My History of Photography

The first thing I remember about cameras is that my father had one.   In fact he had several during his life, including what I believe was an 8mm movie camera.  He shot family holidays or church and school events.   Other people around me had cameras, but I wasn’t curious.  

In fact, I didn’t have my own camera until I was 27 years old.  I bought a point-and-shoot Vivitar before leaving for Japan in the summer of 1988.   Once there I took the equivalent of my father’s snapshots and made prints to send back home to illustrate letters about my life in Japan.  Otherwise, I wasn’t really interested in playing with the camera.  I gave that Vivitar to a student in the early 00’s after I went digital.  That purchase changed my relationship to the camera.  I could take as many photos as I wanted without regard to developing costs, and share as many as I wanted without regard to printing. 

Another turning point came on a trip to Sri Lanka.  On a sunset walk along the Lanka seashore, I managed to take the Galle fort in silhouette against the evening sky.  I did this using the camera’s preset features for capturing images in low light.  When I saw the result on my computer a week later, I had my first inkling of the possibility of capturing arresting images, and confirmation that by fiddling with the controls I could produce more interesting results.

Some time later a friend came to visit Japan, a fellow quite interested in photography.  We chased up a lens and a battery charge for him while we were touring Kyoto.  I remember watching him take photos– a tree, a temple, our dinner – and being struck by how he seemed to be seeing things in a different way.  He spent a bit more time than my wife and I looking at and moving around objects to view them from different sides.  I’m sure I must have seen photographers doing such things before, but I had never spent time with a photographer. I had never attended to what photographers do.  Soon after I began to experiment doing what I had seen my friend doing, still using my digital instamatic.  I wasn't yet looking deeply, but I was looking at scenes and objects with an eye toward how they could make a photo, how they could be isolated from their larger environment and fit within a 2 dimensional rectangle. 

A couple of years later I was tired of my work, tired of the way I was living. I decided to go

to Nepal, a place where I had done some volunteer teaching in the late 90’s.  My plan was to join an art school attached to a monastery where I would practice how to make traditional Tibetan religious paintings.  I had already started a blog as a tool for discovering what I wanted to do with this new chapter in life, with plans to continue blogging once I got to Nepal.  During this preparatory time, I began thinking more seriously about photography and invested in a new camera, something not as expensive as what a professional might carry, but something with more features and a better quality sensor than my pocket instamatic.  Once I had the camera, I then had to figure out how to use it, and so enrolled in a 4-week fundamentals of photography course at BetterPhoto.

 

I shot mostly in the area around my home with subjects not so very different from those I see on the blogs of new photography students at OCA, such as moving cars to demonstrate effects of f-stops or panning.  Besides being introduced to shutter speed, aperture, and ISO, I discovered also the possibilities of manipulating images with computer software.  When I look at them now, some of the photos from this period are marked by excessive saturation or contrast.  There are also many examples of radical cropping.  Clearly I was infatuated with the abilities of the software and used them to extreme effect.

With my new knowledge, new camera, and new computer, I left for Nepal.  I didn't do any more formal photography study for the next four years, but I did use my camera almost every day.  I played around with settings, experimenting to see what might work best in the situations in which I found myself, and experimenting with the software to see how images could be enhanced.  After some time, though, I found myself becoming tired of thinking about photos and the camera.  I felt like I might be missing out on what was happening on the other side of the lens.  Over time I reverted to a simpler style of photographing, of relying in most instances on the camera’s automated settings and giving myself maximum opportunity to enjoy whatever it was I was involved in that might be worth photographing.

This change in approach may have also been affected by meditation.  I began practicing intensively during this period and one outcome was the search for nonconceptual experience.  For someone taking photographs, this would mean seeing without labeling, reacting spontaneously without consideration of meaning.   I can’t say I was successful at doing this for long stretches of time, but it was always there as a goal.  Another side effect of meditation was being able to see more deeply.    

As I wrote regarding a film about monastics:

What you might find while viewing [the film] is exactly what you experience when you live quietly in sheltered environments. You begin to notice detail. Small details that your mind usually flirts over in a rush to complete a task or in search of more gross forms of stimulation. Close shots of a masticating jaw, a piece of fruit, a length of hanging cloth, or a wash basin suggest [the director] experienced the same. When you take away the cacophony of telephones, television, cinema, radio, and the internet, when you take away the need to live by the clock, to keep appointment books, to always be in a rush, your senses have a chance to rest, to experience the rhythm and pulse of the body. And then you find the most mundane things intriguingly beautiful – the grain in a piece of wood, the dance of dust motes in a sun beam, the play of water over rocks, trees swaying in the breeze. Quite suddenly, the world is full of wonder.

The wonder comes back from time to time, but I lost some of the ability to touch it when I went back to the work world three years ago.   A teaching job led me to the UAE, where at first I carried my camera every day and took quite a lot of photos. But after a few months, something happened and I lost interest in taking pictures.  I had been blogging and lost interest in that as well. Something about the need to communicate left, and I spent much of my free time reading, meditating, and exercising.  I explored other interests, such as camping, mountain biking, and desert driving.  I continued to take photos during this time, but really nothing more than snapshots, records of trips and adventures to share with family and friends.

By fall of last year I was thinking about what more I could do with my life.  I’m now 50 and have been teaching English for nearly half of that.  What could I add to it that might make it more layered, more meaningful, and perhaps offer new opportunity for having engaged with it?   Clearly, I have over the years enjoyed and had some aspirations for engaging with the visual arts, but after a year in Nepal I understood the level of commitment required to develop as a painter and knew, so long as I was working, that I wouldn't have long hours to sketch and paint.  The camera, on the other hand, is something I have been familiar with for the last 25 years and provides an easier outlet for producing satisfying work in far less time than painting.  How about if I took that “hobby” a little more seriously? 

I searched the internet for an extended course, possibly a degree program in which I could do more formal, directed studies of photography.  The Savannah College of Art and Design offers a discounted degree for educators, quite reasonably priced for the degree, and I thought this might be the way to pursue a program of study.  To apply, I needed to show a portfolio, and to do that I needed a short program of study to prepare one. 

I bought a new camera, a Nikon D5100, and enrolled in two photography courses.  I started by going back to BetterPhoto and taking an 8-week Basics of Digital Photography class in which I revisited the basics, using these concepts as vehicles for learning my way around my new camera.  Shortly after, I found a locally run, once-a-week, 8-week class.  While both covered the same concepts, the local weekend course offered camaraderie, group critiques and group outings, all complementary to what I was doing online during the week. 

I was busy with work and doing both courses and along the way I lost sight of the portfolio for Savannah (though I did start compiling some recent work on a blog).  I don’t remember now what led me there, but a few weeks ago I was clicking around the net when I read about the OCA.  I think now it must have been in a photography forum.  In any case, I wrote and got an immediate reply informing me that if I wanted to apply, I had until the end of the month to take advantage of the old price structure.  I read around a bit and visited a number of student blogs.  Altogether I was impressed with the prompt and informative replies, with the school’s reputation among its students, and by the fact that the OCA is run as a nonprofit, which suggests a genuine interest in promoting the arts.

 

And now, here I am.

I would like to complete the degree program.  My current interests are exploring ways to express the impermanence and insubstantiality of life.  I haven’t yet worked on this idea, but had some inspiration driving around my little corner of Arabia observing junk yards, rusted out cars, dumpsters, and rubbish left in the desert.  I hope my tutor can help me grow in this direction. 

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