Thoughts on Self-Portraiture

   More so than a look in the mirror, a look at myself through my camera shows me what I do not automatically see about myself.  For the last 165 days, I have been photographing myself daily.  The plan is to continue for an entire year, culminating on my 50th birthday in November.  Before I began this project, I rarely went in front of the camera.  I never liked how I looked in photographs, even though I was relatively content with what I saw in the mirror.  I'm not even sure why the idea took hold of me so strongly when I first came across it.

   There are many facets to my interest in self-portraiture.  The first is simply an interest in portraiture itself.  Having a willing model makes all the difference.  I have exactly as much patience to model as I do to take the picture, and I have already set aside the time.  The collaboration between actor and director is quite close, the communication good, and the intentions agreeable.  It is comfortable to work with myself and eliminates any anxiety about imposing on other people.

   Once I get behind the camera, and before it, the question of intention does arise.  What do I want to do here?  There is the overall intention behind the entire project and the immediate intention of each particular photo.  If I only wanted to try out portraiture, I wouldn't need to do it every day.  If I wanted to master it, one year and one subject would hardly be enough.  The intention to do this kind of project is naturally a personal one.  The point of portraiture is to portray intrinsic qualities of the subject, whether they are purely visual, intimately expressive, or something in between.

   The quality that came to mind as a launching point is age.  Fifty years of it.  Middle age.  The socio-political, cultural and biological implications are extensive, enough to have larded my mind with unattractively weighty fears of diminishing value.  I have heard that women over fifty become invisible and find that an unpleasant prospect.  In part, this project is a protest against that idea, an effort to keep myself visible despite my age.

   What does it mean to be visible?  That all depends on who is doing the seeing.  Since I am the one behind the camera, and, more importantly, behind the processing and posting, I am the one doing the seeing.  I observe myself as a subject when I plan each shot, and I observe how I look in them when I make the myriad choices that happen between the first shutter click to a finished portrait.  I also observe my responses to what I see and how that shapes each photo shoot.

   Unlike photos other people take of me, my self-portraits show what I like about myself visually. For every portrait I have done this year, there were out-takes by the dozens, sometimes a hundred or more.  The technical difficulty of focusing, framing, and lighting a subject that isn't seen through the viewfinder accounts for most of those out-takes.  The rest are pure redundance.  Modeling gives opportunity for improvisation, and I will blithely click away as I move in front of the camera, sometimes making only minor changes to the tilt of my head or the expression on my face.  By the time I get to the processing stage, I usually have a lot to choose from, though not always anything I like.  The fun of digital photography is that it is exceedingly malleable.  I use a basic photo processing program, not having taken the time to initiate myself in the profundities of Photoshop or Lightroom, and even those limited options are enough to salvage disappointing images.

   My portraits are more than a visual display.  Assembled together, they become a documentary of my year.  My thoughts, moods, environments, activities, and circumstances show up each day in pictures.  Besides the few words or sentences of explanation that I tag them with, they speak for themselves.  I can see themes recurring, patterns within the flow that illustrate qualities I recognize within myself.  Because I have made a concentrated effort to portray them, sometimes by plan but mostly by serendipitous improvisation, I feel more closely identified with them.  Looking at each finished portrait gives me a satisfying affirmation that I do contain those things that I want to show.

   I don't consider the photo editing a falsification of evidence.  I know I don't look as perfect as I can make a photo look.  That isn't the point.  What is fulfilling is the looking and the seeing, the discovery of beauty or interest within the very familiar contours of my face, body or life.  I am creating my own aesthetic with this process, and the finished work that I present does not have to represent me as is, or me as I would like to be, but me as I can see myself.  The quality of projected imagination holds far more interest for me than untouched realism does.  If anything, my aesthetic says more about me than anything I could show on the fluid transience that is my face.  Within my artistic choices lies the story of my maturity.

(view the whole project here)

Creative Comments

Untitled
Originally uploaded by Smithsonian Institution

I have been missing here for a matter of months, for I have found another outlet for my writing. There is a group over at the flickr website that exists for the purpose of encouraging creative responses to posted photographs. I have been active in that group since January, adding bits of prose, poetry, and imagination to a variety of images that I come across. A collection of these quick impressions are archived here:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/creativecomments/discuss/72157621288924406/

when wetlands dry

Dried thistles at China Camp State Park. See more at www.flickr.com/photos/dkkinsf

I mostly had one thing in mind as I set out north with my camera. I wanted to find the sun. It had been cold, grey, overcast and windy all week long, to the point that I looked at weather reports from the entire Western Hemisphere and found that San Francisco temperatures were within 2 degrees of the lowest shown for the Americas. Outside the fog zone, Northern California sizzles. I wanted to find that perfect edge of cool sparkle. China Camp was it.

When I got there to look at the wide open space of marsh and bay, I thought of the first Epigona photo project at Utata.org. For the project, one must emulate the stye of the chosen famous photographer, and in this case it was Richard Misrach. I hadn't looked at his photos for several months, so only had a vague idea of what I might need to do to attempt his style. I took some shots with that idea in mind, then continued to explore through the viewfinder in my usual way.

As I took in my surroundings, I became fascinated by the character of a dry wetland. First off, the scent is different. It gave off the hot, baking fragrance of parched rock, not unlike the familiar scent from the chaparral of the nearby hills. Mixed in was a further sweetness, the honeyed perfume of thousands of tiny blossoms, smelling very much like alyssum. This scent came from the blooming dodder vines, whose rusty red-gold tangle lay in thick mats over large sections of the marsh. Walking out onto the marsh, I stepped on a springy surface of pickleweed, unhampered by the suck of thick black mud. When I got close to the streams running through the marsh, the wetness seeped up around my shoes before I could tell the ground gave way to water. No tell-tale extra growth of rushes warned me, though a small stand of them lined the stream banks.

The mutability of this region inspires me as a metaphor for a fundamental shift in identity. The name itself "wetland" doesn't lose meaning, as the bay tides wash over its outer limits. Streams meander through carrying water from springs in the hills. The hardy native plants thrive in this cycle, for drought is a recurrent phenomenon. The drought in a wetland does not create desert but something of its own, something beautiful and changed. As my life goes through upheaval and change, I can think of the fragrant grandeur of this dry marsh and learn from it. My identity may change in relation to my past, my social environment, or any other factor, but there is within me as well a natural drought resistance. The sun and soil, the movement of the tide, the passing mists, all offer sustenance for my growth. I do not have to live in the anxiety of a parched thirst, but have the opportunity to bloom as wetlands do in the absence of rain.

Enlightenment Pt 6: Blue

As the waves of light roll on in increasing frequency, the green of the heart chakra ascends to the blue of the throat chakra.  If you think of each oscillation of a wave as a bit of experience, the higher frequencies provide a richer texture of sensory information.  At this frequency, we can convey and understand very complicated abstract thought through verbal communication. Listening and speaking depend on the sense of hearing, and the element relating to this and all of the higher frequency chakras is the intangible fifth element known as ether.

Clearly this is a departure from the physicality of the lower chakras.  What is ether anyway?  What role could it possibly have in any serious discussion when, despite thorough research by dedicated scientific geniuses, the only thing known is that it doesn't exist?  Hearing can be measured by the touch of sound waves moving through air to vibrate organs in the ears, but all that is meaningless if the nerves don't transmit and organize that information into recognizable sound images in the brain.  For the purpose of this discussion, ether can be understood as a medium for the transmission of sensory information.  As the empty space between matter, it is an uber-element that combines the qualities of the other four in a quantum realm of probabilities which has no density and is only realized at the moment of use.  In hearing, the transmission involves the earth element of electron particles,  the disturbance of air molecules, the liquid of an ion channel, and the fiery spark of an action potential.  To a conscious being, the result is more than an electric crackle that easily dissipates.  It becomes a sense image, a piece of qualia in the brain, a particular pattern that can be uniquely identified and compared to a pre-existing image, an element of self.  

When the self reflects on the incoming sense patterns and creates associations with itself, an act beyond instinct, beyond emotion, then a higher order of intelligence comes into play.  Ether is the element of that thought, that consciousness, which brings personal meaning into all experience.  Naturally, its expression is completely interior to the individual, whose next best resort is formation of language and the action of speech.  In order even to develop abstract complexity of thought, let alone communicate it, the brain requires vocabulary and syntax.  Fortunately our brains come equipped with a universal syntax able to process any language, but they must receive the stimulation of speech (or sign) to recognize and remember linguistic patterns and to build syntactical analogies between them.  In this way, language and communication between individuals fosters intelligence, which in turn reflects back on itself and develops the urge toward self-expression. 

The interior realm of idea and imagination, the world of the self, is limitless and invisible like the eternal vastness of celestial space.  The far-reaching blue of heaven's dome inspires poets and mystics, as well as anyone else who lies back on the grass on a balmy day and lets his mind wander among the clouds.  High frequency blue light, such as the sun produces, stimulates the pineal gland, which regulates wakefulness and arousal.  Unlike the visceral arousal of lower frequency light, this arousal brings mental alertness without an accompanying physical reaction.  Concentration and meditation blossom in that restful dynamism, a fact well exploited by the designers of most computer programs to the extent that blue is the default color for desktops, buttons, links, and a whole host of icons.  I have 24 application icons on my dock at the bottom of my screen here, more than half of them are predominately some shade of blue.  In this internet age, it is more than apparent that blue is the ubiquitous color of communication and information processing.

We rest on the ground and know the earth for the solid security of its gravity.  We feel the flow of blood and cellular fluids that keep us alive and stir us to procreate.  We turn to the sun for its bright warmth and use its illumination to understand what is within our reach.  We breathe life with each inhalation and feel connection through our awakened skin.  Yet we are more than these experiences, more than what our bodies do and how we react to that.  We influence each other with language, culture, narrative, myth, shared information not directly sensed, and all the communications of our curious, intelligent selves.  Our personalities grow multiple facets through experience, through thought, through archiving and annotating for future reflection.  Where we bring our attention we enrich ourselves, and human civilization has acquired an enormous wealth of written communication over the last few thousand years, now more accessible than ever thanks to the highways and byways of the information age.  Language is the bridge that crosses chasms of time and space, tightens the globe to a linked in society, and spans distance between the questions "Who am I" and "Who are you?".

Having talked the proverbial blue streak, I will next drift out past the sky's cerulean blue toward the thinning edges of the earth's atmosphere.  In the shift to indigo, etheric emphasis moves from hearing and communicating to listening.  There, truly, awaits the music of the spheres.

BABYLON IN THE '90's: OUR TOWN

Where is Babylon?  Find her

In a caffeine dream at the bottom

Of a frothing cappuccino --

Make it a double espresso,

You don't want to miss any of the

24 hour Safeway cinema multiplex

Helter skelter hustle of her laid-back days.

Look for her in the flocks of

Double-breasted gray Financial District pigeons

Roosting high in office windows,

Wheeling, dealing to an electronic pulse

While faxes hum and stutter, and there's

Tokyo on the phone,  a thousand deals done.

Money changes hands in paper, plastic

Promissory notes from endless customer

And harried clerks squirm when shoppers'

Crumpled bills count short of all they need.

"Better put that  jar of peanut butter back

On the shelf and while you're at it

Freeze the retirement benefits for

Old firemen and police.  They're on the ballot

Every year the budgetocracy can't balance."

Campaigning interests squawk but none grow wiser.

Listen instead to the noontime neighborhood

Laughter that lifts the swings and

Slides down a rainbow of Babel's children

Who shed their sweatshirts

Oblivious to the foggy chill in their promised land,

Where scattered Fritos, french fries, popcorn, papers

Beckon the audacious gulls to screech

Their impatience at a ragged scavenger.

"Stir up the trash, old man, but

Leave the scraps for us!"

Despite their lawlessness, they know the limits,

The bounds across which Babylon can't reach.

They make their homes there on the

Black oil sands and watch the tideline

Drawn with bottlecaps, old drinking straws

And the collapsed entrails of human couplings.

Beyond Babylon lies only that reckless surf,

Whose deep, forgiving surge

Bears constant witness to the mortal storm.

(from archives)

Enlightenment Pt 5: Green

In lush, fertile landscapes of jungle, forest, lawn, garden and farmer's field, the color green predominates. It is the color of photosynthesis, the transformation of light energy into food for terrestrial life. It is also the color of the heart chakra, the place of synthesis between those chakras concerned with primarily physical experiences and the higher chakras which are concerned with the expression of intangibles. The element ruling the heart is air and the corresponding sense is touch.

The heart nestles in the chest between the lungs and continually pumps blood through them into tiny cavities where a gaseous exchange between carbon dioxide and oxygen takes place. The element of air becomes body here, and it is the heart's function to distribute that essential substance throughout the whole body. The heart must be a hardy and sensitive organ to maintain this constant circulation and respond quickly to changes in cells' need for oxygen. As such it is particularly affected by emotion, not just the fight or flight feelings of imminent threat or the blood pressure raising needs of sexual interactions, but also the more subtle feelings of belonging and social connection.

Humans are social animals with sophisticated relationships on every level, from immediate family to friends, clans, tribes, colleagues, neighbors, affinity groups, nations, cultures, and even the bonds of non-human companionships. Not only are we interested in each other for the ongoing amusement of our soap opera fluidity in alliances and enmities, but we also need each other to regulate our own metabolisms. Much of that regulation comes from an intangible resonance between limbic systems, a broadly general understanding which we share with all mammals and which flows in almost unconscious ways from eye contact and body language. Even a talking head on television is sufficient to provide a sort of recognition that we exist and there is a place for us within the context of society. Those prisoners left in solitary confinement suffer most from the lack of this basic affirmation of identity and are known to experience psychotic breaks without it.

While the higher chakras deal with communication in more abstract forms, such as language, the communication at the heart comes from touch. Skin is our primary sense organ for touch, it's semi-permeable membrane constantly exposed to air and shot through with neurons sensitized to any change in temperature and pressure from that atmospheric baseline. We live through our skin so much that in English the word feeling is synonymous with emotion and the act of touching. What's more, the emotions that stir the heart most, the poignant (a word derived from the Latin word to prick), touching, heartfelt surges of attachment and intimacy can only develop in individuals who bond successfully with their mother or caregiver at infancy. That initial bonding requires frequent reassuring touch, optimally reinforced with milky sweetness as the babe's lips suckle her mother's breast.

Valentine's Day hearts express a natural human desire to wrap one's arms around another and hold that special person close to the heart, feel the rush of pleasure in the pumping race of one's heart, let the press of skin soothe and comfort jangled nerves, give shape to one's own self in the affirming response of another's touch, and leaning closer still, to bring the lips together in the sweetest of kisses. Whether the air kiss of society posturing or the saliva mixing deep kiss of the truly passionate, whether the offhand slap on the back or the engulfing bear hug, our vocabulary of touch communicates our connection with each other and the importance that has to our sense of well-being.

The power of touch goes beyond the pleasure of intimate relationships. It is a force for healing as well. The laying on of hands is miraculous, not just in the Bible, but in daily practice. Nurturing attention, like the grooming behaviors of other primates, affects the entire nervous system, lowers blood pressure, reduces stress and its concomitant strain on viscera, eases disordered sleep patterns, boosts immune response, and provides the optimum context for natural healing to occur. The touch doesn't even have to reach the skin. Attentive proximity, waving hands over the body to stir the air and change the electromagnetic field, has proved sufficiently effective that some nurses provide this service for hospital patients as part of their standard care.

Just as a leaf absorbs the golden rays of sun and metabolizes them into sugar, the heart chakra absorbs all sensations, from the internal physicality of the lower chakras to direction from the insight of higher chakras, and circulates them as the fuel which activates the entire organism. The steady beat and rest of our constant hearts bears witness to our humanity, our connection to one another, and the truth of our potential to influence each other with the simple kindness of a touch.

Elvenkindness

I know an elf.

Not a haughty Tolkein elf,

Elegant and aloof, seeking wisdom

In a long forgotten realm.

No.  This is a different sort of elf,

White-bearded and of sufficient bulk

To settle firmly on this earth.

 

A puckish sprite

Wiping tears of giddy laughter

While exulting in his games.

 

A shoemaker's elf,

Crafty in the ways of men,

Magicking remnants into gold

For gift and not for gain.

 

A woodland Pan,

Piping a tune in the face of fury,

Who's weathered elemental cruelty

But chooses love instead.

I know an elf.

And of that I am very glad.

(from archives)