Sixty years ago I got my first taste of Asia, and of photography. What an exciting and impressionable summer it was, before returning for my second year in “prison” at Missouri Military Academy.
Because my father was living and working in Taipei as VP of Public Relations for Civil Air Transport, Taiwan’s flagship airline, I spent the summer in Asia, at the age of 14. While living with Dad in Taipei for a month, he arranged for CAT to fly a group of Taiwanese Boy Scouts to Japan to climb Mt. Fuji. Since I was an Eagle Scout he thought it only appropriate that I join them. Viewing the iconic mountain from a distance, and up-close, and then to actually climb it was so memorable and sparked my understanding that vastness of space brings me peace.
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2014 is a curious year for me to write a photographic end-of-year wrap-up piece as I shot less this year than almost any other. But everyday life gets in the way of all of us — even photographers — so I thought my lessons learned might still carry some value. Here are my top five:
• Set Big Photographic Goals & Make Them Happen: Fifteen years ago I set a goal of traveling to one of my dream photographic locations each year. But in order to truly make that happen, I’ve found that you must plan well in advance or a year will slip by without your notice. So now I’ve made it a top priority. I created a visual list of locations that inspired me. Pinterest is a great tool for this so get on board if you aren’t already. And I realize I have to choose my location at least a year in advance and begin collecting data on weather and light as the basis for my trip timing. Otherwise, the trip won’t happen.
This year, although weak on photography in general, did include a trip to one of my big “must see” locations: Antarctica.
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Recently I have been doing a lot of traveling, but only a few days here and a few days there. While time is invariably limited, I’m always interested in photographing if possible. The problem is if it’s new country for me, I end up spending most of my time figuring out logistics: the best location, perspective and most advantageous lighting. Last week while visiting South Carolina’s coast I was intrigued by the long stretches of beaches and even more interesting, the delta ‘low country’ landscape interlaced with miles of inland waterways as the coast gradually transitions west to higher ground.
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Photography satisfies my need to convey how I feel about what I see. Because I am hyper aware of movement in everything, I am consumed with the need to convey the motion I feel to others as my way of connecting visually.
To successfully overlay my images with a sense of the passage of time, I must align my felt-sense of motion with one or more aspects of the image I am capturing. I gain the visual harmony I seek by aligning my camera motion stroke with the flow I feel in the land.
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I seem to be particularly sensitive to coincidences these days. After posting my 08/24/14 Behind the Lens piece, REIMAGINING THE FLOW LINE, several people responded with a reference to Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmuhalyi’s national bestseller, FLOW (1990) when he introduced The Psychology of Optimal Experience… for illuminating the way to happiness.
Since I first utilized the term Flow Line more than thirty years ago to identify the central compositional energy within my landscape photographs, I’d like to think I had the original thought. My Flow Line is the dominant directional axis within a landscape from which my own gesture emanates, and therefore highlights the optimal energy in my composition. And when I nail it – I too feel as though I have found that optimal experience, since I do experience ‘enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement with life’, enabling me to express my way to happiness.
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