Focus, attention, observation and continuous learning has a significant relevance to photography. Zen is a multi-angled spiritual tradition that offers a simpler yet more profound way of life and a unique way of seeing, which I feel is in line with photography. I’m certainly not the first to recognize this fact. I simply want to add my voice to those masters who have seen a great promise for artist (photographers) that is held in this great eastern wisdom tradition.
Photography is my passion and that which keeps the pulse of my heart. I feel a flow of energy through my veins, happiness in my heart and enlightened spirit when I do photography. I am most alive, most aware of myself when I am looking for images and capturing them. It is a time when I am most empty and most open to this world around me. It is also a time of great pleasure and inner satisfaction.
What is Zen?
“Zen discipline consists in attaining enlightenment (or satori, in Japanese)...Satori finds a meaning hitherto hidden in our daily concrete particular experiences...The meaning thus revealed is in being itself, in becoming itself, in living itself...in the ‘isness’ of a thing.” (Suzuki, 1959, p.16). In short, Zen tells about emptying yourself of everything and getting the enlightened.
“Rhythms of nature” are felt in no matter what, become symbols of the whole (universe). The creative force in man recognizes and records these rhythms with the medium most appealing to him. It can be a painting, a poem, music or a photograph. It also gives him a chance to discover the feeling, the cause, and the life within the outer form. Such recordings (art form) have a characteristic of life (not just life but, a LIFE). It makes you buoyant. Recordings of unfelt facts acquired by rule, results in sterile inventory. Hence as photographer the technology should serve only as an aid and not the end in itself. The final art form should be from within. If the composition doesn’t include yourself, it is incomplete.
“The photograph touches me if I withdraw it from its usual blah-blah: ‘Technique,’ ‘Reality,’ ‘Reportage,’ ‘Art,’ etc.: to say nothing, to shut my eyes, to allow the detail to rise of its own accord into affective consciousness.” (Barthes).
Whether it is a silver halide or a digital image, the photograph can record and provoke enlightenment or satori. The photographer, the poet, an artist, a singer are tapping into the same source. When a photographer can “hear the light”, when his or her photograph “sings”, the spirit of Zen is present and you make you soul speak out.
The state of mind of the photographer while creating is a blank. I might add that this condition exists only at special times, namely when looking for pictures. For those who would equate ‘blank’ with a kind of static emptiness, I must explain that this is a special kind of blank. It is a very active state of mind really, a very receptive state of mind, ready at an instant to grasp an image, yet with no image pre-formed in it at any time. We should note that the lack of a pre-formed pattern or preconceived idea of how anything ought to look is essential to this blank condition. Such a state of mind is not unlike a sheet of film itself-seemingly inert, yet so sensitive that a fraction of a second’s exposure conceives a life in it.
This blank state of mind can be considered as an enlightened/ infinite state of mind too. This can be possible explained by the Sanskrit verse
“Om purnamadha purnamidam Purnat Purnamudachyate
Purnasya purnamadaya Purunmeva vashish yate”
Om That is whole. This is whole from the whole the whole becomes manifest. From the whole when the whole is negated, what remains is again the whole. So the emptiness of the mind is just to give room for more ideas and innovation. It is like a ocean. If u add water to the ocean it doest change, if you remove water, it doesn’t change either. That is the state of the intuitive mind of the photographer before releasing the shutter button.
“Possibly the creative work of the photographer consists in part of putting himself into this state of mind. The feeling is akin to the mystic and to ecstasy; why deny it? One feels, one sees on the ground glass into a world beyond surfaces. The square of the glass becomes like the words of a prayer or a poem, like fingers or rockets into two infinities-one into the subconscious and the other into the visual-tactile universe.” ( Lyons).
“I usually have an immediate recognition of the potential image, and I have found that too much concern about matters such as conventional composition may take the edge off the first inclusive reaction. Recognition and visualization are often blended in a single moment of awareness.” (Ansel Adams.)
The Role of Intuition and Feeling in Photography
At this point, having established in my mind a basic connection between Zen and the art of photography, I began to look for more shared concepts. I wanted to understand why I released the shutter at one particular moment rather than another, and I wondered whether this could also be explained by Zen.
I have always believed in the power of intuition or feeling in photography. I always Feel that one should release the camera’s shutter when it felt right, to let us be guided by our feelings. And I have found strong agreement with many other photographers on this point.
Photographer Ansel Adams was of the same mind:
“I always encourage students to photograph everything they see and respond to emotionally. Intellectual and critical pre-evaluation of work is not helpful to creativity; regimenting perception into functional requirements is likewise restrictive. I have made thousands of photographs of the natural scene, but only those visualizations that were most intensely felt at the moment of exposure have survived the inevitable winnowing of time.”
Even, I have got this feeling of satori once when I was with my camera under the portico of my college. One of the dry croton leaf on the asphalt floor below really pulled in my eyes along with the camera. It voiced endless feeling of determination towards the goal in me. I clicked it! The voice of the leaf still haunts me…
In other words, when looking for photographs, empty your mind, throw yourself open to the advent of feeling, and let yourself be guided by those feelings. Release the shutter when the image feels right, when the image “sings”, when you can “hear the light.” “Hearing the light” is a phenomenon which occurs on an intuitive level when I can feel that the photographic image is right, that the moment has come to record it. For example, when I am working at “Ambitions”, I will continuously adjust and readjust my composition and other settings through the ground glass of the camera. Invariably, a moment will arrive when everything feels right. And then, when I make that final click, the developed image will “sing”. I will “hear the light” and will proceed my photography journey once again.
(concepts taken from some other publication)
