This week was the first week of a 10-day online photography class that has rocked my approach to photography. Taught by Catherine Just (@cjust on instagram), Begin Deepening, is a Conceptual Photography eCourse.

I enrolled in the class because I am working on deepening expression of all that has heart, soul, and meaning in my photography.

Whether we intend to or not we are expressing our voice all the time. I want to become more conscious of my voice and what it is I want to express.

Digging Deeper

It feels like the journey of a lifetime, always on the path and never quite arriving, but oh, such an interesting path to explore.

Some of us are quite literal in how we express our voice (that’s me!) and others use signs, symbols, metaphor, and allegories.

“Why do writers use symbolism?” Okay, so let’s say you have a headache and you wanna tell someone about it and you say, “I have a headache!” and other people are like, “Yeah, whatever. Everybody gets headaches.” But your headache is not a regular headache, it’s a serious headache, so you say, “My brain is on fire!” to try to help these people understand that this is a headache that needs attention! That’s a metaphor, right? And you use it so that you can be understood. Now let’s say you want to take those same imagistic principles but apply them to a much more complex idea than having a headache, like, for instance, the yearning that one feels for one’s dreams. And you can see the dream but you can’t cross the bay to get to the green light that embodies your dream. And you want to talk about how socio-economic class in America is a barrier – a bay-like barrier, some would say – that stands between you and the green light and makes that gap unbridgeable. Now, you can just talk about that stuff directly, but when you talk about it symbolically, it becomes more powerful, because instead of being abstract it becomes kind of observable…. So I think that’s why.”
― John Green

I have laughingly told friends that I don’t have a symbolic bone in my body. When I go to movies filled with symbols I totally miss them. Afterwards when I discuss the movie with friends, their insights always astonish me. At those times I feel handicapped because I only experience the richness of those symbols and metaphors through the eyes of others or in hindsight, after someone explains what they see beneath the surface.

It may be that intention and practice can develop my ability in this area. That is one of the reasons I took this class. It’s a way to practice and have someone give me some ideas on how to dig deeper in this area.

The class has certainly stirred up my creative juices and had my mind in a whirl all week. But I struggle with the process.

“Pull a thread here and you’ll find it’s attached to the rest of the world.”
― Nadeem Aslam, The Wasted Vigil

Does going deeper require me to dig in my psyche and mine my emotions for material? I’m not sure that’s something I want to do.

I’ve noticed that a lot of photographers who do conceptual photography tend to be drawn towards topics that express angst, pain, and “negative” emotions. My perception is that they think something can only move you or tell a story if it makes you feel pain.

I don’t want to make photographs that are only about pain and angst. There is enough of that in the world already. But I do want to express what is real and true and universal human experiences which often include “the full catastrophe”—love, sacrifice, joy, sorrow.

I made a photograph of a father holding his 10-day old infant during an unguarded moment (we were doing a new baby photo shoot). You could see both the exhaustion and the love in his eyes and gesture. It expressed a deep truth of parenthood to me and is one of my favorite portraits. This accidental image represents what is possible to me and provides a compass that helps me discern what has heart, soul, and meaning.

So how do I dig in to find moments like that? And how can I capture and express these truths without feeling like a voyeur or someone intruding? One way is to use self-portraiture, something that I am often not comfortable with. Another way is to photograph objects or things that symbolize the ideas I want to express.

Where do the ideas come from?

Digging into the psyche and endlessly processing my life is something I tend to avoid. My mindfulness practice has something to do with that. Recognizing the incessant barrage of thoughts and emotions that we all have, digging in to process any particular memory, thought, or emotion seems somewhat like digging into a compost pile. I know that compost is a great fertilizer but I don’t need to dig in the compost pile while it’s rotting (well actually I do need to turn the pile every so often to help the process).

“What do you think dignity’s all about?’

The directness of the inquiry did, I admit, take me rather by surprise. ‘It’s rather a hard thing to explain in a few words, sir,’ I said. ‘But I suspect it comes down to not removing one’s clothing in public.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day

One of the processes we used this week in class was helpful to me. The assignment was to write in my journal for 25 minutes just doing stream of consciousness writing (like doing Artist Way pages) and then to read the pages back to myself and choose 2-3 words or themes. Pick one word I wanted to work on and create a mind map, searching out words that are similar, words that mean the opposite, symbols that might represent the word. From that work, develop a plan for what you want to photograph, gather the necessary materials, and make the photograph.

Word from journal writing

This process helped me realize that I can express things that are not just about angst and pain. I don’t need to focus on the past or on pain. I can focus on growing, changing, deepening, learning. It was literally a light bulb moment for me. (Don’t laugh! I told you I wasn’t very good at symbols.) Using a light bulb to represent this big “Aha!” may seem cliche, but it worked for me.

Mind Map Using Words from journal writing

The assignments this week had me endlessly playing with ideas, my camera, and editing. And they helped me clarify my voice a little more. I look forward to one more week of rocking my photography in the last 5 days of class next week.

Image one for mind map ideas

Image 2 for mind map ideas

Image 3 for mind map ideas

May you walk in beauty.

Putting the 3 mind map images together

Dragonfly gardening

Dreaming in the Deeps