Feeding My Passion

Part Two

“Writing is learning to pay attention and to communicate what is going on.” – Lamott

Fortunately that could pretty much sums up photojournalism as well. Lamott begins the second section, “The Writing Frame of Mind,” by talking about increasing our awareness and compassion for our subjects by first practicing it toward ourselves. This is a very Buddhist concept, where you start by wishing yourself well and recognizing your own struggles, and then widening your circle of concern until you encompass all living creatures. Not surprisingly Lamotte has studied with Jack Kornfield, a former Buddhist monk, now a psychologist and meditation teacher.

I think the degree to which we can see our common humanity and similarities  is the degree to which we don’t stereotype our subjects and then try to visually fit them into boxes that we’ve accepted or constructed for them. And if we can connect with them, then we can help viewers connect with our subject as well, since they have the same needs, many of the same wants, and most of the same challenges as our subjects.

Our ability to handle more sensitive stories increases as our sensitivity grows. Portraying a homeless person as something other than a stereotype takes more maturity and awareness than making an action shot at a football game. Assuming a similar sort of parallel technical evolution, hopefully the photographer increases their ability to see more clearly and better photograph what they’re seeing and feeling as they deal with subjects that require a greater degree of emotional maturity.

How to gain this ability to see clearly and have the ability to communicate it? Lamott’s answer is meditation, though she very obviously avoids the word, probably for fear of sounding too California and crunchy granola. (But hey, I grew up in California and am writing this from the same, so I’ll take granol-ic license.) One cannot meditate all the time, even as a monk, but by deliberately training yourself to quiet your mind and be aware of the reality around you (or inside you), you’ll be much better prepared to do it when you actually need to, like when the camera’s viewfinder is attached to your eye.

This is the heart of Cartier-Bresson’s quote from the class syllabus “Thinking should be done beforehand and afterwards – never while actually taking a photograph.” The rest of the quote, which is about grounding your photography in your values and avoiding artifice, are very much about recognizing our common humanity and avoiding stereotypes.

I apologize that my analysis of Bird by Bird is very Buddhist-centric, but it’s how I see it, and I’m pretty sure that’s how Lamott is writing it.  Since one of the core components of the philosophy/religion is that by being aware of the clutter and desires of our own thoughts, we can mitigate them, and by doing so we can better see ourselves and others, and increase our compassion toward the same.

His quote also syncs very nicely with her next chapter, “The Moral Point of View,” about writing from your values, about what you believe in, what you care about. I’m not sure what the current thought is on photojournalism and objectivity is, but I think we have an obligation to be honest, not to be “fair and balanced.” While I think objectivity is an elusive and unrealistic goal, and I revere W. Eugene Smith as one of the greatest photojournalists who ever lived, I think he crossed the line between belief and manipulation when he produced his essay on Albert Schweitzer, creating manipulations in the darkroom long before the advent of Photoshop. He was a very passionate photopher whose most well-known quote is, “Let truth be the prejudice.” Unfortunately for him in at least Schweitzer’s case, the visual truth wasn’t enough of a prejudice, so he did some dark(room) magic and inserted the silhouetted foreground figure in the picture of Schweitzer helping build a roof.

I don’t think it’s difficult to caricature your subjects, like Smith did with Schweitzer (no matter how noble his purpose or great his admiration), but I think it can cheapen and dehumanize the subject, corrupt the photographer, or gives viewers an overly-stylized impression of the subject that may or may not be true, but it can rings false for anyone who knows the subject or the photographer. I much rather that viewers feel like they can detect my viewpoint than for them to think I’m manipulating viewers or the subject, photographing (and editing) as though the end justifies the means, as though you should never give a sucker (the viewer in this case) an even break. Life is complicated, and I don’t want to be afraid to show that it is often complicated and confusing for me as well.

The temptation for me in the past has been to simplify, no, over-simplify. That’s mostly a result of me not doing my research, my viewpoint was simple because my knowledge was simple, my understanding minimal. I didn’t have a passion for anything, I hadn’t found my heart. As a result, while I saw everything, I couldn’t make sense of it, not only didn’t I have a purpose, I didn’t even have a direction, so focus was impossible. Scattered. Now my heart is always whispering to me, and when I’m smart, I listen and obey it.

The stuff that gets in the way of hearing that voice always comes from inside me, though generally above and below my heart, either my head or my stomach, distracted thoughts or fear. When we’re lost in thought, which is incredibly common, we only do what is right by accident or coincidence, but not by design. It’s even worse when I’m absorbed in fear. For me, the short term fix is simple: Interrupt the thought, let it go, and listen again to the heart. So far, what’s worked out for me long-term is just more of the same as the short-term fix. I just want to train my mind by doing more of what I want it to do: Listen, relax, be aware. The other, unhelpful thoughts – fear, jealousy, desire, worry – will always be there, but when I’m really aware of my thoughts, I can choose which ones to listen to.