Spruce trees in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.
Hey Folks,
It’s a new year already. The days are getting longer, so I’m told. I’m another year older, slower, fatter and balder. But a new year can also mean a great time to focus on our work. Draw it into focus by outlining and giving voice to where we might like for it to go. Without that articulation, it’s easy to wander in circles, and not really move forward with our art.
I’m reminded of a great line by my friend Craig Tanner, when he was asked what is the most important concern to him, as an artist; his answer, so simple, was “the only thing that matters is, is my work moving forward”.
What can we do to move our work forward? Well, make some goals to move toward, for one thing. And really, goals is the wrong word, I think, for art. We don’t score goals. We don’t target anything; we make art, we create stuff. That’s all.
The secret to a productive day of creative work on the computer, for me, is Command Q. Tweet Deck, closed. Mac Mail, closed. Fetch, closed. Safari, Firefox and Chrome, closed. Dreamweaver, closed. Capture NX2, closed, Photoshop closed, Text Edit, closed. iTunes, open, and Photo Mechanic, open. 35 minutes of initial photo sorting/editing and keywording and I get an awful lot done.
Then, Command O and Capture NX2 opens up. Select the images from Photo Mechanic, and hit Command E. Those images open in Capture NX2. Command Q again, and Photo Mechanic shuts down. I do my basic RAW editing, conversions, etc, and open the images in Adobe Photoshop. Command Q and Capture NX2 shuts down as well.
Boreal forest and reflections in a small kettle pond, Copper River Basin, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska..
Hey Folks,
It’s often said that art can teach us how to live. This is true, yet it’s also commonly misinterpreted. The product of art, what we call the photograph, or the lyric, or the dance, doesn’t teach us how to live. The product of art, these artifacts, can show us how someone ELSE lived.
On the other hand, the making of art (which is REALLY where art is), can teach us how to live.
This process, the making of art, illustrates how we might live; how we might be fully present, engaged, conscious. More fully alive.
View up Arrigetch Creek toward the Arrigetch Peaks, Xanadu, Ariel and Caliban, from left to right. A popular rock climbing and backpacking destination, the Arrigecth Peaks lie in the heart of Alaska’s Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, right near the Continental Divide. Arrigetch Peaks, Gates of the Arctic National Park, Alaska.
Hey Folks,
You perhaps saw this recent story in the news about our ‘drowning in a sea of images’. It’s an interesting view, and, I believe, a very valid point. Any kind of inundation makes staying afloat a difficult task. And sometimes it’s impossible.
A photographer and artist I admire, Chase Jarvis, recently posted a response to this on his blog, about how we’re not drowning, but getting richer with this unabating torrent of images. That’s kind of a weird take on it. What kind of flood can we swim through?
Chase argues “shouldn’t it be said that we’re not drowning in photography at all, that we’re perhaps getting metaphorically rich off more and more of these veins of gold?”
“veins of gold”?
Gold has value because it’s rare. And because it’s durable. If gold were produced quite as readily as iphone “pics” seem to be, and had a similar lifespan of any digital file, it wouldn’t cost eighteen hundred dollars an ounce right now. I’d suggest a better chemical analogy might be carbon dioxide. CO2 seems to be pretty prevalent right now, becoming ever more so, and, contrary to what the s(k)eptics tell ya, it’s not enriching our world.
A starry night sky falls above Mt. Saint Elias, still glowing in the late evening sun. Stars at night over Mt. St. Elias, Icy Bay, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.
Hey Folks,
Sometimes the work of an artist is simply to be persistent; keep at it. Follow through on that little spark of an idea that awakens us at night; pursue that little ‘idea’, no matter how trivial, how distant it seems. That trigger is where art begins. All art.
I suppose this point may be made more clearly in reverse; sometimes it’s easier to simply think ‘yeah, that would be neat’, but never actually follow up when we receive an idea. It’s always too easy to conjure up excuses not to do something, rather than actually take a single step in the direction that calls us; something akin to what they say about evil and good men doing nothing.
As an artist, when you notice that little spark of an idea, that trigger that calls your attention, no matter how briefly, give it your attention; make an effort to follow that story, that path, that rhythm, that idea, and see where it takes you; that journey is what art is. Don’t “do nothing”.
The idea of a photo like this has been bouncing around in my head for years now; Mt. St. Elias, after dark, with a night sky packed full of stars, and the faintest of glows from our favored star, the sun, lighting the mountain. Yet there were so many reasons why I never took this photo; Mt. St. Elias is hard to get to, and costly, and when you do visit, the summer sky doesn’t get dark enough anyway. Further, in summertime, the alpenglow is on the far side of the mountain, which would mean either shooting the shaded and unlit mountainside, or camping on a glacier (even harder and costlier to get to) on the mountain’s northern side. So, for these and so many other reasons, this photo remained nothing more than a fantasy. I thought ‘oh yeah, that’d be neat’, but never followed up.
Finally, last month, I set off on an adventure that included a very singular focus; I wanted to shoot a photo of Mt. St. Elias, aglow under a night sky.
