Contemplative Photography: Color Assignment 1

The work begins in Chapter 5 with a focus on color. The challenge is ignoring colorful objects, to avoid the process of labeling in order to concentrate on color.  

I did two walk-arounds on campus on two different days, one inside, one out, each about 45 minutes.  I did this during exam week when there were few students about, so it was easy to move slowly and look without being interrupted or worrying about being seen.  

I noticed that while color by itself may be visible, it is nearly impossible to photograph.  An image requires texture or form, and what most often makes a color attractive is contrast - one color against another.  

If you shoot nothing but color, you end up with color swatches.  

These and future images can be viewed in an album at Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/80283129@N03/albums/72157663263927130

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The Practice of Contemplative Photography: Beginning

Karr, A. and Wood, M. (2011). The practice of contemplative photography. Boston: Shambhala.

This book has been in my collection since about the time it was published in 2011.  I started doing some of the practices before signing up for the MA Buddhist Studies and the BA Photography.  The former is now all but finished and the latter has become less appealing and may be put on hold, if not abandoned entirely.  I would like to continue to develop photographically, and as the contemplative philosophy mirrors my current conception and practice, this seems like an avenue worth pursuit.  CP may also allow me to explore Buddhist connections to the visual arts, about which I have collected a good bit of reading material.  There is also the possibility of joining CP workshops and developing the practice through community practice.

But first things first.

Exercise 4: What is a photographer?

I had never heard of De Zayas until being assigned this essay.  It seems he was from a wealthy family, well educated, and capable of international travel in the early 20th century.  He first made a name for himself as an illustrator with a hugely popular exhibition of caricatures of NY’s glitterati.  The exhibit was held at Stieglitz’s gallery 291, which resulted in the two men forming a close relationship, with De Zayas subsequently scouting talent in Paris and establishing a career as an art critic and NY gallery owner.  Geoff Dyer could have been writing of De Zayas when he said of himself:  “not taking photographs is a condition of writing about them.”

This essay was composed in 1913 during a two-year stay in NY that saw De Zayas produce his last major piece of illustration.  He had only a couple of years previous published the first interview with Pablo Picasso, whom he had met in Paris, and whose work is referenced in the work under review here.  For an essay on art, it’s not entirely opaque.  It feels like a part of a larger conversation to which we are not a part and therefore requires a bit more attention than a piece written for a general audience.