The Art of Seeing - Week 13, Interpret Darkness in Photography

Quote of the day: “To take photographs means to recognize—simultaneously and within a fraction of a second—both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning. It is putting one’s head, one’s eye, and one’s heart on the same axis. It is a way of shouting, of freeing oneself, not of proving or asserting one’s own originality. It is a way of life.” — Henri Cartier-Bresson

Darkness and light – Young and Old – Large and Small. We often think of these as opposites but there is always light in darkness, age in youth, smallness in large things.

The past two weeks I’ve been working on another one of Doug Beasley‘s wonderful Vision Quest Cards: Photo Assignments For Personal & Spiritual Growth for my photography self-study/challenge assignment. I drew the card, “Interpret the subject Darkness. Be aware of what light is present and how that light affects the mood.”

This assignment was quite challenging. To move beyond a trite interpretation of Darkness required me to soften my focus and let images speak to me metaphorically. At first I was quite literal in looking for opportunities to make photos in near-darkness or looking for objects that represented darkness. It took me a full two weeks of pondering the subject, making photos, and looking at them, for me to realize how to approach the subject of Darkness.

I made my first literal interpretation photos in darkness inside and outside.

August 2012 Full Moon View Through Trees – Darkness Shining

Black chair in dark room with a glimmer of light reflecting off arm of chair

While I always learn something new when I make photos in dim light or at night, this literal interpretation was not the kind of interpretation of the subject Darkness I was looking to make. I dug deeper and thought about the idea of darkness shining, dark matter, dark times, dark ideas, the turning of day into night and night into day. This brought me to thoughts of the yin-yang symbol.

Yin and yang are not opposing forces (dualities), but complementary forces, unseen (hidden, feminine) and seen (manifest, masculine), that interact to form a greater whole, as part of a dynamic system. Everything has both yin and yang aspects as light could not be understood if darkness didn’t exist, and shadow cannot exist without light. — Wikipedia article on Yin and Yang

Yes, this is how I think about darkness, the unseen and the seen connected to one another and interacting as a part of the whole. One cannot perceive darkness without light or light without darkness. The trite interpretation of darkness as evil and light as good is not helpful. Life is more complex than that. Everything has both light and darkness in it. Both are necessary.

Dark leaf shows qualities of bright white in direct light

When I think about the dark times I have experienced in my life, I realize that they have always brought me growth and the birth of new experiences, just as the seasons turn round through the year, we cycle from darkness to light to darkness to light.

Drumming by the fireside in the darkness

As a photographer, I have discovered that I notice how light and dark play together, I am learning to understand how the camera sees light and how to adjust the exposure and F-stop to express how I experience the darkness and light that I see. I have discovered a love of black and white photography because it allows me to express purely the light and darkness that I see.