It is said you can never step into the same river twice. The river flows on, the world changes. But I have a chance next month to return to Anasazi country where I photographed a year ago, and water seldom flows there at all. Conditions will probably be much the same, unless there’s a break from the hot, clear weather of last time. I will probably see some of the same ruins I photographed before, but I’m sure to see others as well. I am very interested to see what will come out of a return visit.
The fairly eclectic images on my web site reveal that I have not settled on a consistent story to tell about these places. When I went I was most interested in the relationship of the stone dwellings to the surrounding rock. Besides looking for compositionally dramatic presentations of this, I wasn’t entirely sure what it meant. I have learned something in working with the images over the intervening months, and I believe I have developed a better idea of what I might be after. Not an idea that I can articulate, but I’m hoping I’ll be better able to recognize it.
To some extent, even a single original image can tell different stories, depending on how it is processed. The color image above seems to convey best the current fact. The ruin is a bright jewel in its setting, framed by fresh, green leaves. The next version, in monochrome, has a more timeless feel, which I find appropriate to the subject. The third, perhaps, evokes a more nostalgic feeling, though the softening popular a hundred years ago is again a current fad. The last version goes slightly further in that direction with a touch of vignetting and dark edges.
But to tell best a different story requires different captured images. How different will my pictures be this year? Will anyone but me be able to tell? The pictures, of course, depend on what’s behind the camera as well as what’s in front. I will be more changed than my subjects. It won’t be the same me stepping into the river.
Have you had a chance to return to a previous subject in your art? Why did you go back? And how was the result?
Steve,
The first picture shows the jewel to be a different color than the rock face behind it which is interesting.
I am curious of how the picture would have looked without the almost horizontal branch in front interrupting the rhythm of flow felt throughout the rest of the picture.
The horizontal branch conveys a cozy feeling, making the ruin look nestled. But it bothers me, giving me a feeling of conflict like that which I felt in Mark’s first picture which contrasts stationary buddhas with dancing red and blue lines.
sorry, this was birgit, finally reset my name.
What I meant to say is that the picture has a grandiose rhythm. The tree to the left is mimicking the flow of the left rock face. The half ellipse, started by the rock immediately in front of the jewel continues up to the top.
Is a feeling of coziness (as here evoked with the horizontal line of the branch in the foreground) due to the interruption of more cosmic flow?
The observed jewel almost looks like it has landed in it’s position, and carved into the rock face during the process – or is it carving further into the rock, back to it’s origins as time passes? There is definite movement here, I’m swirling anti-clockwise, I feel I need to hold on, meanwhile the dwelling is going clockwise into it’s destined fate. I sense time pulling in two directions, into the past and into the future, when in reality the photo is a snapshot of the very present (at the time of taking).
Will I return to a previous subject?Probably to see what the subject will be like with the passing of some time as it will have changed, and to see what has changed in me i.e. the creation is a captured at a moment in time, and as you say Steve, there’s no stepping into the same river twice, everything changes every moment. So given that both perceived and perceiver have changed, it raises the question of “same subject”, as this doesn’t really exist any more – from one point of view that is!
I’d best return to the painting I think…
Steve,
An aspect that I appreciate in your work is a general sense of Respect for your site.
Here, in this photo, you seem to have emerged (off-trail) to this Discovery. Your photograph a question: now that we are here, do we retreat or move forward and risk disturbance?
I’ve been to Anasazi and many other places similar, and though I know Tourism makes me a bit self-indulgent, it is nice to be reminded that such sites deserve more than our tour for viewing pleasure. (It is why I like going with my kids, they would ask: Does someone live there?)
The fairly eclectic images on my web site reveal that I have not settled on a consistent story to tell about these places.
I think that’s a good thing. Better to respond to what you discover in each place than to try to impose a preconceived story on them. Enjoy your return trip. I look forward to seeing the new photos.
Birgit,
Interesting word choice with “cozy,” I like it. This ruin is somewhat unusual in that feeling, and also in having the reddish color different from the nearby rock. For that reason, I show it in color on my website, though for most of the ruins I use monochrome as in the second version. I’m not totally happy with the horizontal branch, but I think I like it better since your comments, it seems to support the ruin like a cupped hand, contributing to that cozy sense. Quite different from the more common bleak and abandoned impression
Mark,
I love your comments about time passing. That was one of the questions I was thinking of asking: how to convey a sense of time in a still image. In this case, the idea that a long time has passed since the ruin was inhabited. Thinking about that, I experimented with the blurred and the vignetted versions just for this post, having never tried those before.
D.,
I’m glad a sense of respect comes through, that’s very important for the physical preservation of these places, as well as for how I think they should be viewed. There are issues with even showing photographs, and I never give specific names or locations, though some are recognizable to people who know them.
David,
That’s an excellent point, and in fact I haven’t pushed for overall conformity to a particular vision or viewpoint. But I also think that it’s useful to see whether some groupings — not necessarily the full portfolio — support a more focused message. It’s more a matter of understanding what’s in the material than imposing on it. I don’t want to just say: Here are some places I’ve seen on my vacation.
It’s more a matter of understanding what’s in the material than imposing on it. I don’t want to just say: Here are some places I’ve seen on my vacation.
I agree. I look forward to seeing what emerges from your renewed visit to the site. My guess is that you’ll discover things (and a viewpoint) that weren’t apparent on the first trip.
Steve,
Your website was very useful in reminding me of our ‘earth based instincts’ at the end of the day. When you say “Local materials and simple forms allowed fluid integration with adjacent structures and the surrounding cave or cliff, I am particularly interested in the way that the native rock supports, confines, and completes the human constructions”, and supplement it with pictures such as this, it just shows very nicely how the Anasazi people were completely integrated into the local stone and how they could literally fashion their lives around the earthly environment that nurtured them. I am also reminded at this time of people in Saharan Africa who used to live (and I think they still do) into grotto like holes in the cliffs that were fashioned into living quarters. I can’t seem to dig up the reference, but I am reminded of dusty settlements hewn into the rock face by our forefathers thousands of years back when we seemed a more natural extension of the earth.
Beautiful pictures and I am glad I learnt something from visiting your website.
I agree it is cozy like a nest…and at the same time swirling. I like the photograph and think you can go back because you will be seeing from where you are now…shooting from your heart today…so it will always be different….revealing more secrets each time. Truely a beautiful photograph I envy your trip back.
Thanks for the comment, Ginger. I suppose the “cozy” feeling you mention, even though I didn’t think of it that way, was one of the reasons I selected this image from among others of the same site. Other images, showing the ruin to be in a darker and deeper recess than you might realize from the chosen image, give perhaps a more claustrophobic or isolated impression. All of these are true, though incomplete.