Photography is Haiku

evanescent shapes
the stream glides past
leaving earth behind
- Marko

I’m not big on poetry in general, but for some reason I’ve always enjoyed Haiku. I love to read haiku. Just this past Sunday I bought a book of haiku at a used book sale. Writing–wise I’m not so good. I dabble just as a joke when I make my own greeting cards and what not.

I like that haiku is brief; minimal. I like how there is just enough information to start the reader thinking and not so much that it hinders imaginative wanderings. I like that it is based on simple observations of the world, often nature, but the words carry so much more information than appears on the surface.

The standard definition of a Haiku is said to contain three lines in a pattern of 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables often with a reference to the season of the year. However, English syllables do not translate exactly to sound patterns in Japanese, and many English language poets use a looser definition of from one to three lines comprised of seventeen or fewer syllables. (My haiku above has just 14 syllables). Generally when read out loud, a haiku should be completed all in one breath. Here is a link to a very helpful site dedicated to haiku – http://raysweb.net/haiku/

Here is an example of a haiku by Basho, the renowned Japanese poet of the seventeenth century.

the old pond
a frog jumps in
the sound of water

The title of this blog “Photography is Haiku” is a statement from Shomei Tomatsu, one of the most important figures in Japanese photography.

The young photographer Moriyama Daido…recalled Tomatsu’s ‘overpowering presence’. He told Moriyama that photography was haiku, and like haiku it was an art of limitless choices.  – “How to Read a Photograph” Ian Jeffrey

I’ve included a few small examples of Tomatsu’s work. Use an image search on the Web to see more. I’ve noticed that Tomatsu rarely includes all of a subject in his photos – only portions are shown leaving the rest to the imagination. Compositions are simple with plenty of open areas. The lighting is strong and often mysterious.

Personally I like the same things in a photograph that I like in a haiku – minimalism and room for imagination – an observation of a place, a time, an experience. A photograph, like a haiku, should get you started and then get out of the way quickly so that you can be drawn into the scene and experience the moment for yourself. A photograph is a conduit to the spirit of the place.

Haiga is an art form combining traditional ink drawing and haiku -http://haigaonline.com/issue12-2/issue.html. One modern form of haiga is the combination of photography and haiku. I think for this First Friday opening at my studio I’m going to create haiku for each of six new prints that I’m making. It should be interesting.

MDW

Redundant Photographs

Change is informative, the familiar redundant. What we are surrounded by above all are redundant photographs…This is therefore also the challenge for the photographer: to oppose the flood of redundancy with informative images.

– Vilem Flusser

Here is a little experiment that I have been doing lately with my photographs. I go out and I take some shots. I come back to the studio, I download the images, I sort through them and decide which are going to stick around for the short go and which are out, and finally I edit the keepers. Now it’s time to test the results to see if these are redundant or informative, as Flusser would say, with the help of “the internets”.

I go to Google Images and I start searching for the subject that is depicted in my photographs. So say I have taken a series of photos of the Charlotte pier on Lake Ontario (like for instance the one above). I might put in <charlotte pier> as my search term. Now I see how many of the images I get back are similar to the one I’ve taken (try it) – at first blush, some but not too many. But a lot of these images are color, lets narrow it down to just black and white. Still not too many – I count about three images that are shot from a similar angle with a similar composition and similar tones. Not bad, but it appears that I’m not the first person to decide to stand in this spot and shoot down along the pier.

How about if we just put in <pier> for a more general search. Here I can find a couple more images that are similar in composition even if not of the same pier. A general search on <lake ontario> doesn’t help much. We could try other search terms, but you get the idea.

Now try this. Enter <antelope canyon> as the search term. Notice anything? Here we have a serious redundancy problem – especially when color images are included. Each image is barely distinguishable from all the others. Now I’m not saying these are bad photos; some of them are quite well done. And I’m not saying that if I went to Antelope Canyon I wouldn’t come away with something similar. I’m just saying that if I ever do go there, doing this test should motivate me to think a little deeper about this place and try to come up with some new ways to photograph it.

In August 2011 Flickr announced it received its 6 billionth upload. Sounds like a lot, but get this, Facebook is said to receive 6 billion images each month! On top of that we have plenty of other photo sharing sites and private web sites and photo blogs. That’s not just a flood of images, that’s a tsunami of images! – room for redundancy for sure. Here is what a day’s worth of uploads to Flickr looks like if they are all printed out: Artist Erik Kessels Prints Out 24 Hours of Flickr Uploads

So this image of mine may not be exactly groundbreaking, but I haven’t done too badly on creating a relatively unique image that goes against the rising tide of redundant images. There is some information in this image that can’t be found in any other image. It should be worth someone’s time to look at it.

Certainly this isn’t an exhaustive or scientific system, but it gives me a feel for whether I’m just re-shooting the same stuff as everybody else. It helps me be more creative with my work. If my photos start to look like a million others, it reminds me to take a step back and try a new approach.

MDW

Canal Lock Construction

I was going to publish a post today that included some Google searches, but with the SOPA black outs going on, maybe I better wait until tomorrow. So instead I’ll show you some photos that I took list night down at the canal lock.

I’ve been to various canal locks at night before, but this time the lock is under construction. I have no idea what they are doing,but the place is all torn up and fenced off and there is a lot of equipment standing around.

Some of the regular lights are gone at the moment, but there are several very bright portable lights pointed here and there. I think these lights are for security purposes rather than for working at night or anything. They are low and bright and I needed to position the camera in places where walls or equipment blocked the direct rays otherwise they would overwhelm the scene.

My son was up at the nearby school for indoor soccer practice and I figured I could sneak out for an hour or so to take some picks. The weather started out nice and calm with some tattered clouds and temps in the 40’s. I had only been there about 30 minutes and was just getting on a roll when things changed. I started to feel a few sprinkles during one long exposure. I figured it wasn’t too bad so I tried another one. Well, before it was over the sprinkles had turned into a downpour. Then the wind hit. I was getting soaked, the camera was getting soaked, the lens was getting spattered; I had to shut ‘er down and run for the car. The storm blew all night with 50 mile an hour gusts. Yikes.

So this is what I got. I like the harsh artificial lighting and the construction equipment and fences blocking up the scenes. It gives the photos a kind of old black and white prison movie feel. I can imagine James Cagney going over the wall with the sirens wailing and the dogs barking.

MDW