consume every waking moment of my time and interest, but he suggested I look at a digital camera, "Things have come a long way," he said. And the rest is, as they say, history. First, you cannot have a digital camera without also getting software capable of decoding the image, that is, unless you only want to take your memory card out and have it printed at Costco. In for a penny, in for a pound, I began to rediscover photography in the digital world. I began to grapple with the complexity of the digital darkroom. And along the way, I fell in love again with photography. Rather, I should say I rediscovered a long-lost love. Shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and composition to be sure, but there was also this huge technology to understand and conquer. The artist in me embraced photography, the scientist in me embraced the technology and therein, my vision began to change again.

When I am "taken" by a photograph, as Ernst Haas and Vincent Versace would say, in order to record it, two processes inexorably follow: First, it has to be captured competently. Second, it must be rendered aesthetically pleasing, or at least it must satisfy my sense of aesthetic. I have come to appreciate that aesthetic senses are like noses, everyone has one! One man's garbage is another man's treasure. No one person sees anything exactly the same as another. The color red, for example, is a convention; none of us perceives the color red exactly the same. None of us sees a sunset with exactly the same subjective sense as another. None of us perceives a situation with exactly the same appreciation of facts, relationship, nuance, conclusion. To me, this is the beginning of trying to understand vision. Vision is part of that unique something that each see-er, listen-er, smell-er, tast-er, feel-er experiences, processes, and interprets, whether they choose to share it, or not. Whether they are aware of it, or not. For me, photographic vision involves trying to see and understand fascination with what and why a particular set of colors, contrasts, geometric form and a host of other characteristics grab my attention enough to press the shutter release. It is a journey, and even though subjective, it is real. And simply because it is unique, it is precious and it should be shared. Vision is, perhaps, a "language" through which we can achieve some common sense of experience.

But what if you don't like my vision? What if I don't like your vision? In the marketplace of convention, different visions are sorted and weighed. Those most universal are said to be "good" and the rest merely interesting, common, vulgar, or even "bad." So, what would happen if nobody shared their vision due to the risk of being relegated to these other categories? Worse, ignored? What if they don't like me? What if I'm no good? What if they laugh at me? What if they run me out of town? Courage. What if, what if, what if. Without the courage to share your vision, it can never enter the marketplace of incredible talent that exists; it can never "touch" your neighbor. It can never be shared. What would the world be like if nobody had the courage to share their vision? What is your vision? Do you have the courage to share it?

I can guarantee, that the first time you share your vision, it will be rejected. Your first attempts at creating art, will be crude, your ideas roughly formulated. There is a technology for sharing: reading, writing, arithmetic, art, music, performance, etc; most of all, practice. It could be argued that art, crudley done (ie, with poor technology), bad grammar, faulty logic, sloppy attention to detail, laziness, lack of focus, etcetera, will be quickly relegated to the dust bin. It behooves the artist to understand and use his technology with sophistication and aplomb to be sure, but despite vision and the courage to share, rejection is likely, success never comes easily. What's worth doing is worth doing well. What's worth doing is worth persisting to get it right. Overnight successes are extremely rare and even rarer that they stand the test of time. Even with the best of visions and unfailing courage, without persistence, success is merely a fantasy. Never, never, never, give up.

Vision. Courage. Persistence. You may not like my images shared here in the Spencer Eccles Health Sciences Library. I can tell you that I face that fear daily and, even so, I will continue to perfect my craft, my seeing, my expression, my articulationof my vision. Why am I telling you this? As you've probably guessed, this is not only about art, not only about a senescing professor striving for an alternative vision of his own future. It is about life; your life. Your career. Your profession. Your love. Your family. Your art. Whatever it may be, pursue it with passion and courage. Strive to master the technology that surrounds you, not to is to settle for mediocrity. But most of all, bring your visionto bear and leave the world a little better place for your having shared.

I will leave you with a thought from someone who has taught me much, though I have never met him. He has had a very successful career as a professional photographer (you can find some of his work at www.roma57.com) and now engages in very enlightening discussions on a website I started frequenting earlier this year: Luminous-Landscape.com. It is stimulating and challenging to dialogue with this bunch of curmudgeonly gentlemen about wide ranging subjects from technique to creativity to critiques of specific photographs. Check it out. This is from Rob Campbell who waxes quite elegantly philosophical and whom I quote with permission: Where the problem lies is in the concept that photographic art can be taught. Unfortunately, all that can be taught is technique and how-to. You can't teach people vision nor can you teach them how to think in a creative manner: that is spiritual - your spirituality.

I think he’s hit the nail on the head. And it’s not just about photography; insert medicine, teaching, science, research, whatever; but realize that artcomes from inside you, the rest is merely technology.