On Seeing

What Bruce Lee Can Teach You About Photography

What You Can Learn About Photography From Bruce Lee

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If Bruce Lee had been alive today, and had he visited many of the several groups and pages(thankfully, not all!)  dedicated to Photography on Facebook, he’d have killed himself.

 

 

But before that he’d have shaken his head  in dismay and repeated those immortal words of his; words that go:

In memory of a once fluid man, crammed and distorted by this classical mess”

Lee felt (and rightly so!) that human beings possess an innate ability to defend themselves, and that the role of training in the martial arts was simply to better it. What he observed, however, was what he termed “a Classical Mess” ; an over-emphasis on styles, technique, kata (form or a set of movements), rules, and methods. These led to an ossification – a literal stagnation – in not only the martial arts themselves but also in the ability of practitioners to effectively deal with self-defence situations. This “Classical Mess” blunted the proverbial edge, rather than sharpening it. The “Classical Mess” – or rather, those who adhered to it and failed to see beyond it – led to an enslavement; it took away from a  practitioner the freedom to truly express themselves in the moment. It made slaves of people.

 

Bruce summed up this phenomenon – and those afflicted by it – as  “A Once Fluid Man, Crammed and Distorted by this Classical Mess”.

 

Now you may wonder what this has to with Photography. As I said I’m there on Facebook, browsing through these groups. And mentally repeatedly stabbing myself in the chest with a knife. A whole bloody eighty plus percent of the posts (or, replies to the original post) are about the camera, related gear, exposure and EXIF details, techniques, rules, post-processing techniques… essentially ONE BIG CLASSICAL MESS!

 

It makes me want to puke. I suspect Bruce would have felt the same way.

 

The fact is this: Each and every one of those individuals crammed and distorted by the classical mess (of the camera, gear, exposure and EXIF details, techniques, rules etc.) was a once fluid individual. As were you.

 

We all were. As children.

 

Think of how fascinating and so-full-of-things-waiting-to-be-discovered everything around you was. Everything was fresh and new, worthy of exploration. And think back of how effortlessly you expressed it by drawing things with pencil and paper…

 

And you lost your ability to effectively express yourself.

 

Blame it in no small measure on the classical mess that crammed and distorted us as part of growing up. Because that’s exactly what happened.

 

And then something that could have changed the lives of all those who’d  happened: you bought a camera. It really could have been a life-changing experience; to quote Dorthea Lange, “The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”

 

It really could have been a game-changer,  akin to giving a child pencil and paper so it can express its impressions of the world around it. Literally, for that is exactly what a camera is – a tool to help you express your impressions of the world around you. But…

 

Rather than pay attention to the world around oneself, one instead chose to pay more attention to the width of the pencil, the whiteness of the paper, the eraser, how sharp and pointy the pencil is, etc. Sounds ridiculous? It is, ain’t it? But that’s exactly what eighty percent of those posts I talked about earlier are dealing with. Camera, gear, focal length, exposure,  EXIF, technique…. all that is the bloody pencil and paper; you’ve made that the focus rather than the world around you!

It’s (camera , technique etc.)…only a means to an end, a method which is indispensable to my work. There lies the sum total of my interest in it. Getting hooked on technicalities is the way to get lost. It’s a pitfall to be avoided, and a major problem with amateur photographers who believe technique does it all. You can take a superb picture without any technique to speak of, whereas highly technical photographers are rarely relevant if ever.” ~ Yann Arthrus Bertrand


You could just sum it up as  “A Once Fluid Man, Crammed and Distorted by that Classical Mess” that is the camera, gear, EXIF, technique etc.

By this time, it’s quite likely that what I’ve said so far may have gotten quite a few (of the 80% fame) folks’ backs up, and that they’re probably going “WTF?! Yes, I do pay a lot of attention to the camera, gear, exposure, technique, and EXIF. But that doesn’t mean I’m crammed and distorted! I am looking at the world around me, AND BY GOD, I AM EXPRESSING MYSELF!!!”

Are they? Expressing themselves? I don’t think they are, at least from what I see of their images. What I see is not original vision. What I see is not Composition. What I see are mere copies of what people saw before them – the same things, shot in the same way, composed along similar lines.

I don’t see True Composition which is the Strongest Way Of Seeing. What I see are mere copies of Compositions. What I see is not true self-expression, what I see is the visual equivalent of mouthing what someone else has expressed before.

And I’m not surprised. It’s just another offshoot of that Classical Mess; this one goes under the names “The Rule of Thirds” & “The Golden Ratio”. Another manifestation of this self-defeating Classical Mess is the tendency to follow in the footsteps of those who’ve gone before (which isn’t a bad thing in itself when you’re starting off), but failing to strike off on your own path subsequently. Translate that as “Oh, I’m inspired by Steve McCurry’s style so I’ll shoot like Steve McCurry!”

Of course, one has no idea of what really drives Steve McCurry (or anyone else one chooses to emulate), so all one ends up with are often unsuccessful copies of work that try to look like  Steve McCurry’s.

Where’s the Self-expression? Sorry, but I don’t see much of it.

Bruce had several things to say about “Self-expression”,  one of them being:

“Unless you overcome [the tendency to adhere to] style, method, or technique, you will never be able to truly express yourself. If you’re stuck on style, you’re expressing that style. If stuck on method or technique, you can only express that method or technique. But that is not self-expression; true self-expression is to have No Style as Style.”

 

Another hindrance to effective self-expression is the desire to impress others. And while the need to be appreciated is a very fundamental human desire, it’s beeing taken to ridiculous lengths on social media. The “I’ll like your picture and I’ll follow you in the hope that you’ll like my picture and you’ll follow me back” thingie that we see on so many photography groups, forums and platforms such as Instagram is but a manifestation of this. And it really does hamper self-expression no end. Bruce summed it up in the first 42 seconds of this video interview of his…

 

At this stage, you’re probably wondering how one can go about “Honestly expressing themselves”? And, just what is this thing called “Self-expression”? Bruce had this to say regarding the first question:

Always be yourself; express yourself; have faith in yourself. When I look around, I always learn something and that is to be always yourself, and to express yourself, to have faith in yourself. Do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it. Start from the very root of your being, which is “how can I be me?”


There you go again, that emphasis on “Self”. How does one honestly express oneself? How can you be You? By not attempting to ad nauseam duplicate a successful personality, technique, method or style! How can you be You? By stopping to try to impress others! How can you be You? By believing in yourself more than the camera or technique or style or whatever…


Unfortunately, the general drift of that 80%  of posts I spoke of earlier indicates that the camera is everything. Self is nothing. People are oh-so-confident of the camera. And oh-so-lacking in confidence in themselves, in the role they play in the image making process. At best, their idea of the role they play is limited to their choice of Exposure.


What a Bloody Classical Mess!

 

Fast forward to 1:00 in the above video and you find Bruce saying “You have to become one with the punch“.  Repeat, “You have to become one with the punch.” Extrapolate that to the camera and it reads “You have to become one with the camera“.   I take it even further in my Art of Seeing Photography Workshop where I say that “You, your gear, and the object of perception — all these have to become One” — more on that later, but for now I’ll say this: If you have no idea, no clue of Your Role, where you as an individual stand (not physically!) in the image making process, if you put the camera above yourself, how on earth do you expect to effectively express yourself?


The question remains: What do we mean when we use the term “My Self”, and how can I express myself? I’ll answer that in just a minute, but before that a two-minute clip from Bruce Lee’s Enter The Dragon… trust me, it’s related! Or maybe, it’s the same thing!

 

For those who missed the movie, the above clip from Enter The Dragon has Bruce excusing himself from a Mr. Braithwaite who’s come a calling to seek Lee’s help in busting what the British Government in Hogkong suspects to be a drug-running operation by a certain Mr. Han. At this point Lee excuses himself to attend to his student who’s just arrived. The clip above shows the exchange between Lee and his student.

One thing I find highly pertinent here is the section between 0:20 and 0:30 in this clip. Put simply…

We need Emotional Content!"

 
That, and the exchange between 1:00 and 1:27 that goes as follows…

Lee: “How did it feel to you?”

Student: “Let me think…”

Lee: “Don’t think! Feel…”

 

It’s now that we can talk about that elusive “Self” and “Self-expression!” Bruce mentions these terms, but does little to elaborate further on their nature, and how they are connected with the Martial Arts. Or any Art for that matter. And remember, Photography is an Art. What I’m gonna do hence is shed some light on this topic from my Art of Seeing Workshop.

 

I’m not going to go into the philosophical aspects of the term “Self” here. Rather, I’m going to deal with it in terms of plain psychology. And I’m going to do it using the simplest terms and examples possible.

 

You. Who are you? Or rather, what is your idea of who you are? No, I’m not looking for the “I am a human being”, or, “I’m male / female, my name is so-and-so and I’m so many years of age  and…” stuff. You could start with that, but I’m looking for a more composite / “whole” answer to that question. Who, are you? What is your notion of yourself?

 

And if you really think about it, you’ll realize that your idea of who you are – your idea of your self – is nothing but a bunch of ideas; ideas that were either foisted on you from childhood or, ideas that you developed on your own.  Everything that can be described is an idea. Everything that can be named is an idea. Your name – it was foisted on you. You identify with it. Your gender? The term male/female was foisted on you (yes, foisted!  What if the person who first coined  the terms male and female had flipped them around? What if that person had used the term “male” to describe the “female” of the species (and vice-versa)? So what if he / she // she /he (puns very much intended!) had done that? You’d still be who you are, but your identification with the term would have been different, right? Because the term – the description – is an idea!). Notions of what’s acceptable and what’s not were foisted on you. So on and so forth. And some notions aka ideas, you developed.

Your idea of who you are – your idea of yourself – is nothing but a bunch of ideas. Or to put it a fashion that’s more pertinent to what Bruce Lee could have taught you about photography: You – your idea of who you are  — is nothing but the sum total of the experience of your life!

 The whole damn game? About Martial Arts? About Photography? About any Art? About Life itself?  It’s about experiencing.

And the only way you experience things is via feelings.

And I’ll prove it to you.

You don’t remember a car. You remember the ride. Either how smooth it was, or, how rough it was.

You don’t remember the seats. You remember how soft they were, or how hard they were.

You don’t remember the transmission. You remember how smooth it was, or how hard it was.

You don’t remember a thing for the sake of a thing. You remember  the experience of it. You don’t remember the thing, you remember your impression of it.  How it felt, not how it was!

Ergo, if you haven’t felt it, you haven’t experienced it. Period.

Every experience gives you an idea. Of  who / what you are. Or,  who / what you are not.

You – psychologically speaking – you, are nothing but the sum total of your experiences. You, are nothing but the sum total of what you’ve felt in the past and are currently feeling. Because experiencing is nothing but feeling.That, is You. That is your idea of “Self”.

 

And what of “Self-expression”?

 

Art has been defined as “Self-expression”. Painting, Drawing, Sculpting, Martial Arts, Photography… any art is just that: Self-expression. An expression of your self. And You are nothing but the sum total of your experiences which are nothing but feelings.

 

Art is an expression of your feelings. Or as I like to call it, “Art is an Expression of Your Impressions”. Which is why one of the many  tips I give in my Art of Seeing Photography Workshop is “Don’t shoot what it looks like; shoot what it feels like!”

 

Go back and watch that last video again. Hear what Bruce had to say, read what I have to write about what he meant. I cannot overemphasize the role of feeling in Photography. It’s the  key to self-expression. Bruce Lee could teach you a lot about photography!

 

Now, fast-forward to 1:13 in the last clip, and watch through till 1:47. And what do we have Bruce saying?

It is like a finger, pointing away to the moon…

Don’t concentrate on the finger, or you’ll miss all that Heavenly Glory!”

 

Towards the early bit of this post, I quoted Dorthea Lange:  “The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”

 

It (the camera) essentially is a great tool to help you look at the world and rediscover it with the freshness of the vision of a child. It’s a great tool to help you discover yourself. It’s a great tool to help you express yourself. It’s literally “the finger pointing away to the moon...”

 

And instead of looking at all that Heavenly Glory, you’ve been concentrating on the finger that is the camera, technique, method, exif, style…

What A Bloody Classical Mess!

Do you see how everything is connected? How everything Bruce said is about the Art that is Photography?  Do you see what Bruce Lee can teach you about photography? IF you’re willing to learn, that is!

 

Some – and I know it will be a very small percentage of readers – may. Most won’t and will go “Hey man, this is way too esoteric, way too philosophical. You’re just drawing parallels. Photography is just about the camera, the light, exposure and the nut behind the camera who determines the exposure. And I’ve studied the Masters Of Photography (and liked the quotes by them put up by people on Facebook and other forums),  and nowhere have I heard of the nonsense I’m reading here! And what on earth is the photograph at the top of this post — the one of a disabled person who is really going somewhere,  zipping past a cab driver resting against his cab and looking on, incredulity writ large on his face — have to do with this post?”

 

What does that image have to do with what Bruce Lee can teach you about photography? if you can feel, connect, experience all I’ve written here, it’s got everything to do with Bruce Lee and photography. If you can’t, well, tough luck! Ask me. Nicely. And maybe I’ll explain it. :)

 

As for the guys who’ve studied (or, should I say “read”?) the words of the Masters Of Photography (and “liked” them on Facebook of course!)….

 

I’m sure they’ll nod their heads in the affirmative if I mention Ansel Adams…

 

The guy who they’re so familiar with. Or rather, familiar with what he said about photography…

 

That famous quote “You don’t take a photograph; you make a photograph”…

 

Know what, guys? That sentence of his is a very small part of what he said in the same breath!

 

What Ansel Adams said – in toto –  is this:

“You don’t take a photograph; you make a photograph. And you bring to the making of a photgraph all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”

Ansel Adams

 

Sounds very nice! Definitely worth rattling off to impress people and garner a couple of hundred likes on Facebook, I’d  think! But what on earth does it mean??? 

Simply this:

“You bring to the making of a photograph the sum total of the experience of your life, which,  is nothing but what you feel, which – in turn – is your idea of You. Ergo, You bring YOURSELF to the making of a photograph. No more, no less!”

 

Heck, Ansel Adams literally  “pointed a finger at the moon” when he said what he did in that other famous quote of his; the one that goes “There are always at least two people in every photograph: The Photographer, and The Viewer”.  Unfortunately, many remain too busy “concentrating on the proverbial finger” and end up “missing all the heavenly glory” that is the essence of that quote by Adams.

As luck would have it, what many bring to the making of a photograph is just the camera, rules, exposure, light, technique,  the compositions of others,  what everybody else is pointing the camera at , their desire to impress others, and other tripe. And they do that throughout their lives. The result? They end up taking photographs, not making them…

 

What a Bloody Classical Mess!

 

Trust me when I say this: There is a hell of a lot that you can learn about Photography from the words of Bruce Lee. And from Ansel Adams. And from Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa and all the great photographers. There’s a lot you can learn about photography from a child for chrissake!

 

Very little, and I mean very little, has to do with the camera. A hell of a lot has to do with You! And your ability to make sense of it is a function of how much you can break out of that classical mess!

 

It can get confusing at times, but that comes with the territory. Not everything is true. Or pertinent. What do you keep, and what do you discard? Simple, again…

Absorb what is useful. Discard what is not.”

Bruce Lee

 

One last piece of advice, it may sound very confusing. Contradictory almost…

 

At the end of the day, no words – and I mean no words – can come close to describing what the real experience of Seeing, of just Being in that Proverbial Zone where You, your gear and the Object of Perception are not separate, but One Unfied Whole. It is literally an In-sight that is Indescribable; there are no words that can do justice to that feeling.

 

And that is when you’ll truly, truly understand all that is said and written here in this post – and hopefully, more! Till then it’s just intellectual, not feeling. Useful, but not “It”.

 

And when you get “It” – forget the camera and the rest of that classical mess – you’ll truly realize that what Bruce said, what Adams said, what all the Greats said, all that is written and said here…

 

All of it is also just another finger pointing to the moon! All that Heavenly Glory? It’s YOU!

 

Photography Begins and Ends with YOU! ‘Nuff said!

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It Really Wasn’t So Blue

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It wasn’t. So Blue. I mean it was blue, but no so much.

 

But it really was Blue. As much as it comes out in the photograph. It really, really was as Blue. As I visualized it.

 

So there I am humming “Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream” (well OK, that may seem a bit out of place considering it was the river Ganges at Varanasi) when I see something: streaks of reflected light in a mass of what was otherwise not-so-blue (or, should I say “really, really as Blue”?)

 

And a light goes on in my head.

 

You know what they say about light in photography. That it’s everything. I believe there’s something more important than the light that illuminates a scene. And if that something is missing, it really doesn’t matter just how gorgeous the light is, you’ll still end up making a ho-hum photograph.

 

I don’t believe in taking ho-hum photographs.

 

Switch on DSLR – check! Set White Balance to Tungsten – check! Compose – check! Trip shutter, and voila!

 

I just – to quote Ansel Adams – “Made a photograph”. Well almost, there’s just a tad bit left that I know I’ll need to do in the digital darkroom.

 

Did I mention that I set the White Balance to Tungsten? Oh yes, I did. The reasons thereof are because “It really wasn’t so blue”, but I really wanted it so Blue!

 

Setting the WB to Tungsten essentially nullifies the horrible yellow cast to an image that one ends up with while shooting in scenes illuminated by tungsten lighting. It does this by adding Blue. Put simply, WB set to Tungsten adds Blue to the image. Irrespective of the lighting condition.

 

And that’s what I was looking for: more blue. It really wasn’t so Blue. But it really was so Blue in my mind. I just needed to convert Thought to Image.

 

But adding blue to the entire scene resulted in the yellow reflections losing their “yellowness” to some extent. And I wanted that yellowness…

 

Load image in Lightroom – check! Add some more saturation to the yellow reflections – check!

 

And now, the image was well and truly made! Well actually, it was well and truly made even before I raised the camera. It was made in my mind. As I said, all that remained was converting Thought to Image.

 

Now, you may at this time be tempted to rush off to learn how to “Master Your DSLR”. Or maybe “Learn Lightroom”. But trust me, the role played by both my DSLR and Lightroom in the making of this image is less than ten percent (five percent would be more accurate).

 

The fact is that I could as well have taken this image on a point-and-shoot camera. Heck, I could have as well made this image on my cell phone. And if my point-and-shoot or cell phone didn’t have White Balance controls, I could have added more blue (and boosted the yellows) in post-processing. Put simply, “camera not matter!”

 

The fact is also that I could post-processed this image as I did in any photo-editing software. Heck, I could have done it on Snapseed on my cell phone, and ended up with the same effect. And I kid you not on this front. Put simply, “photo-editing software not matter!”

 

Which brings me to the bit about the most important thing in photography: it is the light. Not the light illuminating the scene, but the light that needs to go on in your head!

 

What matters is Your Mind: Its ability to perceive what lies in your field of vision. Its ability to recognize it (what you see for what it is. And to recognize it for what it can be.

 

What did I see? Or rather, what did my eyes look at? I’ve said it before: streaks of reflected yellow light in a mass of what was otherwise not-so-blue.

 

What did I see? The potential of color. And that’s that about “The Making of It Really Wasn’t So Blue”

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10 Photographs Of Holi You’re Never Likely To See

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You’re excused. For going “WTF?!?”. Which you probably will in a moment when you realize that not a single photograph of the ten displayed here are of the Holi Festival. But they are. It depends actually on just what you think photographs of Holi are about. So bear with me for a moment, will ya?

 

For starters, for the benefit of those not in the know, the festival of Holi is an ancient religious Hindu festival, celebrated at the approach of the vernal equinox. An in-depth description of the festival can be found on the Wikipedia page on Holi. That’s that about the festival itself, but what’s that got to do with photography – and more important – photographs of Holi?

 

Start a conversation with most photographers about Holi, specifically why they’d like to photograph the festival, and the stock reply is that it’s a great opportunity to photograph colors, what with Holi being the festival of colors. That it certainly is – the festival of colors, as it’s been called. Heck, just google photographs of holi festival and you’ll see just what a kaleidoscope of colors the festival is. So yeah, no wonder it gets the creative juices of most photographers flowing.

 

Which brings me to the question I’m often asked by so many people: “Why don’t you have any photographs of the Holi Festival?”. To which my answer is that every day is Holi for me, if their definition of Holi is the festival of colors!

 

I mean really! Let’s get brutally honest here, shall we? Does it have to be so that you have to have colored powders flying all over the place for colors to grab your attention? Does it have to be that people’s faces need to be painted in hues of every color possible for you to notice color? Do you need to have colored water puddles, buckets full of colored water and water guns spraying out colored water to notice color? Is that what characterizes the festival of Holi? Do you need the festival of Holi to sit up and notice – and make photographs of – color?

 

I can understand it if one is capturing the enjoyment, the mirth, the festivities, the celebration, the crazy carnival that Holi is. In which case what one is doing is making photographs of a cultural event. And trust me, that has a whole new dimension to it, and is not restricted to colors alone. But if the raison d’être for photographing Holi is colors then umm… sorry, this may tick many a photographer off, but they seriously need to work on their vision.

 

As I said, every day is a festival of colors (if that is what you mean by Holi) for me. Every day is an opportunity to see and photograph the festival of colors that is life itself for me. As it should be for anyone. And since the proof of the pudding is in the eating, here they are: Ten Photographs of Holi you’re never likely to see!

 

photographs of holi festival

No, this wasn’t shot on Holi. It’s actually the feet of a pilgrim along the ghats at Varanasi. The yellow alpine glow on the stone steps is on account of the rays of the early morning sun being reflected off the wet stones. Shades of pink, red, yellow and blue… Holi colors enough for you?

 

What you label as a woman, is just a shape of colors to me, as is everything else in the photograph. I just waited till I felt that area of color that is the woman was posited just right in the frame before tripping the shutter. Image made in Varanasi, and on a simple Panasonic Lumix to boot!

 

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Varanasi, again. Ok, the dude doesn’t have paint smeared all over his face, nor is his hair a shocking red, pink, blue or green as in all those colorful photographs of holi you tend to see. But color.. this photograph is colorful enough. Heck, it’s the color that made me raise camera to eye here in the first place! And I think the blue of that phone really contrasts well with the yellows and reds, don’t you think?

 

Did I hear you go “Hey, Neville! You’re missing shots of colored water, it just ain’t Holi without that!”? Bzzzt, wrong answer! Thanks for playing! Made this one a few moments after the sun had set at the ghats in Varanasi. Water colored enough for you, as is the rest of the picture? And hey, those buffalo look like they’re having fun too!

 

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Ok, so I hear you go “Hey, Neville! Enough of those non-holi photographs of Varanasi! Including the one pictured on the left. Varanasi is infinitely colorful. What about Mumbai?”

 

I hear ya. I hear ya…

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I’ll say it once: If you don’t see color too well, maybe you’re color blind. If you’re not color blind, you need to attend my Art of Seeing Photography Workshop!

 

The United Colors of… Holi? 

More water. Tons of it actually! To say they’re drenched is an understatement. Oh and look at the colors! And boy are they enjoying themselves! This has to be a photograph of Holi. Or maybe it’s a photograph at the Chhat Festival in Mumbai?

 

No, it isn’t a bird, it isn’t a plane, it isn’t Superman, nor is it Holi. It’s just colors. Not just of the red dress of the ladies, but of the red paint on their feet. Made on a beach in Mumbai.

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And lastly this. The tenth. Simple, beautiful. Colorful. That’s what life is. You bloody well don’t need to wait for Holi  to see it!

Darshan – What a Timeless Indian Tradition Can Teach You About Photography

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She raised an eyebrow. “This photograph? You want to use this to illustrate what you wish to put across?? I’m not too sure it’d cut the grade. Even you’ve got to agree it definitely doesn’t rank amongst the best of your images, given its lack of clarity and sharpness. And some highlights are obviously blown out. I can understand it’s a cell phone shot, but couldn’t you use a better picture to talk about what you want to?”

 

I could understand where she was coming from, the photograph – the one that graces the top of this page – having been taken with a humble MotoG, in 16:9 aspect ratio at that (which essentially meant the camera had a maximum resolution of 3.4 Megapixels), and on a dull overcast day to boot. Neither the best of cameras nor the best of days to be making images. Especially when it came to making an image of what I chose to illustrate what is the topic of this post. But then, there’s more to photography than the camera, and – if I may be given the liberty of punning – there’s more to photography than meets the eye.

 

“Drishti, that’s one of the reasons I’ve chosen to use this image,” I said. “The fact that it is not a technically perfect image. The imperfections. And of course, because it symbolically and literally communicates the message I wish to put across.”

 

“Which is what??” she asked. “I’m sorry, but this photograph is surely not the best of images when it comes to the topic you plan to write about – Darshan.”

 

“Be patient, kid. I’ll get to that,” I said. “But first, I have a question for you: what appeals to you more – a technically perfect photograph taken by a ‘photographer’ who’s mastered exposure but didn’t know why they were taking an image? Or, a technically imperfect sketch made by a child depicting a family outing?”

 

 

“The one made by a child, of course,” she replied. “But that’s not you, you aren’t a child drawing imperfect lines, and you aren’t a photographer who doesn’t know why they’re taking a photo. You’re capable of….”

 

 

“Hold it there,” I said. “The issue here isn’t what I am or am not. The issue here is why a drawing – with all its imperfections – made by a child is more appealing to you than a technically perfect photograph taken by a photographer who doesn’t know why he or she is taking a photograph. Care to think about this?”

 

She narrowed her eyes for a moment, I could see her mental gears turning. “Because that child felt something when it made that drawing?”

 

“Bingo,” I went. “Because that child was there in that picture! Not in there necessarily as a subject – the child could have drawn just its parents – but in there emotionally, in the act of making that drawing.”

“Ansel Adams!” she exclaimed. “Was that what he meant when he said…”

“That is exactly what Adams meant,” I said. “When Ansel Adams stated that ‘There are always at least two people in a picture – the photographer and the viewer’, amongst the many things he was alluding to, was that it is imperative for the photographer to feel something before taking a shot. That is ‘putting oneself in the picture’, that’s why we usually end up liking a child’s drawing more than a thoughtless photograph. If the photographer doesn’t feel anything, the chances are that the viewer won’t either. Because the photographer wasn’t ‘in it’.”

 

“I get it!” Drishti exclaimed loudly. “But I still can’t see what it has to do with the topic at hand – Darshan!”

 

“Patience, young grasshopper,” went I, making like Master Po. “I’ll come to that in just a moment. But first, tell me this: those terms we used – ‘being in there’, ‘feeling something’ etc., – could you come up with a word or two that sums that process up?”

 

It took her a minute for her to revert, but when she did, the words brought a smile to my face.

 

“Involvement”. “Participation”. “In touch with”.

 

“I couldn’t have put it better, Drishti! Those were exactly the words I wanted to hear! The child’s work appeals to us because we somehow feel – through her oh-so-childish drawing – her level of involvement, and her degree of participation in what was happening there. We sense the very real connection between what she feels inside her to what was happening on that outing. We sense her efforts – efforts that come out so beautifully – in expressing her impressions of that outing. And that is Art – Expressions of Impressions. And it’s only possible when what’s inside is in touch with what’s outside. And the child can do it flawlessly because what matters to her are just she and her impressions. And our ‘photographer’ fails because he has totally neglected what matters, concentrating instead on the camera.”

 

She looked at me in wide-eyed amazement. “That’s just so true! I never thought of it that way.”

 

“Wait,” I said, leaning towards her. “We’re not through yet. We’ve still got to deal with ‘Darshan’, remember? What does that term mean?”

 

“Well, you know what it is – that thing we Indians do in temples,” she said carefully, wondering if it was April 1st. Or so I figured based on her wary expression.

 

“Terms! Define your Terms,” I said, the pit bull in me coming to the fore. “You know what a stickler I am for clear and concise definition of terms, girl! Or, at the least, tell me what it is we do in temples that constitutes Darshan.”

 

I could tell she knew I was getting to something, the way she paused before speaking, choosing her words with care. “I’d say Darshan constitutes us looking at the presiding deity in the temple,” she ventured.

 

I knew that one was coming. I just simply knew it. And I had my response ready. “Looking at? Or, gazing at?”

 

“Eh? Aren’t they the same thing?”

 

“Well, not really,” I replied. “Looking at something is you know… well, you look at it for a moment and move on. Gazing on the other hand has connotations of lingering for a period of time. And while this may seem elementary and unconnected to our discussion, bear with me for a few more moments. I’ll show you just how deep this rabbit-hole goes!”

 

“O.K., so tell me,” I continued. “Going to a temple, standing before the idol of a deity and looking – or gazing – at it because either (a) one has been forced to do so by one’s elders, (b) everybody else is doing it, (c) it would be impolite or disrespectful to not do so, or, (d) it’s the done thing… Do any  of these things constitute Darshan?”

 

“Of course not,” she shot back. “That’s mere mechanical form! There’s no reverence behind it, no devotion, there’s no…”

 

She paused thoughtfully. And then her eyes went wide as saucers as her palm slapped her forehead. “Oh My God, I get it!!!”

 

I just smiled. “Go ahead, say it. There’s no what?”

 

“There’s no Feeling. No Connection,” she said, her eyes still wide in wonder. “No connection between perceiver and the object of perception!”

 

She’d got it. Well, almost all of it. All that was left for me to do was fill in the blanks and connect the dots.

 

“Drishti,” I said, then paused for effect. “What exactly does it mean? Your name. What does it mean, Drishti?”

 

“Vision,” she said, a confused look on her face. To be wiped off a moment later with a look of comprehension.

 

“Nope,” went I. Vision is something far deeper. The wordDrishti actually means “Sight”, to look at. It is a function of the eyes. It is something we all do. The ‘photographer’ who takes a picture without knowing why he’s taking it has Dhristi, as does a person who merely looks at the idol in the temple – or gazes at it without feeling and connection. All this is Drishti. Drishti is mere looking, Drishti is mere sight. Nothing more.”

 

“And Darshan?” she ventured.

 

“Tell me, when you’ve gazed at the idol in a temple with real feeling, have you at times experienced the idol gazing back?”

 

“Yes, many a times,” she said.

 

“And it was only when the intensity of your feeling towards the idol was… well, quite intense, isn’t it?”

 

“Absolutely,” she said, a bit confused about what I was pointing to.

 

I rested my elbows on my knees, leaning forward. “Remember what I often say with respect to photography: that if you really, really observe something for long enough, it’ll literally tell you how to go about photographing it. Have you tried – and experienced – this for yourself?”

 

I wish  that I had a camera to photograph her eyebrows. They shot so high they almost went off her scalp.

 

“Oh yes I do! My God, I can’t believe the similarities,” she exclaimed.

 

“They’re not similar, they’re the same thing! That something that you observe which tells you how to photograph it — it really cannot tell you how to go about photographing it. Nor can the idol gaze back at you. Not literally. Not unless there is something more at work, and that more has nothing to do with mere Sight – nothing to do with Drishti. But rather, it has everything to do with you – with your feeling. That feeling – and there is nothing exclusive to religion about it – is what in India is called “Bhaav” or Emotion. It is this Bhaav that cements the connection – the link – between the object of perception and the perceiver. It is this connection – and this alone – that is responsible for the child being able to make an emotive drawing of a family outing. It is this connection – and this alone – that makes an inanimate object speak to you on how it should be photographed. It is this connection – and this alone – that makes the idol gaze back. It is this connection – and this alone – that all art, all photography, all music is all about at the end of the day!”

 

I paused, my response having emptied my lungs of air. She was silent, soaking in what I’d said. A few seconds passed before I continued.

 

“That connection,” I went on, “is all that matters. And that connection is entirely within you being the perceiver. Being within you, it is distinct from Sight (Drishti). It is – and I cannot emphasize this enough – it is beyond mere looking, beyond mere sight. It is literally  In-sight! A feeling, no matter how fleeting or  transitory, of the relationship – the connection – between you and your… call it whatever you wish to, they’re all the same at the end of the day: object of affection, devotion, observation, perception, what you wish to photograph… It’s the same thread running through everything. Do you understand what I’m saying, Drishti?”

 

She chose not to answer my question. She just smiled and went “The camera really doesn’t matter, The Connection does. That’s Darshan!”

 

I smiled back, knowing that the time for words was over. Drishti had had her Darshan.

 

(Strange as it may sound, to be continued)

The Heart of the Matter – Photographing Vintage Cars

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It’s been almost a year (eleven months to be precise) since an exhibition of  vintage cars was held at the premises of the racecourse in Mumbai. Eleven months since I landed up there that late afternoon, my little Panasonic Lumix DMC-Tz25 that I sometimes –  in place of my Canon EOS 5D – lug around. Ended  up making images of what some people have described as “The most amazing photographs of Vintage Cars”. And you know what? I didn’t make a single image of a vintage car. Not one single one of a vintage car in its entirity.

Does that sound like a contradiction in terms? How does one go about making amazing photographs of vintage cars without photographing a car? Judge for yourself from the images below.

So what’s it about these photographs that’s so dramatically different from the countless other images of vintage cars to be found on the net? What makes them so visually appealing and so dramatic? The answer to those questions is that I  didn’t see them as cars at all, and while all those other people there engaged themselves taking photographs of cars, I saw things differently. I got to the heart of the matter: the collection of patterns, lines, swirls, circles etc. – the very things that make vintage cars so beautiful. And in getting to the heart of the matter – learning to see the very essence of a subject, and at times seeing it differently is how one reveals the very heart and essence of anything and everything in photography. This, is is one of many things I teach in my From snapshots to Great Shots – The Art of Seeing Workshop

along the river ghats, varanasi

The Soul of Photography

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I sit down to write this after reading what Pushkar Bagmar – one of the participants who attended today’s workshop on seeing – wrote in to say:

“Am yet to get over the hangover of the “Art of seeing” session, Neville. It feels like I learned the very soul of photography…”

Thanks are due to Pushkar for his kind words. They are a source of both encouragement as well as one of a sense of accomplishment. Accomplishment not from an egotistical point of view, but of satisfaction that I – as a teacher – have been able to accomplish what I set out to do: effectively communicate the essence of what I set out to teach, as well as having played a role in kindling a flame in the hearts and minds of those who may in turn choose to further feed the proverbial flame for themselves. In my opinion, there can be no greater satisfaction for a teacher than to see that happen. So, thanks once again Pushkar!

 

 

That being said, Pushkar’s words got me thinking. “The soul of photography”… just what is it? Many a photographer will instantly shoot back with an answer stating that it’s Light; that without light a photograph would not be possible, and that it’s light which really is what it’s all about.

 

Yes, light plays an extremely vital role in photography, but in my opinion it’s not the soul at the end of the day.

 

I think that Light is to a photograph what a beating heart is to life; without it, an image is dead – just a blank canvas. But if we take this analogy a bit further, while a beating heart is a sign that an organism is clinically alive, it is not a sign that the organism is consciously alive.

 

A thing is only truly alive when it’s soul is there – and I when I say soul, I don’t mean anything esoteric, I rather refer to that which makes that organism uniquely that – it’s very sense of being, it’s essence. Without that essence – without that sense of being – and oh, it is so apt in this context – “the lights may be on, but there’s nobody at home.”

 

That is spelled “Being clinically alive but brain-dead”

 

Isn’t this true of many a photograph too? Great lighting, same time of day, same conditions, same location, yet one photograph made has “a soul”, while another leaves you thinking “hmm… what’s this about”? Ergo, it’s not Light which is the soul of a photograph – it’s not it’s very essence.

 

What do I mean when I refer to the soul or essence of a photograph. It’s akin to the soul or essence of any sentient being you’re lucky to get a fleeting glimpse of. One look and you know what makes that person what he or she is. You know what they’re all about. You know what makes them tick. You know their longings, their fears, their hopes, their joys, their sorrows at the very moment their essence revealed itself.

 

It’s the very same thing with a photograph- one glimpse at it, and it (should) grabs you by the throat and in doing so reveals a lot (if not everything) about itself at that very moment, makes you pause to investigate it further, leaves you with no confusion about what it is about at the end of the day… then and only then can we say that the photograph has a soul, that is has an essence about it, an essence that has revealed itself to the viewer when he or she sees it. Without this essence, the lights are on, but there’s nobody at home.

 

A photograph is a very tiny window through which we as photographers must strive to communicate the essence of the larger body of the world that was in front of us at the time we tripped the shutter. If the essence of what lay in front of us is in the window that is the photograph, and if we are adept of communicating that, it is only then that the essence will come through via that photograph, it is only then that the photograph has a soul.

 

Capturing that essence, capturing that soul. That, is Seeing. That is what defines a photograph, and that is what defines the larger discipline that is photography and the visual arts at the end of the day. The heart of the matter. A window to the world – a small one – through which the sense of the entire scene that lay before the photographer is encapsulated via a smaller view.

 

It is literally – as William Blake put it – “seeing the world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wild flower, holding infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour”.

 

That is what is the soul of a photograph, that is what is the soul – and purpose – of photography. William Blake, I think, would have made an outstanding photographer!

fine art print - boat on the river yamuna

Boat on the river Yamuna, India

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“It is in looking too intensely at a thing that we often miss out the beauty of things around it.”

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The Making of  “Boat on the River Yamuna, India”

Yes, the reason for visiting Agra is to photograph the Taj Mahal, but in focusing too much on the Taj, many a visitor often misses out the visual wonders to be found around it. Like this boat on the river  for example.

Just behind the Taj runs this river. And for centuries has the ferryman plied his trade here, ferrying passengers from one bank to the other. Nothing extraordinary about it, not until you look at it with different eyes.

What caught my eye was the play of light, the expanse of space, and the relative stillness of the scene that presented itself to me. The ripples in the water were few and far between –  there was a sense of balance and harmony even as the players in the scene played out their respective roles. Click! And the image was made!

In post-processing I chose to give an impressionist feel to the image, while cropping it to a square format; the better to give it a feeling of balance and harmony.

Another image that ranks as a favourite, this one! Brilliant play of light, gorgeous tones, subtlety of lines… printed on canvas, this fine art print comes across as an impressionist painting.

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