Pointing with Your Heart

I’ve now spent the last three days immersed in a world of images, F-stops, and overwhelming creativity and what an absolute treat it has been. After a two day drive which included passing the convoy of motorcycles and emergency vehicles bringing the piece of 9/11 history down to Arlington firefighters, a very long, horn-laced wait to get over the GW Bridge in New York, an early morning stop in Mystic Seaport, CT, and a leisurely exploration of some of the beach towns along the Rhode Island coast, I finally arrived in Rockport which is home to the Maine Media Workshops. I’ve discovered in short measure that this is and has been pretty sacred and influential turf for many artists and photographers over the last forty years, the kind of place that people return to again and again, looking to renew their creative vision, strengthen their skills, and be taught by some of the best photographers in the world.

The class I’m taking is called Zen & the Art of Photography and just to give you a feel for what we are doing, our first assignment was to remove our memory cards from our cameras and then go out to make fifty images. The point was to force us to focus more intently on the moment of seeing than the product or results of our snapping the shutter. Fortunately, the exercise progressed to allow us to return to three of the spots that had inspired us and to make actual pictures, and then finally in the third phase, we chose one location to make two or three thoughtful exposures.

Our instructor is Douglas Beasley (www.douglasbeasley.com) a very accomplished, humble, and light-hearted (in so many senses of that word) man, who works almost entirely in black and white with time-honored instruments: a 4 X 5 format Polaroid camera where prints are made from the gooey negatives, a square-framed Haselblatt, or occasionally the more conventional DSLR for his commercial shoots. Yesterday’s sessions included sharing some of the work that we had brought with us and I was both a little overwhelmed (as in, “What am I doing in the company of such extraordinarily talented photographers?”) and so appreciative of the creativity and vision of my peers.

Every day in addition to writing and photography exercises, Doug shares with us some thoughtful quotes and I loved this one: “It doesn’t matter where you point the camera; what matters is where you point your heart.” This is very soulful image making, indeed, and I’m loving and being stretched by it every minute.