What a great button the “delete” button is. I am sometimes envious of photographers using digital cameras because the equipment allows for instant feedback as well as removal of images that don’t work. For myself, working with traditional equipment and film I don’t see what’s on the film until long after I’ve left my subject. As I’ve written before, for me this is a good system. I like (and need) the separation of time and space between making an image and evaluating the processed negative because it allows me to see my work from a bit of distance. This “distance” brings opportunity to both evaluate the merits of the negative as well as decide where to take the image with printing. However this way of working has certain (more…)

For me, beauty is optimism made visible. In earlier newsletters this year we have talked about working within ourselves, using what is at hand and making images close to home, giving ourselves permission to take an hour out of our busy weeks to make photographs, to be aware while we are making images perhaps finding new images in our “mistakes”, and celebrating the fact that we are creative people. Every one of us is creative in one way or another. I see creativity as optimism, and I think it is optimism that has gotten us through the past year. If we are still able to go out and make images we care about even when it feels like the world is filled with chaos and tragedy, the act is both creative and beautiful. If I let worry and fear enter my creative sphere then I am not ready or able to do the work I want and need to do.

It has been a good, if tough, fourteen months for Donna and myself. November 2008 our third book, Odin Stone, arrived from the bindery. We had worked most of the previous year raising the money for publication and organizing these images of the Orkney Islands from concept to completion. It debuted that November with an exhibit at the Addison Woolley Gallery in Portland (ME). Within days we began the layout work for A Walk Along The Jordan, which arrived by truck the day before we left for Utah for the opening exhibit of this work at the Salt Lake Arts Center. Odin Stone covered work created between 2002 and 2007 while most of the images for A Walk Along the Jordan were photographed primarily between February 2006 and October 2008. (There are some images shot before 2006 but not many.) So for a while I was photographing and organizing for two books at the same time.

If you look at the two books side by side, you will notice an overlap in style, technique, and vision. Although they cover different subject matter they are both about relating to and experiencing a specific environment. In one sense Odin Stone was easier to shoot because of the uniqueness (to me) of the environment. In that same sense the Jordan River project was much tougher because it was an area familiar to me, in my back yard so to speak. I didn’t have the experience of “going” somewhere special to make photographs. I got in the car, drove a few blocks or a few miles and began walking along the river trying to see something new and different. It was in every sense an ordinary location, in some places the river beautiful, in others less so. When I told people I was working on a book on the Orkney Islands they may not have known where it was but when I told them it was in Scotland they understood why I would want to photograph there. On the other hand when I told people I was photographing along the Jordan River, most asked “Why”?

I photographed along the Jordan River in a sense because it was there. I was in Utah teaching and my family was back in Maine. It was what I did on the weekends. It was a challenge to make something beautiful out of something ordinary. The more I walked along the river the more I began to I understand its place in the community. The more I studied its history the more important it became to me. Essentially photographing the river provided me a reason to get out and make photographs, and from that grew the challenge to myself to produce a coherent body of work from this ordinary place. It reinforced my belief that there was much to learn from photographing in my own “backyard”. I remembered that I didn’t need the excitement (or time and expense) of distant travel to see with fresh eyes. In many ways this idea is what I have been trying to write about over the past year: finding the beauty where I am as well as in who I am. It is, in a sense, in rediscovering the beauty that lies within my own vision I can better appreciate that found in the vision of others.

It is indeed a form of optimism that allows me to got out and seek such beauty. As the days continue to shorten over these next weeks let us remember to use the power of our individual creativities to remain optimistic. Make images for yourself as you move into the New Year of possibilities.

I wish you much joy this Holiday season!

Tillman

The little things? The little moments? They aren’t little.
Jon Kabat-Zinn

I’ve been thinking on this quote for a few weeks now and as with most things wise, these words serve to teach us on numerous layers. On the surface the words call us to pay attention, to our relationships, to our work, to our daily lives. What exactly does this mean and how do we do it? The answers are as infinite as the differences in how we each relate to the world. Relating these words specifically to my work as an artist has me thinking differently about the attention I pay (or don’t pay) to the every day details in my work that make it possible for me to create a final photograph. For my experience is, when I’m not paying attention to the details, the details keep me from doing the very thing I desire – to make photographs that speak for me.

When we are first learning a skill set our attention is fully focused on the activity and other thoughts are kept away. However, our human tendency is to settle into learned patterns for all the repetitive, day-to-day actions required of us – whether in work, play or relationships. Washing dishes, mowing the lawn, processing film, all things we’ve done a thousand times and see no reason to think more deeply about. With time we get into the habit of not thinking about what we are doing, our mind millions of thoughts away from our body. And that’s when it happens – a knife picked up by the wrong end, bending the blade with a rock, or filling my trays with water rather than developer and ruining eight sheets of 8×10 film. These situations represent layers of inattention.

Every photograph is the result of a series of decisions by the artist, from the inspiration for the image through the perspiration allowing it to spring forth. Inspiration often gets the top billing, but the perspiration part is essential. The latter is the mastery of the craft, where you become so fluent with your materials that the inspiration can flow through the perspiration. The craft, however, involves details requiring your attention. Many of these details can actually be stumbling blocks because they were learned or mastered in one particular situation or location and we believe them to be “the way” to do things. If you adhere rigidly to there being only this one way then you may miss opportunities to simplify, modify and personalize your working methods.

With some areas in the process you have the flexibility to choose to do things the way you want to. For example, I work with large format cameras and make platinum prints because after years of working with smaller formats and silver printing I found that this is where my passions lie. However in making this choice, there are a myriad of details that need attending to in order for me to be successful at working with this way. Some are sacrosanct and others habit or tradition but the little ways of thinking about or working in my craft are important. Changing small things, rethinking methodology, even changing a working space can make a huge difference in the flow of work. Here are a couple of examples from my own experience that have made such a difference in how I work.

For years I kept an 8×10 enlarger in my darkroom, of one sort or another. Even after I returned to Maine from Utah and set up my “ultimate” darkroom, I included an 8×10 enlarger. Although I dedicated myself to just making platinum prints I still seemed to feel a need for the 8×10 enlarger. Finally, a couple of years ago I said “enough” and took the enlarger out of the darkroom and put it in my storage unit. As a result, I was able to put an extra counter top with shelves underneath where the enlarger once stood. It made a big improvement in my working space. It got rid of a not only huge physical impediment but cleared out physic space as well. I have let go of the expectation that I have to be prepared for making large silver prints. In doing so, I was able to let go of equipment I no longer needed and create more space for the way I am now working.

A short while later it dawned on me that I didn’t need the floor-to-ceiling drying racks I had built when I thought I was going to be making large silver prints. I (finally) noticed that I never had more that 1/3 of the racks filled with drying platinum prints. I cut the drying racks down to counter height, put a top on the supports and created even more workspace. Now rather than walking into a darkroom with a huge enlarger towering over one end and drying racks towering over the other end, I have an open and free flowing workspace. That makes sense for what I want to do and the way I want to work. I have always loved working in my darkroom. But by paying attention to the little things about how my space was or was not working I was able to let go of some ideas that were no longer important to the way I want to work and make my space more efficient and comfortable.

It is these small things that can get in our way and either stop us from making the work or by making the process less enjoyable. They can be physical things, like my darkroom equipment that no longer served it purpose, camera equipment you never use, or even an idea or project that you no longer want to pursue. Look more closely at the little things that make up the flow of your work and see if there are impediments that are getting in your way. Pay attention to the details and see if there isn’t an easier or more satisfying way to work, Inspiration is necessary for success, but being ready for inspiration by honing your skills and being clear about how you work is every bit as important.

Look at what you are doing and see if you can find the little things that make doing your work harder than it needs to be. Change them and clear out your physical space as well as your physic space. Remember that this is your work and you should derive pleasure from both the act of creating it and from the work itself.

It is the little things that are important.

All the best,
Tillman

I am combining the October and November postings to make ready for the release of A Walk Along The Jordan. News of this and other titles, as well as prints and the 2010 Workshop schedule should be on the website (www.tillmancrane.com) by early November.

When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only of how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
- R. Buckminster Fuller

What is your working method? It doesn’t matter whether you are a photographer, painter, ceramicist, chef, or writer. Regardless of your creative medium we all have to discover how we work best, and from this knowledge, design our individual workflow. Each of us has to figure out our own way of working that allows us to produce work that is uniquely our own. Although certain procedures in life require particular adherence to specific detail for success (i.e. film processing) in most cases placing your own foot in the footsteps of another doesn’t result in work that is unique to you. I believe that by looking at why we work and how we work enables us to craft a workflow all our own. This in turn allows us to be creative, reaching for a depth in our experience that is required for truly honest and real work.

As a photographer, how would you describe your process from conception of the image to completion of the print? More specifically, do you make the image and then process and print immediately or do you let the latent image sit and “age” before processing and printing? There isn’t any right or wrong answer to this question, other than the methods you choose to work with in order to make the images you need to make and present to the world. What is paramount here is that each of us creates a flow in our work that is ours, one that evolves out of experimenting with ideas from our teachers, from readings, and from observation of the world around us. Photography is a creative endeavor and for a creative result you need to be creative in how you approach your work. If we photograph mechanically, without thought to what drives us individually, then the images we produce will be mechanical, perhaps technically “perfect” but devoid of a beauty which brings it alive to others.

After the last newsletter several people wrote and asked to “see the photograph” that I spoke to of making that morning in the fog. It hasn’t been processed yet, and may not be for several weeks. I find that I need to separate the steps involved in taking an image from concept to completion. Making the image, processing and editing the image and finally,  printing the image need to be three separate events. And each needs to be evaluated differently. I enjoy each step of the process separately. I like to let negatives age before they are processed because I want to forget the experience of making the image. When I am processing the film I want to see the emerging negative with fresh eyes, to see it really for the first time. I have forgotten the preconceived notions of what it “should be” and try to see it for what it is. If I wait long enough, then every negative I process is a new negative to me. I have forgotten the experience of making the image and can concentrate on what I see in the image. Later, as I edit negatives, again I see them with fresh eyes. Does the image actually “say” anything? Can I see the idea of the image months after exposing the film? And later yet, when I make the print, again I am re-experiencing the image for the first time. The separation from exposing, editing, and printing is important. So I let my images sit for weeks if not months. It is important for me to let an image age, like good whisky.

It is important for each of us to find our own working method, one that allows us to do the work we need to do in a manner in which we feel comfortable. Obviously I am not talking about working on assignment with deadlines, I am talking about doing the work that as artists we are compelled to produce. The work that is important to us. Finding this working method is a long process, with one right answer, and many wrong ones. I want to encourage you to find your own workflow, your own method of working that makes sense for you. It is by discovering your methodology for producing work, that you will produce your best work. But it requires asking hard questions, separating out the different aspects of your art and understanding how they work together to make your work uniquely yours. Follow your own path, and it will allow you to make work that speaks to others.

All the best,
Tillman

If you are interested in news about workshops, books and past Newsletters go towww.tillmancrane.com