Long before starting with photography I have tried to express myself through music and words written and sung. Writing lyrics had been a sort of relief for me - especially in my late teenage years and early twenties, if necessary for fighting demons and turning the dark and bleak into something lasting and positive (although at the moment of creation that was not the intention). At best some of my written mumblings could be described as poetry. Something that stands on its own and evokes a feeling in the reader, or in the listener when combined with music. This approach and feel has carried over into my photography. And as I sense my art maturing I come to realize that this way of personal expression is connected with each other much more than I originally thought.
“Not having an exact equivalent for the word “poetic” in photography we will suggest the word “vision,” meaning not only sight, but insight.”
When reading the essay ‘Equivalence: The Perennial Trend’ from Minor White, released in 1963 (from which I took the quote above), it made me wonder: can images be poetry? What Minor White described and sought after in his photography was what he explained as equivalence (dating back to Alfred Stieglitz). Images transcending from its finished appearance inside the viewer´s mind. White even went as far as saying: “…the mental image in a viewer's mind is more important than the photograph itself.”.
Can an image be more than an image? Is poetry more than words? I believe the answer to both is yes.
So what is poetry? The encyclopedia Britannica describes poetry, as “literature that evokes a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience or a specific emotional response through language chosen and arranged for its meaning, sound and rhythm.”. So can an image, can photography fit into this definition? I believe it can. But images struggle with one aspect. And that is its pictorial representation of things. It’s blatancy. This may sound strange at first. But what I mean by that is many or even most people take the displayed for granted without questioning what is shown and without giving it further thought while looking at an image. A stronger cognitive effort is required to assemble an image which is given by words. Because other than looking at an image which reveals all the info the brain needs at mere glance, arranged words need a mind to put the information together. If done so thoughtfully it longer and deeper resonates.
And this ultimately leads to what I strive for in my art: go beyond the obvious and give the eyes, and much more so the mind, more than what is most obvious. This can sometimes be a sense of mystery and more often than not an emotion that goes further than what is aesthetically pleasing. In my lyrics in special, ambiguity has always been a major element. And I have always taken great joy in giving the listener and reader multiple ways of interpretation. Doing this with nature photography is much more demanding and difficult to achieve, yet, it is worth trying and very satisfactory if achieved every once in a while.
“A picture is a poem without words.”
What I have always loved about poetry is the life it takes on its own. The elevation of mind. The power of half- or subconscious thought. To the extend of being absolutely detached from the author’s original intent.
How many poems or lyrics can you recite in its entirety? Myself, I am pretty bad at that. But there are plenty of singular lines or verses that have stayed with me ever since reading. And that is not a bad thing. Not at all. In fact, I do love the idea of a single line staying strong and lasting with me, so that it enriches my life and I got to make it my own. Even if that means that this isolated line transcends the original meaning of its context. This might not always be to the poet´s delight, but well I guess that is just how it is. And I find lots of positives in that.
Think of an image you have seen that you liked. How much of the image do you really remember? How much of it could you draw on a piece of paper? This by the way is actually a pretty nice study exercise in improving your photography: all that stays inside your memory of an image is a necessary element. All that does not can be questioned as dispensable. The idea would then be to compose your image around those indispensable elements, the ones that stick in people’s minds. Hard to do? Yes, it is. This is why some photographers have their images lying around for a while and have them marinate until they can look at them with fresh eyes, detached from their emotions that had been felt while being at location. And ultimately stripping the image down to its essence is either the revelation of a clear vision for the finalization of the image, or the imperative to return to location and reshoot the scene to suit your now shaped vision.
“Inspired by Pep” this was an image that rather happened and was a joyful practice to see if I could achieve the impressionist feel of the amazing Pep Ventosa.
But while making the image and putting the more than a dozen exposures together I could not help but see and feel the humming spring sun, the movement of the grass and me as a boy in shorts running out in nature with my childhood friends. I could actually smell the grass and the image did something to me that went beyond looking at an image of a tree with several exposures of different perspectives laid on top of one another.
But back to what fractions of poems or images we remember and which ones we drop into the abyss of forgetting. Minor White had something to say about that, too: “What a man remembers of vision, is always peculiarly his own because various distortions occur and change his recall image after the original stimulation has gone.”. It’s the personal side, the ups and downs of life which shape mind. And in the best way shape art.
For that reason I like reading biographies of artists. And I have always enjoyed - although joy is not the right term, so I should much rather say “been the most interested and connected” to the breaks and downs in a biography and how that translated into the artist’s work. It’s not that I am an extremely moody or down beat person myself. Not at all. But as anybody I had my own ups and downs, weathered some storms. And I believe character gets shaped in and by stormy seas. And the artists I admire the most have created beyond adversity, often times mostly against themselves. This pushes my topic and where I want to go with this essay a bit far here, but this also pays in to my point of personal expression and relevance. And it is just that which shines in poetry. Name it character and significance.
What poetry in writing and photography have in common is the framing. The artist gives mundane objects new significance. By framing and literally zooming into facets that usually go rather unnoticed, it is given attention, isolated from its original subject and elevated into another meaning. It is not necessarily a representation of the objective truth or reality, it is the reality or the truth as seen by the artist. Maybe just a fragment or excerpt of the truth and an invitation to the reader and viewer in making up his/her own truth. In this it is unique. And it is a personal invitation into the artist’s vision.
I used to say I like to make my images sing. Which is a conscious elevation beyond making an image speak. I would like to add; I want my imagery to sing to you. But if the image can stick with you like a poem - even if it is just in small, litte excerpts or verses, and if it takes on a new life in your mind and pairs with your vision, then this shall be a far greater accomplishment than whistling a tune.