Looking and Seeing: Section Seven: Assignment: More Space

I've been focusing on space this week.  Besides setting my intention while out in the neighborhood, I've also taken to forums to seek feedback.  So far the response has been sparse:  one respondent noted a similar confusion.

I've also looked for additional text treatments on the subject (besides Karr and McQuade), but haven't yet found anything.  If anyone reading this knows of any, I would be grateful to hear from you.

I've gone back to review Karr's chapter and note these salient points:

A look at some "official" space images

McQuade and Hall admit that space is the most difficult concept to teach and the most difficult for students to grasp. Perhaps no one understands, but is afraid to say so.

Given the confusion, I thought it best to review some of the images published on Miksang sites run by authorized teachers.  If any images might offer a clue, it might be these.  

To the right is a screen shot from the Space gallery at Seeing Fresh, a website to promote Andy Karr's Contemplative Photography, a somewhat secularized copy of Miksang from a Miksang student.  The gallery features images submitted by students but selected by whoever runs the site, presumably Mr Karr or someone authorized by him.

Looking and Seeing: Section Seven: Assignment: Space

I went out with the intention of shooting space - and photographed a lot of stuff that wasn't.  I paused to synchronize, focusing on the breath, the air as it moved around me, the temperature, my posture.  After I calmed down and went looking, I found all kinds of interesting things, but little that might be space, Perhaps I was too concerned with shooting physical space - openings between things.  I think this is what happened in Japan the last time I did this exercise.  I came away with some interesting images, but not perhaps what Miksang instruction intends.

Looking and Seeing: Section Seven: Space and Dot in Space

Dragon Mart:  Space?

Miksang, speaks of space and dot in space. The art equivalents are negative and positive space.   This assignment begins with Space (negative space).

Space
Space is everywhere and nowhere.  The authors suggest that photographers work with visual space - not physical space.  This is an exercise in foregrounding the background.  It helps, they say, to try and put away common conceptions of space, namely: 1) space as what is between things, and 2) space as what surrounds things.  Both start with things and try to identify that which is not the thing.  Space is treated as something in relationship with things, or something that is not a thing.

However, despite their entreaties, it seems impossible to escape these conceptions.  Here’s how the author define the approach:

Contemplative Photography: Chapter 16: Seeing Space

“By its very nature, space is the most nonconceptual photographic intention we can work with because it is difficult to solidify or overlay ideas or associations.”

The stereotypical concept of space is sky, the vastness of the desert, the rolling breadth of oceans, the inky expanse of “outer” space.  There are of course other kinds of space:  that tiny gap between my car and the parking deck wall, the space between a child’s front teeth, the space between words.  There’s even a space bar on the keyboard.

A Google search reveals the following: