12x12"
Thing-Centered
Photographs
~ A 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT ~ May 2024 ~
%20%20%20D%20255-18%20%20%20.jpg)
Introduction
The phrase "Thing-Centered Photographs" has multiple meanings for me. It could simply mean images of things which I have placed at the very heartfelt center of my most fully-possible conscious attention.
It could mean isolating (or suspending) a thing in the center of a square black space.
(Note: Thing-Centered Photographs make the most sense, to me, visually, in the square format because all sides are equal, and this forces me and the viewer into the most directly focused and engaged relationship with the thing photographed. Black space, is--for me--a metaphor for silence. When I study or contemplate a thing-centered photograph the black space helps to quiet my mind so I can devote all my attention to the image).
The phrase "Thing-Centered Photograph" could also mean a photograph in which a particular thing is presented in a visual context which contributes to the understanding of the Thing's essential character.
(Note: I encourage you to visit my blog project Makom, the Place. And, related to this, you will notice below some of the photographs presented here, that sometimes I provide an extended descriptive title, or even tell a story about an image in order to emphasize the importance I feel about the visual context in which I see a thing existing, being. The concept of Place can be complex then we thought, just as the concept of Thing can be more complicated at times than what we think know or see.)
The phrase Thing-centered Photograph also means (for me) that, at the very center or heart of any Thing--both within our Universe and within the Universe as a unified whole--there is a living presence, an essential aura or meaning that is shared equally by every created thing because of its all pervasive divine Nature. In the yoga I practice the primary teaching is that nothing exists that is not Shiva; nothing exists that is not God; nothing exits that is not a form of the divine, Supreme Self . . . which is also known in various yogic traditions as Consciousness, Bhairava, the Absolute, and Kundalini Shakti (the Creative Power of the Universe) . . . among many others sacred names.
Kundalini Shakti is a great power. She is the secret of the universe . . . [She] is so deft in Her own creation. No only does She create but She creates everything upon Her own being. A potter makes pots using clay, but She creates everything out of Her own being, and upon Her own being. Therefore, She is called both transcendent and immanent. She is in the universe, She is also beyond the universe. She is within everything, yet She transcends everything also. She is both the womb and the child. What an incredible, infinite play this is! Gurumayi Chidvilasanda, from the book Resonate With Stillness (a SYDA publication)
This way of understanding the True nature of Creation is essentially aligned with the concept of "the Oneness of Being." Thus, for me, when I present a Thing in the center of my photograph, it is an act of praising, an act of honoring; an act of worshiping the sacred Self, the sacred energy which dwells within the thing I have photographed, and, simultaneously, that which dwells within me, as me. The great yogic sages teach that God is present in every human being, and most particularly, it dwells in every human heart.
Edward Weston #30 Pepper (1930)
In the mid-1960's, as a young student of photography, I discovered Edward Weston's photograph, the #30 Pepper, on the walls of George Eastman House. Then I read about his experience of making that photograph and his ideas about his creative process in his Daybooks. He was trying to make a photograph of this very special pepper that seemed so alive with light; so alive with the passionate energy of two lovers embracing and merging into each other; so alive with seeing energy, as if two eyes in the image were looking back at me looking at it! I felt, intuitively--even back then--that Weston was absolutely right about Things having an inner essence which was somehow expressed by its visual form, and in some situations that essence could also be extended and amplified by the context that it existed within. ~ I strived to understand and follow Weston's example.
In 1982 I read the book News of the Universe, authored by the American poet Robert Bly (published in 1980 by Sierra Club). It was for me (and continues to be) one of the most important books I ever read. The whole book resonated for me, but most especially it was Bly's chapter devoted to what he called the Thing or Object or "Seeing" Poem that awakened in me some profound Truth. What he wrote in that chapter, and the poems he included in that chapter--by Rilke, Francis Ponge, Charles Simic, etc.-- really "knocked my socks off."
Five years later, in 1987, after I had met Gurumayi Chivilasananda and received her grace and began to study and contemplate her teachings, I was astonished to recognize how the ideas Bly wrote about in his News of the Universe were closely aligned with Gurumayi's teachings.
I started making Thing-centered Photographs in a very deliberate, conscious way after I read News of the Universe. My 1985-88 photography project Family Life was the first project in which thing-centered images appeared; and then in 1992-93 I devoted an entire project to Thing-Centered Photographs. In 1994 I began a six year-long project entitled Studies 1994-2000, which were miniature silver gelatin square prints (3.5" x 3.5"). Many of those little snapshot-like images were Thing-Centered photographs. (Note: see also my 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT: The 12x12" Early Studies Photographs)
All of the early Studies photographs were black and white prints, and I still feel that black and white is a perfect medium for Thing-Centered Photographs, just as I feel that the square is their perfect format. Even when I transitioned into digital camera work and printing (with the support of Photoshop software) and gradually transitioned into color photography, I never stopped making Thing Photographs. I have included many examples of color-digital Thing-centered photographs in my collection of images, below.
Also, in 2003, after I began transitioning to digital imaging cameras and making inkjet prints I began scanning many of my favorite Thing Photograph negatives so I could make inkjet prints of those images. (In 2010, after initiating my blog, I was able to use those digital files for publishing the images on my blog.) I have mentioned this because you will probably notice in several of the images I've included in this project a grainy surface texture in the image. This texture is the grains of silver that existed in the original silver-based black and white negatives I had made. I like the grain, especially when it adds a certain presence of light--a silvery illumination--to the inkjet printed images.
*
Regarding the photographs in which I have suspended the thing in the center of black space: the black tone is (for me) a visual metaphor for Silence, the transcendent nature of all created things in the Universe. In the Siddha Yoga Teachings that I love so much and feel are right and True for me, Silence is said to be the essential nature of Shiva, God, the divine Self. In this collection of 12x12" Thing-Centered Photographs, I have presented a good number of these kinds of thing-centered images in black space, and in some cases I have included a slightly lighter toned matte border* around the image so that the matte has a subtle visual presence of its own in relation to the square black space. (I have placed tonal mattes around all of my 12x12" inkjet prints in both the Book collections and the 12x12" PROJECTS.)
(*Note: I find the white space that typically surrounds photographic images--including the images in my blog projects when viewed in their default mode of presentation--quite distracting. I have quite carefully chosen tones that work in some visual/feeling way in relation to the image it surrounds. ~ At the end of this introduction, I have written about the how best to see my blog images in a preferable, alternate blog viewing mode.)
*
There are over 70 thing-centered photographs in this 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT. Twenty-two of the images were printed specifically for this project from images I had published in the following blog projects:
Postludes 2022
The remaining images in this collection were drawn from my recently published 12x12" Inkjet Print Books and Projects.
* * *
I want to get back again to the idea of Place in my Thing-Centered Photographs, and in this regard I would like to encourage you to visit my blog project that explains the concept of Makom. ~ In the very first photograph I have presented in this project (copied above) the warm color of the light from the setting sun is an important part of the visual context in which I found the spider plant. Of course, the glass bowl, filled with water, is another important part of the visual context in which I found the primary subject, the spider plant. Also, the reflection of the bowl in the dark granite counter is for me an important visual event which contributes to the overall essential, pictorial gestalt of the image. All these different elements of Place and their relationship to the Thing situated in the picture's center celebrate not only the thing itself, but a greater essential Truth: the Oneness of Being.
It seems to me in the image of the spider plant, the Thing and the Place (and all of its complex relationships) have merged together; they cannot be separated. In this regard, I must briefly mention that images which invoke this kind of visual-sacred revelation of the Unity of All Things are what I call True, living Symbols, or Symbolic Photographs.
*
How to Best View My Online Blog Project Images.
In this project, and in all of my other 12x12 inkjet print projects, I have wanted to bring your attention to the challenges that a blog presentation of digital-inkjet print images presents--both to me as a presenter and to you as a viewer. Please read the following paragraphs, and if afterwards you'd like additional technical information and suggestions, please visit my blog article: How to Best View My Online Blog Project Images:
____*____
*
If you are viewing my blog images on a desktop or laptop computer, I highly recommend that you try clicking once, and then once again on each image which, hopefully, will allow you to see the images in an alternate viewing mode which will provide you with larger, sharper and more luminous images against a dark tonal background. It should then be immediately obvious to you that the quality of the images viewed in this alternative mode of presentation is a superior option to seeing my published blog images -- compared to viewing them in the default presentation mode (in which the images are seen against a white ground, and often suffer from image compression, among other technical issues). ~ Also, as a reminder, once you have clicked on the image and entered the alternate view mode, you can use your keyboard to zoom-in or zoom-out to make the image appear larger or smaller on your computer screen. You can also adjust the screen brightness as desirable.
And now, on to the The 12x12" Inkjet Print Thing-Centered Photographs.
* * *
The Photographs
Image #1 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Spider plant
(in a bowl of water with golden light from the setting sun)
Image #2 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT A sliding stone & its shadow
I have made many, many photographs of stones. This image has
a quality of joy and enthusiasm in the way that the stone appears
to be sliding to a silent standstill, locked into a posture of
stillness and closeness with its own deep shadow.
See my blog Collection of Stone Photographs
Image #3 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT (Inversed) Suspended Fulcrum with lines
The word inversed indicates an image in which the tones in the print have been presented
in their opposite tonal mode (what was white now is black, etc. I will be presenting
several more inversed images below. When I view or contemplate inversed images
I sometimes enjoy imagining I am viewing the image "inside-out."
Image #4 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT A limbless tree with fog
This photograph is from my Images of Eden project
Image #5 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT A "shadow" portrait inside a puddle
(A Pandemic inspired photograph)
See my Puddle Photographs project
Image #6 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Straw Ball
(thrown by some kids, in a barn, through a shaft of light)
Image #7 12x12" Thing-centered project: A basketball hoop and net suspended in black space
Image #8 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Miniature Pony & reflection in a puddle
Image #9 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT A cluster of plants after a snow storm
Image #11 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT A Glass table
(in a basement corner, under a window)
Image #12 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT A young boy sitting on the edge of an ocean
from my Family Life 1985-88 project
Image #13 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT "River Sprite" (near the river's dam)
Image #14 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Bedpost
(in front of the shadow from a sunlit bedside lamp)
Image #15 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Turtle & three bubbles
Image #16 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT A Bather in an ocean of light
Image #17 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT A Snow Puddle & falling snow
Image #18 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT An Empty Book Stand " (in a storefront window)
Image #19 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT A ring on a pull string
(and an electric cord near the corner of my basement studio)
This image (and a few others in this collection) is from my large collection of
Pandemic Inspired Photography Projects. Many of my Pandemic images
tend to be rather dark and moody interiors. I associate this thing image
with a hangman's noose, I think because of the many stories I had
heard of people feeling depressed and suicidal in the news. The
angularity of the image also reminds me of large cranes used in
construction projects of skyscrapers and other large buildings.
Image #20 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT A Grasshopper on our front storm door
See my Faint Photographs project
Image #21 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Old Purse (on a high closet shelf)
I photographed this purse in Gloria's (my wife's) closet.
I think it was her mother's purse.
Image #22 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Garlics (hung up to dry in our garage)
I see a bird, here, with its wings outspread and its head drooping.
Yes, its one of my Pandemic Inspired photographs.
Image #23 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT "A Chair Pranaming in a circle of light"
I took this picture after participating in a live stream video meditation program honoring
Swami Muktananda, one of the Great Beings of India and founder of the Siddha Yoga
receiving her grace in a two day meditation Intensive with her.
Pranam is an act of worship in which one bows to the True teacher, such that the heart rises up
above the head. One of the primary teachings in Siddha Yoga is that everyone
shares the same One Heart, and that God, the divine Self of all, dwells
in every created thing, and most importantly, in every human heart.
Thus the right understanding about pranaming is that one is
honoring one's own divine Self as well as the True teacher.
I took the photograph in Vermont on a Sunday morning following the yoga program.
We were visiting Florence, Gloria's sister, who had introduced us to Siddha yoga
and Gurumayi. We feel so grateful to her for that. and the act of pranaming
is also an expression of love and gratitude. I was amazed when I saw
the chair "pranaming" in the circle of light (which was coming from
a nearby glass table top). It was expressing for me how I was feeling
after I had just experienced the program's heart-opening conclusion.
Photography became a form of meditation for me after I met Gurumayi
and began practicing Siddha Yoga in 1987.
Image #24 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Hammer in a saw shaped puddle reflection of sky"
Image #26 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT A brick on a dark roofing material
This image is my favorite brick photograph.
I have photographed so many bricks in my life!
but none have been as perfect, as "golden" as this one.
Image #27 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Ruin fragment with egg and spiral
I took this photograph in a sacred ruin in turkey. I love the egg in its womb,
and the way the white (slightly blue) snail-like ancient fragment floats in a
sea of darker textured tonalities. I like the energetic brush-like swatch
of darker tones that run diagonally across the entire form from the left
edge, through the egg, and then on past the center point of the spiral
to the far right edge. And, it' is interesting the way the bottom
edge of the swatch aligns with the top edge of a darker stone
beneath and behind the lighter stone fragment.
%20snow%20covered%20shiva%20rock%20IMG_4763%20%20copy.jpg)
Image #28 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Snow Covered Rock, early morning, after the storm
I took this picture twice, in a way. The night before the snowstorm
I took a picture of the same rock from the same angle and distance.
See both versions in my project:
Image #29 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Old Garage with crooked top
I consider most of the photographs in my Garage Series are "Thing-centered photographs."
Each garage is also something like a "portrait" . . . perhaps of its owner. In any case
each garage photographs I have made seems to reveal its "character" in some way.
Image #30 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Child's foot, purple dress, blue tape on a table
The "thing" next to the blue tape, (?) I don't know what it is. An object? Some hair?
Perhaps a scribble left on the table? The foot belongs to our grand daughter. Every
thing is in its own right space in relation to each other, including the two leaves
next to the turquoise garden hose which are like leaves watching it all . . .
Image #31 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Foot print left in the blue nocturnal snow
I took this photo late at night after arriving home from a trip out of town. Gloria had been
getting responses from the local police about 911 calls they were getting from Gloria's
mobil phone with no explanation. They felt obligated to check out our house, so
when we arrived pulled into our driveway, we saw footprints in the snow all
around the house and on our back deck. We got freaked out by the whole
misunderstanding. I took some "documentary photographs" as evidence
of a break-in before we called the police and learned from them all
about the "butt calls" and their search of our house. We all had a
good laugh about, but this picture always haunted me. The
blue snow had something to with the light from our front
porch, and the way my camera had been set for a
very different kind of light source.
Image #32 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT An Old, cracked bar of soap in a chipped oval dish
There is, for me, a pleasure in briefly describing what one sees in a photograph.
My descriptive title did not include mention of the "eclipsed moon" above
and to the right of the soap dish, nor the reflection of the underside of
the soap dish in the granite surface, nor those unknown presences
lurking in the darkness of the background, nor the strange
nocturnal-moonlit-feeling tone of the picture as a whole.
I will never stop making "thing centered photographs."
Many of my thing photographs have stories
that I associate with the images.
Image #33 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Faint Photograph of a fading photograph
Visit my Faint Photographs project
Image #34 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Plastic drinking cup, Alaska hotel
from my Alaska project
Image #35 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT "Balloon Ribbon" is
from Part viii, Zen Practice, of my Silver World project
Image #35 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Vine Garage
Image #36 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Sheet on a cloths line (with a fence fragment)
Image #37 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Hand with a bandaged finger & sparkler
Image #38 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT "The white garden hat" (worn by a child in a garden)
Image #39 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT House plant in front of a window & winter landscape
Image #40 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Eraser, chalk board & chalk
(Note: many of my "thing" images might better qualify as a "Still Life" image
rather than a "Thing Photograph" though usually both kinds of images
share a similar straight-forwardness in their pictorial presentation. ~
The primary subjects in this photograph form a visual constellation
consisting of of "chalk related things" (though I can't help but
wonder why the piece of calk is in the trough below a
white-board designed for dry markers.)
Image #41 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Plastic flowers in a black square on a white dish . . .
(or is the white dish in front of the black square sitting on the horizon line? Morandi
played with tricky spatial relationships in many of his Still Life paintings.)
This image is from my Still Life project in homage to Morandi.
Also visit my 12x12" inkjet PROJECT : "Still Life"
Image #42 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Dried Flowers in a small vase
(in front of a sun dappled curtained window with green leafed bush behind the curtain)
Image #43 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT A White extension cord suspended in black space
Image #44 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT A rotted burlap bag full of stones
(laying on a stone floor in the half-light of an old neglected warehouse)
The object and the place merge into each other here.
Image #44 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Illuminated ice water in a plastic glass
Image #45 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Suspended Christmas Tinsel
This image presents an interesting point about thing photographs: that is,
the question of what exactly constitutes a "thing"? Must a thing be
identified and knowable to be a successful thing photograph? or
can an image reveal the essential nature of a thing without our
knowing in advance what the thing is we are perceiving?
Does the the title of the image below, which identifies
the thing photographed, make a difference in how
you relate to the image?
Image #46 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Covered night night with a shadow and blue under-glow
Image #47 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Mr. Blue (our cat, between the curtain & window)
Image #48 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Snow covered shovel hanging on a wood plank
The gray tone beneath the shovel is not a shadow; its an indentation or shallow hole in the snow.
Image #49 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Hanging leaf with a sunlit cloud behind it
This photograph was included in my early Studies project (1994-2000)
It was printed as a miniature gelatin silver print 3.5" square.
Image #50 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Bird Bath, with a stone and leaf reflections in the water
Image #51 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Metal Serving tray
with reflections of a tea kettle & a golden glowing lamp
from my Still Life project in homage to Morandi
Image #52 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Black & White Peach on a table and a line
This image seems particularly black and white to me, I think because of the
top surface gray tones in the peach.
%20%20%20copy.jpg)
%20D%2050-18%20%20%20copy.jpg)
Image #56 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT (Inversed) Telephone Pole in a field & fog
Image #58 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Dirty soap bottle on a glass covered table
%20D%20251-18%20%20copy.jpg)
Image #60 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT (Inversed) Hanging Frame (construction site)
Image #62 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Projection screen
The title of this image relates to an essay I wrote about perception. I invite you
to visit the blog essay Seeing the Grand Canyon.
Image #63 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Old wood steps
Image #64 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Circular saw blade
Image #65 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT A roll of toilet paper
Image #66 12x12" Thing-centered PROJECT Bush's edge
%20Sunflower%20%20copy.jpg)
*
This project was first announced on
my bog's Welcome Page on
May 15, 2024
Related Blog Project Links
How to Best View My Online Blog Images with your desktop or laptop computer.
Please visit the Welcome Page to my blog The Departing Landscape. It includes the complete hyperlinked listing of my online photography projects dating from the most recent to those dating back to the 1960's. You will also find on the Welcome Page my resume, contact information . . . and much more.
