This Back Story came about waiting at a traffic light going to my granddaughter’s softball allstar game last month. For context, growing up in the 60’s, my Dad would constantly admonish me, sometimes several times each day and in different tones…to “Pay Attention”.  If there were a high school course in day-dreaming, I would have been the teacher’s pet.

    This month’s Story is more about the metaphor of the two versions of Lower Antelope Canyon seen above, then the actual execution of the image itself. This story is about how my mind engages the creative side of thinking as it relates to photography. Reading and understanding the book, The Net and the Butterfly has become the most exciting part of my photography for the last 5 years. Inspiration for new horizons and purpose has risen to yet another plateau. Very quickly, the book is a terrific explanation of how the brain shifts from the Executive Network, where everyday tasks are processed and preformed, to the Default Network, where daydreaming can lead to the creative thinking side of the brain.  Second nature tasks such as walking, drifting off to sleep, or driving a car seem to allow the mind to expand. Drifting off beyond the mundane task at hand the brain shifts to the creative side of the brain. For me, many times this can happen when driving along in the car, sounds scary, it’s not. Stop and think about where your own mind might drift off too when the task at hand is so second nature it simply happens with no conscious thought.  When you are walking around, you’re not even thinking about putting one foot in front of the other, drifting off to sleep, or many times for me driving the car.

     I have referred to the Net and the Butterfly many times since reading it, possibly too much for some. Reading and understanding this book has significantly changed the way I approach photography, and on a larger scale, my daily routines are more rooted in being present in whatever I’m doing. As a photographer I’m much more interested in “seeing” than “looking”. Seeing takes me to a place only my mind can see, not my eyes.  For me, listening works in a similar manner, when I hear music I respond to the tune and the melody, when I listen, the words take me on a journey that only exists in my mind. The exciting part for any artist, visual or otherwise is to communicate what was seen and imagined into a final piece of physical art. It doesn’t always work as I’d hoped, but when it does, the rewards are long lasting.

     I put a lot of value into successful and known creative artists who share their own path to creative freedom.  Luv Seinfeld’s humor, read his book, “Is This Anything” where he lays out decades of material he has written, performed and most of all rehearsed. For me, Springsteen and Lennon wrote music and lyrics that have a much deeper meaning to me than other recording artists. Therefore, I listen, really listen to the meaning of their music and lyrics. Why…Springsteen wrote an entire double album, The River, 20 songs, in the hopes of learning where he and his music would fit, in his not yet 30-year-old world. From Springsteen’s revelation is why I started writing the Back Stories about my photography, if I could write about the images, I just might learn where my place fits in this visual art world.

     Back at the stop-light, Springsteen’s song, Independence Day is blasting. The song itself is actually about young Bruce Springsteen being so naive as to not fully understand the challenges his own father has faced to simply survive in the adult world his son so eagerly wants to experience.  As I closely listen to the lyrics, in what seemed like a flash, my mind has formed this expansive metaphor about the two collectors who purchased the prints contrasted by the prints themselves seen as this month’s featured images. The lighter version purchased by a female collector new to photographic art collecting and a growing appreciation for the Black & White silver print. She reacts with the lighter-toned image and in a smaller version leaving room to grow as a photo collector. Contrast that by the larger print of the higher in contrast version by a gentleman who has collected my images in the past. His choices are more rooted in a full range of tonalities which he responds too. His print is the largest size that I am able to make in my darkroom showing a more absolute decision. The images themselves are actually reversed by turning the negative in the opposite orientation between the printing of each version. Even the tonalities themselves illustrate a metaphor, the “negative” yielding the lighter-toned print has more flexibility for varying tonalities in the final print, leaving the new young collector room to expand her preferences and direction. Whereas, the more seasoned collector chooses the larger version from a higher contrast negative, that negative does not have as much tonal flexibility in the final rendering. It’s an inspiring feeling when someone elects to purchase your work because it gives them pleasure. When your work inspires another to see and listen in ways they had not up to that point, that inspiration has no price !

     On the way home from the softball game I again listen to Springsteen’s Independence Day (linked here). The song and lyrics are simply the trigger that engaged the Default Network in my brain. The comparisons I drew between the two Antelope Canyon prints and the actual collectors themselves seemed so clear I knew before arriving home the connection was worthy of The Story Behind Every Photograph. As I drew closer to home, my mind now fully engaged in the Default Network the next Springsteen song begins playing. This is a top 3 favorite of mine, so the volume edges higher, the lyrics to Bobby Jean become so vivid in my mind I weave together another personal metaphor that began when I was a teenager back in high school !

     Daydreaming is Food for the soul…See, don’t look, Listen, don’t hear !

   The creative possibilities that B&W film allow for can be seen in the negatives necessary to produce these strikingly different renderings of the same composition under the same lighting conditions, see below. The higher contrast negative received 32 seconds of exposure and slightly less than a normal contrast development. While the high key negative received 16 minutes of exposure and an extreme reduction in developer strength so the negative contrast was greatly compressed. The exposure differences are easily seen in the density differences seen in the Red arrows. Where the negative is less dense, more light is absorbed by the Silver paper and produces darker tones. The highest densities of the negative producing the lightest tones, as seen with the Blue arrows have to be relatively identical to satisfactorily reproduce on Silver Gelatin papers. My goal is never to produce what it looked like, rather what I saw and trying to portray those emotions in the final print, doesn’t always happen, but when it does the results are inspiring !