Flatearther
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Sep 14, 2006
In today's world, religion has a reputation. But what sort of reputation is it? The short answer is that religion has come to represent all that is banal, pretentious and hypocritical. Few will have a bar of it. People will go to a concert to have a good time. If they go to a church at all, it will be to do penance for having a good time. Mention the word at a party and expect to be shunned or mocked. But was it always like this? No. In the ancient times the sacred and the secular were undivorced. Everything was religious. It was simply the practice of realising that the world was a wonderful place. This is what I understand of religion and it is also what I understand of photography. Hence my belief that photography is a religion.
Why take pictures at all? What is the point? Why photograph a tree? There are billions of trees. Do they all need to be photographed? A silly question? We all know why we take photographs! It's because. because...because. Do we really go to all that trouble and expense just to pass away the time? I suspect that all serious photographers would be familiar with that feeling. Why else would we be here if not for the feeling that the thing which we behold is incredibly special - a wonder that we simply must capture forever and share with our friends. It is an incredible thrill. We have discovered something unique and we are compelled to save it. Yet, can we say why it is wonderful? No. We cannot say why something is beautiful, awe inspiring, enigmatic, subtle or mysterious. We cannot say it, but we can feel it. And if we could only get the shutter around it in its own mysterious way, we could then share it with our friends. So are we now talking about just another ordinary everyday experience? No. Far from it. That is how the religious experience has been described throughout the ages, by all cultures in thousands of ways. But always that it is becoming conscious of the divine. And the divine just is. You either experience it or you do not. How many good photographs have been utterly destroyed by excessive concern for technical perfection? Machines have taken technically perfect landscapes on distant planets and have made them look perfectly ordinary. Useful for the scientist or the engineer, perhaps, but hardly the spiritual experience one would expect from a heavenly body. Only a spiritual being with a soul can take a real photograph.
In other words, we have equipment today that the 19th century pioneers would have given anything to own. But let it rule you and your artistic imprisonment is guaranteed. So then, what is the procedural ritual for the religion of photography? First, the devotee prepares the religious paraphernalia. The cameras, the film, the lenses and the holy tripod. And after an appropriate period of meditation, the aspirant sets out on a journey in the pious hope that a miracle will occur. If the devotee is so blessed, a ritual will be performed with the camera - a form of prayer, an acknowledgment that the miracle has been witnessed. If the supplicant is doubly blessed, some trace of the numinous will be registered on the photographic plate and other devotees will share this holy communion. There is a Zen art of motorcycle maintenance. There is also a Zen art of photography. As an example, here is an instructive Zen exercise: When you are in the most favourable position to take world- class photographs, leave your camera behind! Carry out all of the motions of worship, but leave no record except in memory, for it is a purely personal experience. Any camera club shipwrecked on a desert island with no equipment whatsoever could still practice their devotions.
Each member would go out to witness, return and describe in all its glory the great photograph they did not take. In the art of Zen Archery, the Zen Master does not take aim. In time, his body becomes attuned to his will. He then wills the arrow to strike its mark and the target is hit repeatedly, without effort - automatically and by reflex. It can also be done with the camera. True, some film is wasted at first, but in time the camera adjustments become as unconscious an act as that of focussing one's eyes. You become the camera and you become one with the miracle. To try hard is not the way. Trying hard has been the ruin of great art and of great religion. To try often is the way. So what then, is the real point of photography? It is the vision that the devotee experiences. That which ends up on the plate is secondary. Is not one with great visions and a shaky hand far more blessed than one with all the gadgets who is technically perfect and sees none other than the commonplace which has been recorded a thousand times?
The path of true faith is not always bliss. The scoffers will have to be endured. So will the frustration when all seems pointless and in vain. When one seems unable to rise above the banality of the mundane. But then comes that holy moment when it has all been worth the while. The reward of faith. The world is terrifying and it is also wonderful. The spiritual is not in outer space or in some remote supernatural region. The spiritual is the natural. It is the 'here' and the 'now'. It is 'being aware'. The spiritual is the only real joy to be had. There are many ways to worship. I prefer to do mine with the camera. And all that is left is Heaven and Hell. Heaven is that joy. The super-rich have nothing if they have not this joy. And the only Hell I can imagine is the inability to experience that joy.
Why take pictures at all? What is the point? Why photograph a tree? There are billions of trees. Do they all need to be photographed? A silly question? We all know why we take photographs! It's because. because...because. Do we really go to all that trouble and expense just to pass away the time? I suspect that all serious photographers would be familiar with that feeling. Why else would we be here if not for the feeling that the thing which we behold is incredibly special - a wonder that we simply must capture forever and share with our friends. It is an incredible thrill. We have discovered something unique and we are compelled to save it. Yet, can we say why it is wonderful? No. We cannot say why something is beautiful, awe inspiring, enigmatic, subtle or mysterious. We cannot say it, but we can feel it. And if we could only get the shutter around it in its own mysterious way, we could then share it with our friends. So are we now talking about just another ordinary everyday experience? No. Far from it. That is how the religious experience has been described throughout the ages, by all cultures in thousands of ways. But always that it is becoming conscious of the divine. And the divine just is. You either experience it or you do not. How many good photographs have been utterly destroyed by excessive concern for technical perfection? Machines have taken technically perfect landscapes on distant planets and have made them look perfectly ordinary. Useful for the scientist or the engineer, perhaps, but hardly the spiritual experience one would expect from a heavenly body. Only a spiritual being with a soul can take a real photograph.
In other words, we have equipment today that the 19th century pioneers would have given anything to own. But let it rule you and your artistic imprisonment is guaranteed. So then, what is the procedural ritual for the religion of photography? First, the devotee prepares the religious paraphernalia. The cameras, the film, the lenses and the holy tripod. And after an appropriate period of meditation, the aspirant sets out on a journey in the pious hope that a miracle will occur. If the devotee is so blessed, a ritual will be performed with the camera - a form of prayer, an acknowledgment that the miracle has been witnessed. If the supplicant is doubly blessed, some trace of the numinous will be registered on the photographic plate and other devotees will share this holy communion. There is a Zen art of motorcycle maintenance. There is also a Zen art of photography. As an example, here is an instructive Zen exercise: When you are in the most favourable position to take world- class photographs, leave your camera behind! Carry out all of the motions of worship, but leave no record except in memory, for it is a purely personal experience. Any camera club shipwrecked on a desert island with no equipment whatsoever could still practice their devotions.
Each member would go out to witness, return and describe in all its glory the great photograph they did not take. In the art of Zen Archery, the Zen Master does not take aim. In time, his body becomes attuned to his will. He then wills the arrow to strike its mark and the target is hit repeatedly, without effort - automatically and by reflex. It can also be done with the camera. True, some film is wasted at first, but in time the camera adjustments become as unconscious an act as that of focussing one's eyes. You become the camera and you become one with the miracle. To try hard is not the way. Trying hard has been the ruin of great art and of great religion. To try often is the way. So what then, is the real point of photography? It is the vision that the devotee experiences. That which ends up on the plate is secondary. Is not one with great visions and a shaky hand far more blessed than one with all the gadgets who is technically perfect and sees none other than the commonplace which has been recorded a thousand times?
The path of true faith is not always bliss. The scoffers will have to be endured. So will the frustration when all seems pointless and in vain. When one seems unable to rise above the banality of the mundane. But then comes that holy moment when it has all been worth the while. The reward of faith. The world is terrifying and it is also wonderful. The spiritual is not in outer space or in some remote supernatural region. The spiritual is the natural. It is the 'here' and the 'now'. It is 'being aware'. The spiritual is the only real joy to be had. There are many ways to worship. I prefer to do mine with the camera. And all that is left is Heaven and Hell. Heaven is that joy. The super-rich have nothing if they have not this joy. And the only Hell I can imagine is the inability to experience that joy.
