garrison beau scott

Some time ago, Rolfe Horn gave me a copy of Bill Jay’s treatise on contemporary photography entitled Occam’s Razor. And only now have I begun to read it in earnest. I would be embarrassed that it’s taken me years, plural, to crack the cover, but I am a charter member of the “Better Late Than Never” club and will ease any chagrin I might have felt at coming to Bill Jay’s party so late after the initial invitation with the knowledge I might not have been ready until now.

The tenets of what he has written, what I have read that is, have to a certain extent, rung true with me in years past, especially the following passage:

“The fact of the matter is photography cannot bear the intellectual weight with which it is fashionable to burden it. Photography is not an intellectual game, but an emotional response to charged living.”

An emotional response to charged living.

There are only so few moments when I feel more charged at life than when I’m out taking pictures. Lives being born, joined, and celebrated in memory to name a very select few, and so I’ve felt what Jay has said, and greatly admire the way he’s said it.

But it’s his view on subject matter vs. the “self” that’s taken me 38 years to finally grasp. His argument rings so true, much in the way a bell first struck fills the void of the silence that preceded the act. There I was, happy in the silent pursuit on who I was as a photographer, thinking the word “I” was the thing that mattered. And all along I had the sentence incorrect. It should read, “What am I as a photographer?” Key word being, “what.”

I wish I could sum up his take on this issue as neatly as I did with the part about photography being a response to charged living, but this concept of self vs subject, at least to me, is just too big for a simple paragraph, and so I highly suggest picking up a copy of the book, published by Nazraeli Press. You can order the book on Amazon, but it’d be so much more fun to go this route.

When my first-born burst onto the scene almost five (damn) years ago, the in-laws, who were experiencing grandparenthood for the first time, openly lamented in the lack of photographs coming their way.

And then, as if I wasn’t getting the hint, they put a Nikon Coolpix into my hands and told me to let ‘er rip. Until then, I had resisted digital cameras much in the same way an Olympian long distance runner resists Big Macs. But they had a point.

So I took the camera and began to snap up shots of my little baby. And they still lamented the dirge of pictures.

I’ve since bought a DSLR and can’t imagine what it’s like to have kids and not have a digital camera. They should hand one out when any new parent leaves the hospital with their first bundle of joy. If not for the sheer amount of use it’ll get and to keep the image thirsty grandparents at bay (in my case barely) but like any good piece of electronics, it’s always cool to have a new toy to play with. The baby’s pretty cool too.

And when I first got the Coolpix, I took it with me wherever I went. When I wasn’t using it to document first steps and smiles, I was snapping up things like this.

More than a few wise people have told me that life is about balance. Some have gone even so far as to say it’s a balancing act, but that has connotations of a high-wire, a long pole, unicycle, and bowling pins perched precariously on a nose. My doctor says it’s about moderation, and there’s probably the reason college students don’t go see the doctor.

The Chinese, I think, describe this as the Yin and Yang, which is fitting as it was Winnie the Pooh who taught me the way of the Tao. Something heavy, something light. Is it any wonder just about everyone likes sweet and sour shrimp? Well, any way, here’s a little Tao for you.

I’m going to ease back into this with a shot from Prague that, in a way, reminds me of my grandmother. Thank you to everyone who shared their kind words with me regarding her.