an epiphany

This week I had an epiphany about my photography!

But, let me back up.  I mentioned a few posts ago that I’d started an on-line photography class, Susannah Conway’s Photo Meditations.  Besides her incredible teaching style (and UK accent!) the fabulous part about this class is sharing photos from our weekly assignments and receiving feedback from other classmates.  Every day I carve out time to view and comment on the work of others and since there are so many, one can’t take the time to study them all. So I click on a photo and only if it immediately speaks to me do I comment.  (And as mentioned before, receiving comments on your photography in your in-box throughout the day is SO uplifting!)

Well what I’ve found out about my photography is that I’m finally honing in on what I love to photograph and what I love to look at.

Wabi – Sabi.

If you’re familiar with the term then I applaud you.  I on the other hand, had never heard of it.  The term and short write-up in Catherine Anderson’s book, The Creative Photographer, caught my eye.  She explains that wabi-sabi is all about seeing beauty in the old.  As she mentions, we often pass right by old things, not noticing the beauty in the color of the patina on an old pipe or the peeling of paint on an old door.  She goes on to talk about how society emphasizes the beauty of the young, but often fails to notice the amazing beauty of an elderly person whose experiences are shown in their wrinkles and wise eyes. The page in her book stopped me dead in my tracks.  I realized for the first time, I see with wabi-sabi eyes.  The beauty in the elderly, the vintage pieces I collect, the photos I love to capture of old wood, rust patterns, and peeling paint.  So much beauty comes with age.

But I needed to learn more.  So this week time was spent on the internet to research wabi-sabi to better understand the term and to make absolutely sure it’s a word that will apply to my photography.

Now let me back up even more.  My love has always been for old stuff; vintage, worn, used, rustic, primitive, handcrafted.  I’ve collected so many items from my parents and grandparents; quilts, dinnerware, knitted sweaters, hats, and many household items too numerous to mention.  Several years ago after spending a long time visiting an elderly man, his daughter gave me his black leather chair when he passed away. Every time I look at that chair I think of my 96 year old friend sitting and reading his New York Times.  There’s no trading any of these items for the world.  The list goes on and on.

But I hadn’t connected my love of old stuff with my photography until this class.  You see wabi-sabi is the ancient Japanese art of finding beauty in things that are imperfect, old and worn.  Salvaged materials, handcrafted, vintage.  There’s a subtle spiritual side to it as well, as its roots lie in Zen Buddhism. (Can it get any more perfect?)  In Robyn Griggs Lawrence’s books (writer and speaker on topics ranging from green building to spiritual design to organic gardening) it’s all about “appreciating the simple and letting go of the superficial – the perfect antidote for a society in recovery from a decades-long consumerist binge.”

Now let me go a step further.  How nicely this fits in with my desire to help with Alzheimer’s through reminiscence photo therapy.  Ahhh…it’s all coming together!

So much to say, so much to learn, so much to do with this new found direction!  Now it’s off to spend a day at the New York City Public Library to learn all about wabi-sabi because there’s nothing better than turning the page of a real book!  Stay tuned!

 Wabi suggests freshness and simplicity.  Sabi describes a beauty that is burnished by age…It’s a zen notion, a fleeting, imperfect accidental beauty – unpretentious, simple and intimate.  Wabi-sabi is akin to the inherent beauty within, something you can’t put your finger on…to open your senses to every detail, every glimmer, every breath of the breeze.  That is all part of wabi-sabi.  Daisuke Utagawa