Motivation

...now browsing by category

 

Acts of submission

Saturday, February 18th, 2017

“‘The land was ours before we were the land’s,’ says Robert Frost’s poem. Only in the act of submission is the sense of place realized and a sustainable relationship between people and earth established.” – Wallace Stegner

Stegner was probably one of the West’s most influential writers; he seemed to be deeply in tune with the mettle it took for early pioneers to build a life in the West, and the challenges today’s inhabitants face, both from an environmental and geopolitical viewpoint. He’s one of my favorite writers, and his commentary is sorely missed.

He would have been 108 years old today.

photo of a bristlecone pine and currant mountain at sunrise

Understanding the Why, part 2

Monday, June 9th, 2014

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about why I make images.  What’s my motivation to get up at unreasonable hours, explore dusty dirt roads that haven’t been touched in years, or hike for hours in the sun only to never take my camera out?  The answers–of course–transcend photography, but I have been able to identify some discrete reasons why I make images.  You can read part 1 (perspective) here.

Part 2: Beauty

“There is beauty, heartbreaking beauty, everywhere.” — Edward Abbey


In my last post, I wrote about how photography–and being in nature–helps me to gain perspective.  Indeed it does.  However, by being outside often I’ve also been able to see many beautiful scenes in nature.  I’ve often joked with friends that I’ll never take them anywhere ugly for vacation, which as far as I know is a true statement.  “Beauty,” to the photographer, however is two-fold.

The first way to look at beauty is very simple: nature is beautiful.  My hope is that every single person has had an experience in the outdoors that has stopped them in their tracks and has moved them to the point where they are speechless.  During these moments when words aren’t sufficient, we stand in awe of the scene before us.  It is a heartbreaking, gut-wrenching awe that is at the same time more satisfying and more tortuous than anything we’ve experienced.  Satisfying because there’s no place on earth we’d rather be in that moment, tortuous because we know we can’t experience that euphoria forever.

There are times in life when words aren’t necessary.  For most of us, trying to put words to these moments wouldn’t do them justice, and might even scare them away.  As a photographer, I try to make images that convey my sense of awe, knowing that as my capacity to feel awe increases, so does my reverence of the natural world.

My worry is that these euphoric moments are becoming rarer and all too fleeting in our society.  I recently read an article in the American Scientist by Louis Chianese that asks a simple question: Is nature photography too beautiful?  His main idea is that by presenting only glossy and polished nature imagery, photographers are “masking” the plight of our planet, and by subduing our processing, we can bring our photography more in line with the current state of ecological affairs.  To me, his question asks whether artists have a social responsibility to accurately portray a scene.  This has been discussed many times, and I won’t go into it here, except to say that it’s more important to me to protect those moments where I–where we–stand in awe of nature, because they’re equally as endangered (even if they’re less tangible).  This is where beauty and perspective go hand in hand:

If we lose our capacity for awe, we will forget who we are, and where we came from.

The High Sierra, Sequoia National Park

The second way to think about beauty is that we don’t have to go places to experience it.  Sure, that upcoming vacation to ____________ is something we all look forward to, but when you stop and look around you, you realize that beauty really is all around you.  In that sense, we have a good insurance policy on those awe-inspiring moments because they’re free and in abundance if we take the time to seek them out.  Photography helps me to “see” the world in new ways, and appreciate the inherent beauty in nature.

If we can all aspire to find a way to appreciate the natural world, whether by our art or other actions, we might be better off–kinder, gentler.  How do you appreciate the beauty that surrounds you?  Do you think nature photography is too beautiful?

Moss-covered trees, abstract

Understanding the Why, part 1

Thursday, May 29th, 2014

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about why I make images.  What’s my motivation to get up at unreasonable hours, explore dusty dirt roads that haven’t been touched in years, or hike for hours in the sun only to never take my camera out?  The answers–of course–transcend photography, but I have been able to identify some discrete reasons why I make images.  You can read part 2 (beauty) here.

Part 1: Perspective

“Good and evil do not exist in Nature.” — Spinoza


So far this year, I’ve landed in Sequoia National Park a couple of times.  I didn’t really plan it this way, it just happened.  Most people associate the park with its namesake giant trees, which are truly impressive.  However, Sequoia’s backcountry is equally awe-inspiring; not only can you find the world’s largest trees here, but also the highest point in the contiguous United States.  They’re just a short 72.2 mile hike from one another (a day hike for some–Leor Pantilat ran the High Sierra trail in just under 16 hours in 2012).

Foggy Giant Forest

Whether you choose to focus on the forest or the trees, Sequoia’s landscape is big.  On my second trip to the park recently, I was on a solo backpack via the Golden Trout Wilderness. While the scenery here isn’t as well known as some other iconic Sierra locales, the views of the Kahweahs, Chagoopa Plateau, and Great Western Divide are impressive, and the scale of the landscape quickly becomes apparent.  While slightly less well-known, the landscape is still rugged.  In late May at 11,000′, the temperatures were still chilly and snow flurries reminded me winter might not be willing to loosen its grip quite yet.

Although rugged, I’m hesitant to say that the landscape is unforgiving because it simply can’t be.  It’s unresponsive.  That’s, I think, why I came here.   As Gretel Ehrlich wrote, I needed to be steadied by its indifference.  So much of the time, our burdens in life feel very big.  However in the grand scheme of things, things are really very different and those big problems maybe aren’t quite as insurmountable after all.  Standing in the Sierra or any landscape, I’m reminded of my smallness–my place–in the world.

Paraphrasing Muir, going out is really going in, and there’s a unique comfort to be found in a visiting a place that simply just is.

I make images in places like this to regain my perspective, to remember that I’m part of something bigger.  This isn’t to say that my worries and cares are diminished, but that’s the challenge:  can we not make something more than it is, while at the same time not make it less than it was?  Can the images we create answer this challenge?  Can photography become a practice in self-awareness and in helping us to gain perspective?

After The Storm