It Is Solved by Photowalking, Part 2
Happy Saturday, folks!
As you already know, Saint Augustine didn’t use that phrase exactly. His actual quote was: Solvitur ambulando (Latin) — It is solved by walking. But I’m positive that if he lived today, he’d be carrying a camera and snapping like mad. In color this time.
See Part 1(in black & white) here.
In the previous post I extolled the virtues of walking in general and photowalking in particular. In this post I want to concentrate on the art of contemplation, noticing, and, yes, color… as well as on the importance of getting lost and finding your way (not necessarily in that order).
First, an embarrassing disclosure. My sense of direction was surgically removed at birth. I used to find this more embarrassing than being unable to get a decent suntan or swim from Cuba to Florida in less than 53 hours.
A friend who lives on Cape Cod and loves the songs of Billy Joel can find his way through a big, foreign city with his eye closed. I, on the other hand, would get lost in a small southern town driving home from work after working there for over a year. Yep. It’s that bad.
In the last few years, however, I began thinking of my handicap as a gift.
In his article “Getting Lost and the Benefits of Finding Yourself” (Psychology Today, 2018), Dr. Alan Castel says this:
“When you are lost and then find what you looking for (sometimes not even what you thought you were going to find), it can be the most rewarding form of deep discovery…
…Today, we have GPS to guide us when driving, and Google Maps to tell us how to get somewhere when we are visiting a new city. These tools keep us from getting lost. But sometimes getting lost is a good thing, as it forces us to be more aware of our surroundings… Your brain eventually enjoys the challenge of figuring ways to function when you are lost without a phone. It can also be empowering and can boost self-confidence by being free from a technological vice…
…Getting lost makes you and your brain grow, and while scary at times, you can enjoy the benefits. Get lost!”
But getting lost without mastering the art of being present is like navigating a jungle with a blindfold on and a squirrel as your guide.
Enter The Art of Contemplation by Richard Rudd, which is a good companion piece to The Art of Noticing, by Rob Walker. In the book, Rudd delves into the practice of deep introspection and mindfulness. He invites readers to explore the depths of their inner selves in relation to their bodies and the world. It may sound a bit woo-woo for some of you, but the book actually provides good practical advice.
For example, Rudd encourages us to learn “the art of meandering, sauntering, or lingering. This involves giving yourself more time than you need when you are going somewhere. Instead of rushing hurriedly from one place to the next, you might deliberately take a more circuitous route via a park or along the river, or even through a bustling marketplace. The trick is to be somewhere with no purpose other than pleasure and to take your time. We need to learn to saunter rather than to stomp, and to meander rather than march.”
Taking photos while walking helps cultivate a heightened sense of awareness and appreciation for the present moment. Just as contemplation involves observing and reflecting on one's inner world, capturing photos while walking can serve as an external expression of this introspective process.
Walking with a camera in hand becomes an opportunity to immerse oneself in the surrounding environment, noticing the intricate details, subtle beauty, and unique moments that often go unnoticed in the rush of daily life.
Now, on to color. I love b&w as much as the folks I admire and follow on Substack. Notwithstanding Dina Litovsky’s distrust of monochrome, I do a lot of shooting in b&w, both digitally and using film. Dina may know better -- she’s a professional photographer and I’m just a guy with a camera, to paraphrase a fellow photographer and an avid walker Mark White – but there’s no accounting for taste.
By stripping away color, black and white photography can focus more on the mood, atmosphere, and emotional resonance of a scene. Light and shadow become more prominent elements, allowing for striking contrasts and dramatic effects.
Without the distraction of color, black and white images can emphasize shapes, forms, lines, and textures, leading to more abstract and minimalist compositions.
And yet… we don’t see the world in monochrome. We see it in color. Insisting on only black and white because it “elevates” the imagination is… forgive me…a little silly. Yes, Henri Cartier-Bresson once famously said, “color is bullshit”. But that’s because he never mastered color, methinks.
The photographer William Eggleston, one of the pioneers of color photography, along with Saul Leiter, Joel Meyerowitz, and a few others, said it loud and clear:
“The world is in color. And there’s nothing we can do about it.”
I leave you with a longer quote by Joel Meyerowitz:
“What I saw was that the color image had more information in it, simple as that! There was so much more to see and consider, whereas black and white reduced the world to shades of gray. And while that reduction had provided us with more that a hundred years of remarkable images, we were entering a new era at the time, and color, for me anyway, seemed to offer a challenge to the conventions that always undermine any medium.”
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Podcast: Rick Rubin (the bearded music producer) and Richard Rudd (the Art of Contemplation, The Gene Keys) have a long conversation.
Book: Understanding a Photograph, by John Berger (introduction by Geoff Dyer). Whatever Berger (who died in 2017 at the age of 90) wrote or said was always interesting and exciting, notwithstanding his ridiculous lifelong faith in Marxism. I went to film school with his son Jacob in mid-1980s, and instead of dismissing him as a pretentious buffoon, which he was, I should have grilled him about his father’s thought processes (which he probably didn’t know anything about, anyway).
Film: Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011), Dir. by Nuri Bilge Ceylan.
This Turkish film is long and slo-o-o-ow, but… if you open your heart and mind, and allow it to get you on its wavelength, you are in for a profoundly moving experience.
Music: Weaver of Dreams, by the hard-bop trumpeter Freddie Hubbard (Ready for Freddie album, 1962)
As always, thanks for subscribing, reading, commenting, and breathing the same air as I do.
‘Til next time.
ak
Loved the Bensonhurst picture.
Lovely