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As someone who lives and walks this city daily…my blog is all about delving a little deeper, seeing what it has to offer, and capturing the true essence of New York City. Whether you live in Gotham, or just visiting…feel free to look around my blog. Bet you might find something new to do!
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Tag Archives: Photography as a Healing Art
photography as a healing art…chapter nine
Life Seeking Life
(This is a series of posts on Jan Phillips’ book, God is at Eye Level, Photography as a Healing Art.
For an intro check out the first post here.)
It’s been a whirlwind these last couple of weeks with girlfriends visiting and a road trip to Vermont! Time to get back on track with a chapter review from Jan Phillips’ book. If you’re new to this series, see below to catch up!
Directly under the chapter title Life Seeking Life is the first quote by Gretel Erlich… To see and know a place is a contemplative act. It means emptying our minds and letting what is there in all its multiplicity and endless variety come in. Wow, my mind immediately went to last week’s visit to the 9-11 memorial. This was my second visit and was just as emotional as the first. How can one not think about the sheer horror of that day as you approach the waterfalls and reflection pools where the towers once stood. The surrounding atmosphere was quiet, serene, orderly and mindful. This was exactly what Erlich and Phillips talks about in this chapter…letting what is there in, at that very moment. Feeling the moment, not just seeing. And as a photographer it made me realize this is exactly what my goal should be each and every time my finger pushes the shutter release of my camera. It all came together for me.
As I headed to the far corner of the memorial to get an overall view of the area, a comment from a photography class instructor came to mind. Show me something I haven’t seen before… While I appreciate what he meant, it was while reading this chapter that I was reminded once again why I’m taking photos. She writes about listening to those voices who say they are authorities, who say it must be done this way or that way. And if we aren’t careful, we’ll start to believe them. So I needed this smack upside the head to remind me as Jan so well articulates…The real thing about photography is that it brings you home to yourself, connects you to those things that fulfill your deepest longings. When we come to photography fully alive, and in the act of photographing, connect with the life force of what is before us, our images contain some of that vitality. Even reading and typing these words makes me have goose bumps when my thoughts return to the memorial. Yes, these photos are just like so many others that you will see of the 9-11 memorial, but they are mine and they reflect what I felt at that moment. Thanks Jan for that reminder, and this chapter couldn’t have come at a better time.
Next up: Chapter Ten – God is at Eye Level
Joining in for the very first time? Catch up on the previous chapters!
Chapter One – Through the Eyes of a Child
Chapter Two – Seeing Our Way Clear
Chapter Three – Shifting the Focus
Chapter Four - Looking Like No Other
Chapter Five – Portrait of a Soul
Chapter Six – Speaking our Peace
the long road ahead…
The Road goes ever on and on down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone, and I must follow, if I can,
pursuing it with eager feet, until it joins some larger way where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
J.R.R. Tolkien, author of the epic fantasy, The Lord of the Rings.
~~~~
(This is a series of posts on Jan Phillips’ book, God is at Eye Level, Photography as a Healing Art.
For an intro check out the first post here.)
~~~~
New Images for a New World
Chapter eight of Jan Phillip’s book talks about how our images are teaching tools. Honestly, I hadn’t really thought about the root meaning of the word document (docere) is “to teach” so this is a timely chapter as I continue my quest to document my father’s battle with Alzheimer’s. Often when I tell people that I’m working on this project the immediate question is “How do you photograph something that’s happening inside their brain?” The above photo was captured on one of our walks on the farm, and when I saw the gravelled road laid out in front of him through my lens, the thoughts of his life ahead of him spoke volumes to me. What does he think as he walks on the land that he’s loved and tilled for over sixty years? Or when he sits in the sun in the living room and looks out the window for hours in total quietness? Or at night when he sits in his lazy-boy chair and says…Can we go home tomorrow?
To me this is the true meaning of photography; the ability to create an emotion. An image that can change the way we think, move us to tears or laughter, or to action. Jan phrased it perfectly for me. “When we set out to document something, we are tasked with revealing the essence, the true spirit of it, as we see it and feel it in our bones; for the more truth a photo contains, the more potential it has to touch the heart.”
She closes the chapter with a profound statement that all of us can use in our photography… “Every time we ‘load a roll of film into our cameras’ we can choose to contribute something valuable to the global family album or add to the stockpile of meaningless imagery.“ Wow.
Next up: Chapter Nine – Life Seeking Life
Joining in for the very first time? Catch up on the previous chapters!
Chapter One – Through the Eyes of a Child
Chapter Two – Seeing Our Way Clear
Chapter Three – Shifting the Focus
Chapter Four - Looking Like No Other
Chapter Five – Portrait of a Soul
Posted in Alzheimer's, Books, Family/Friends, Photography, Virginia
Also tagged alzheimer's, farm, God is at Eye Level, Jan Phillips, photography
11 Comments
photography as a healing art…chapter seven
cafe vurma, stockholm
(This is a series of posts on Jan Phillips’ book, God is at Eye Level, Photography as a Healing Art. For an intro check out the first post here.)
Mindful Seeing, Mindful Being
We know that voice, that craving to dance to the inner beat, express our passions, create something new from the stuff of our lives…Jan Phillips, author
The voice…the craving…the addiction…There’s no two ways about it. I’m addicted to seeking the light, capturing a moment, an emotion, a story. I could so connect with this chapter as it reflected on that “inner compulsion.” Phillips shares stories about Dorothea Lange and Laura Gilpin. Lange, known for her famous photograph of the “Migrant Mother,” suffered from polio, was abandoned as a child by her father, failed in her marriage and had many other illnesses, yet was driven. Gilpin, known for her photography of the Navajo Indians, was 77 years old when her book was finally published and age 81 when she received a grant for a major study of the land and people of Canyon de Chelly in Arizona. Both immersed themselves and allowed their empathy for their subject to prevail.
With my eyes constantly searching…engaged…wrapped up and only concerned for my immediate surroundings in the very moment…I find myself spending hours in this mode while it feels like only minutes…resulting in a sense of balance, the feeling of belonging, and ultimately the precious moment of sharing what was found. Phillips’ sums it up in her last sentence of the chapter…It is good to remember the source of the healing, that it began in the soul of one who went looking, who brought back from the journey a mirror for us all. Well said.
Next week: Chapter Eight – New Images for a New World
Joining in for the very first time? Catch up on the previous chapters!
Chapter One – Through the Eyes of a Child
Chapter Two – Seeing Our Way Clear
Chapter Three – Shifting the Focus
Chapter Four - Looking Like No Other
Posted in Photography
Also tagged Arizona, Canyon de Chey, Dorothea Lange, Jan Phillips, Laura Gilpin
10 Comments
photography as a healing art…chapter six
(This is a series of posts on Jan Phillips’ book, God is at Eye Level, Photography as a Healing Art. For an intro check out the first post here.)
Speaking our Peace
Find something you like to do. Learn to do it well, and do it in the service of the people. Karlene Faith
Many of us want to make a difference in the world, we want our lives to matter, right? As photographers we want our images to stand for our beliefs, and showcase what matters to us, right? The emphasis of chapter six is how photographs can have an impact beyond the personal level. As an example, since I’m not much of a TV person, I enjoy receiving the news on my computer through visual journalism, specifically the photo blogs associated with MSNBC and the Lens of the New York Times. It’s the emotional impact from the photo that words often don’t come close to describing.
The following two photos are not mine, but I wanted to share them as they had much more impact than had I just read the words that accompanied them.
In the village of Wadia in the western state of Gujarat in India, prostitution has been a tradition for ages and very much a normal way of life. But developments of late have aimed at breaking this tradition by marrying and engaging the girls, thus taking them out of the profession. OK, but how much more of an impact this story has when you see the image that photographer Amit Dave captured of a veiled girl waiting for her engagement ceremony to start…
So young, only a baby herself.
Or if you read the statement, Nepalese women carry bricks to a brick factory in Bungmati on the outskirts of Katmandu, Nepal… But what an impact when you see the image that photographer Niranjan Shrestha captured…
It’s as if you can feel the weight of those bricks. Can you only imagine?
The author, Jan Phillips, says photographs can change the course of things, turn one’s head, alter one’s thoughts, enlighten one’s darkness. To shoot with that awareness, to know our images, made of light, can contribute light – that is the joy of photography. How profound are those words… Our images made of light, can contribute light…
That’s exactly my goal and mission with bringing awareness to Alzheimer’s.
my daddy
When I tell you my dad has Alzheimer’s doesn’t it have much more of an impact when you see this photo? How alone he must feel? Uncertain to what is happening in his mind…not knowing what is next?
Next week: Chapter Seven – Mindful Seeing, Mindful Being
Joining in for the first time? Catch up on the previous chapters!
Chapter One – Through the Eyes of a Child
Chapter Two – Seeing Our Way Clear
Chapter Three – Shifting the Focus
Posted in Alzheimer's, Photography
Also tagged alzheimer's, Amit Dave, God is at Eye Level, India, Jan Phillips, Karlene Faith, Niranjan Shrestha
2 Comments
photography as a healing art – chapter five
Portrait of a Soul
(This is a series of posts on Jan Phillips’ book, God is at Eye Level, Photography as a Healing Art. For an intro check out the first post here.)
Still reflecting on the importance of the connection or relationship in photography, the author takes it a step further in chapter five by discussing the body language that speaks our inner voice, conversing through the language of eyes and smiles. “My portraits grew out of this closeness and expressed the intimacy from which they emerged.”
For me, taking portraits of people that I don’t know is challenging, particularly street photography. I’m not the “in your face” type photographer. Don’t get me wrong, with a fabulous zoom lens I do use it occasionally for capturing people, but it lacks the connection for me, it lacks the soul connection.
A few days ago while exploring the East Village here in NYC, my eyes always constantly looking at locations and evaluating their potential for a portrait capture, I came across a street with some incredible murals. Sitting there in front of this work of art was a man just hanging out, minding his own business and voila – the PERFECT scenario for a portrait shot.
But as mentioned, it’s very difficult for me to just shove my camera in his face. So by using “the language of eyes and smiles” we exchanged pleasantries and ended up sitting together for a half hour or so while I learned that Ron is a street person and has lived all over the boroughs of New York City.
Ron
He was quite the talker and we chatted for a while about my passion for photography. He was so intrigued about digital photography and just couldn’t grasp the fact that you didn’t need film and a dark room to view the finished product. When preparing to leave, he was quick to invite me back…”Oh, I’m always in the hood, come back and see me…you’ll find me…”
As Phillips’ states, “I wanted to interact with them, and I wanted my images to reflect some connection, no matter how brief or limited. That connection was the healing part, the place where I learned time and again that it is not language or custom or creed that unites us, but the spirit within that’s common to us all.“
Well said, Ms. Phillips, well said.
Ron in the east village, nyc
Next week: Chapter Six – Speaking our Peace
Joining in for the first time? Catch up on the previous chapters!
Chapter One – Through the Eyes of a Child
Chapter Two – Seeing Our Way Clear
Posted in People, Photography, Public Art
Also tagged East Village, God is at Eye Level, Jan Phillips, NYC, photography
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photography as a healing art – chapter four
Looking Like No Other
(This is a series of posts on Jan Phillips’ book, God is at Eye Level, Photography as a Healing Art. For an intro check out the first post here.)
Phillips’ chapter four showcases the importance of the relationship between the photographer and the person on the other side of the lens. Well the “relationship” or “connecting” has certainly come full circle in my life.
When I think back to my corporate days, part of my success was my awareness and my ability to relate to all kinds and all levels of people. It didn’t matter if the person was an entry level clerk or the president of a fortune 500 company, or if the person was white, black, hispanic, christian or a muslim…I had the innate ability to connect with them. I know this “gift” of mine began at age six when I would go with my father to sell our farm produce at the city market. Our customer could be the president of the local bank who wanted an apple for lunch, a mother who wanted fresh produce to prepare meals for her family for the week or a wino wanting to buy a tomato to go with his bottle. It was during those years that this gift was developed and honed and later became a key ingredient to my corporate success. And it makes so much sense to what a critical role it plays in photography.
As photographers we all can have the exact same subject matter, but our captured images be totally different. It all has to do with connections, feelings and trust. During my first year or two of photographing this wasn’t obvious to me. I would shoot quickly (and often still do – working on that!) not wanting to take up their time or bring attention to myself. Now I’m learning to feel what Phillips explains…it’s that decisive moment, that whole that contains all the parts and nothing else….waiting for the moment when heart and mind and eye comes together on the same axis. What shows up in the photographs could not have existed without me. What shows up in those faces is there because of who I am, because of how I revered them and how they perceived and responded to that reverence.
Creating art could not exist without us. Whether we probe deeply or just skim the surface. The results stems from the passion of our uniqueness and interactions in the world. Phillips’ ends the chapter with this heartfelt sentence…All we have to do is let it go, give it voice, have it be the source of all our seeing. Now that is key to healing in my book.
captured in central park
Next week: Chapter Five – Portrait of a Soul
Joining in for the first time? Catch up on the previous chapters!
Chapter One – Through the Eyes of a Child
Posted in Photography
Also tagged central park, God is at Eye Level, healing, Jan Phillips, photography
11 Comments
photography as a healing art – chapter three
Shifting the Focus
(This is a series of posts on Jan Phillips’ book, God is at Eye Level, Photography as a Healing Art. For an intro check out the first post here.)
The first year in NYC my focus was simply to capture and document the scene whether it was the Aids Walk in Central Park (one of my very first photos below!) or daily events when friends would visit. During the second year an obsession had started to take place. I signed up for photography courses, taking my camera everywhere, living and breathing photography. And I slowly started to improve. It became more of a passion, an eagerness to search to locate the hidden treasures of potential images. I was no longer just looking, but starting to see differently. And I also started to uncover my new identity.
Knowledge of what you love somehow comes to you; you don’t have to read nor analyze nor study. If you love a thing enough, knowledge of it seeps into you, with particulars more real than any chart can furnish. Jessamyn West
Now that I read this quote in Phillips’ book, it’s probably one of my biggest lessons learned after retiring from the corporate world. I didn’t have the patience for it to come to me. I thought I had to find it. So I searched and searched only to realize what you love somehow comes to you…
aids walk in central park, may 2009
Next week: Chapter Four – Looking Like No Other
Posted in Photography
Also tagged central park, God is at Eye Level, Jan Phillips, NYC, photography
12 Comments
photography as a healing art – chapter two
Seeing Our Way Clear
(This is the beginning of a series of posts on Jan Phillips’ book, God is at Eye Level, Photography as a Healing Art. For an intro check out the first post here.)
I did not come to photography looking for magic. I came looking for a way to speak my pain. Words from the author, Jan Phillips and her intro to chapter two. Someone asked me…Why do you need healing? The answer is simple. After leaving my job in corporate America, I lost my identity.
I hear this quite often from retirees as well as from mothers who have left their jobs to be a stay-at-home mom. But it never occurred to me that my retirement around the age of fifty would have such a huge impact on me and one that I wasn’t even remotely prepared for.
Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed my thirty years in corporate even with all the stress and living in an environment equal to the urgency of an emergency room of a hospital. But the craziness of travel, being removed from the daily office routine of being with people, and family concerns provided the impetus to retire. After that I started my own business, co-authored a book and still couldn’t find it. I still didn’t feel I had an identity and I was miserable. I needed a big shake up in my life. It wasn’t until I moved to NYC (just for a year – ha ha!) and started chronicling my daily activities for my family and friends…did I find it. Photography.
I fell in love with photography. My lifesaver, my soul mate, the mending of the broken wing as described by Phillips. She’s so eloquent in her description…There’s something holy about this work, something healing about this search for light. Like the pilgrim’s journey; it’s heaven all the way. Oh, how true. Not only was I living the dream of actual day-to-day living in the city, but photographing almost daily as well. I started out with my trusty Lumix point and shoot and then graduated to an introductory SLR. Like Phillips says, it isn’t about the sophistication of your camera, what matters is that something intimate and precious and sacred is being brought to life and shared with others. That is what healing is all about. I found that to be so true.
It took me a while, but what I have found about my photography is the importance of an emotional component. The lighting, the time of day, colors, textures, composition…all components to representing my emotions.
I have found my identity in photography and I couldn’t be happier.
tulip tree ready to burst
Every creative person has a second date of birth, and one which is more important than the first:
that on which he discovers what his true vocation is.
Brassai
Next week: Chapter Three – Shifting the Focus
photography as a healing art – chapter one
Through the Eyes of a Child
Were you fascinated by photographs as a child? I can remember looking at photo albums time and time again growing up. There was a certain comfort, a feeling of being safe, the warmth of family.
I’m so thrilled that my mother and grandmother loved to take family photos. What would I do now without them? The one above provides so many memories for me now. My twin sisters with their identical clothing, my mom’s sense of fashion, the dinnerware on the bar that I now have today, the violets my mom grew prolifically on the window sill, the bar stools that we sat on for every meal together as a family. It takes me right back to that time…a time I’ll never forget.
During my corporate years I rarely took photos. But I did have one picture that went with me to every office I occupied throughout my career. One of a small sail boat on a body of calm water. It had a Monet feel to it. Whenever I had stressful days (and boy there were lots of them!) I would go into my office, close the door and just gaze at that picture.
Now I find myself capturing moments like that with my camera. Whether it’s a scene in Central Park, dried grasses on the farm, or cacti in the desert, it’s looking through the lens and having similar feelings like I did when I looked at those photographs as a child. There’s a wave of comfort and warmth that comes over me as I try my best to capture those feelings to share with you.
Next week: Chapter Two – Seeing Our Way Clear
(This is the beginning of a series of posts on Jan Phillips’ book, God is at Eye Level, Photography as a Healing Art. You can visit the first post here.)
Posted in Books, Family/Friends, Photography, Virginia
Also tagged central park, desert, farm, Jan Phillips, photography
3 Comments
photography as a healing art
“Are you a photographer?” The first question that many people ask when they see my camera. I’ve always struggled with that question and hesitation creeps in to provide an answer.
So when do you call yourself a photographer? Anyone with a camera or an iPhone can take photos. But does that make you a photographer? I’ve always thought you’d call yourself a photographer when you made money at it, and I’m far from that happening especially in today’s world of thousands of photographers. Then when I think of “amateur photographer” for some reason it doesn’t seem to represent the seriousness of my passion for photography. To me in today’s world, amateur seems to have more of a meaning like you don’t quite measure up, you don’t qualify as a professional, and in general…you’re not really that good at something. Thus, my struggle.
So today, while reading one of several new books that I recently ordered, finally someone makes sense with the term amateur photographer. Jan Phillips’ book, God is at Eye Level, Photography as a Healing Art nails it for me. I needed to be reminded that the latin root of the word amateur is the verb amare, to love. An amateur is someone who does something for the pure pleasure of it. Now here’s another important part. “For an amateur, the important thing is the experience, not the accomplishment.” To be totally honest here, I do want my photographs to have impact, to evoke some sort of emotion when someone views them, but the bottom line for me is the experience.
Whether I’m on the farm or in my city or in the desert or on my travels, I enjoy the experience. I enjoy getting lost in a field of weeds, a section of the woods or the desert, a neighborhood in MY city or a brand new country…and by getting lost I mean, hours go by and it seems like minutes. It’s getting so excited the moment my eyes lands on the subject…the experience of varying the composition…the capture…then the process of downloading my photos in an eagerness to view the outcome. Simple, yet thrilling to me.
Just reading this section of Phillips’ book has finally given me the confidence to say, I’m an amateur photographer and feel good about it! What about you? Have you ever struggled with this? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
On a side note, Phillips dedicates her book to “all the photographers who are using their vision in the service of community and compassion, making images that inspire us and remind us of the beauty that is ours to safeguard and honor.” I’m so struck with her spiritual teachings that I’m going to re-read each chapter, reflect and share my thoughts with you. So once a week, look for the title of my post, Photography as a Healing Art. I will welcome your thoughts!
Posted in Photography
Also tagged amateur, amateur photographer, God is at Eye Level, Jan Phillips, photography
21 Comments
