“The real voyage of discovery,” wrote French novelist Marcel Proust, “consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”
A new book by photographers Andy Carr and Michael Wood offers those new eyes to photographers and nonphotographers alike. In “The Practice of Contemplative Photography,” Carr and Wood describe a way of photography that emphasizes seeing first, slowly and contemplatively, before lifting a camera.
In that moment of what the authors call the “flash of perception,” we simply perceive what’s there. We don’t lapse into conceptions about what’s there. We just see the color, and light, and form that’s presented to our eyes and mind.
Both Carr and Wood are longtime meditators. They stress the importance of first resting with the perception in the present moment, leaving all thoughts and distraction behind, even concerns about camera settings and other technical matters. They explain:
It is fairly easy to master the basic technical skills of photography. In fact, the sophistication of modern digital cameras makes many of those skills superfluous.
It is much harder to develop your ability to see and learn to work with the subtle dynamics of your own mind, yet this is where the potential for real artistry and joy is to be found. For us, this is the really interesting challenge.
The practice of contemplative photography as described by the authors consists of three phases. First is the flash of perception. Something breaks through our everyday fog and arrests our attention. We become still. We see something in a new way. We stay with our perception of what we see and don’t begin analyzing and conceptualizing it:
Flashes of perception occur only when there is a gap in the thinking process. Because perception is free from context, it floats in the present moment. This experience is buoyant, light, weightless. Self-centeredness and preoccupation have fallen away. You have connected eye, mind, and heart and the experience is joyful, relaxed, and liberating.
The next phase of contemplative photography is visual discernment. You’ve had the flash of perception. You may feel the urge to pick up the camera right away and start shooting. Why wait?
But not yet. The authors stress the importance of staying with that perception a while longer, to rest in it:
Practicing visual discernment means looking deeply at what you see to discover the subtleties of perception.
Through resting your body and mind, and staying with the perception in an inquisitive way, you discern exactly what you are seeing before you raise your camera.
After the flash of perception and the period of visual discernment, we come to the third and final phase of contemplative photography. We take the picture.
This is the phase the authors describe as “forming the equivalent.” We form, or create, in our photograph what we have already taken the time to burnish in our mind’s eye. This is the phase where technology comes in. The authors write simply and clearly about lenses, focal length, aperture and depth of field. They advise about framing the image, working with light, etc. So the authors don’t neglect the technical side of photography — it’s just that technology comes only after the careful and fresh seeing.
To help illustrate these three phases of contemplative photography, the authors offer readers practical assignments they can carry out on their own. There are lessons in color, texture, light, space and more. And the lessons are described in a clear and crisp way.
The authors also offer an appendix in choosing a camera. They advise:
When choosing a camera, the first thing to consider is whether you want a DSLR or a compact. We use both. DSLRs generally give better image quality, more flexibility, better low-light performance, and more manual controls. Compact cameras are generally smaller, lighter, simpler to operate, and less expensive.
But persistently throughout the book, the emphasis is on seeing—and learning to see better. Most of us have a lingering suspicion that artists, especially painters and photographers, see better than the rest of us. They see the vividness in things that the rest of us slide over — and lose. And that’s why this book can be enjoyed by both photographers and those who have no interest in lifting a camera. It can teach us all to see more clearly the world we find ourselves in.
The authors of this book have given us a wonderful gift.
Frank Hurley lives in Mobile and wrote the “Talk about Books“ column for the Press-Register in the 1980s.